There are two Old Testament prophets that I just love. They are Elijah the Tishbite, the man who will teach you and bite you, and Amos. What I love about them is simply their courage, their zealousness, their self -confidence, their focus and their swiftness in carrying out their assignments and telling the people they were sent to the bare truth no matter how badly they knew the people will feel, often, at great risk to their lives. In a word, I just love their style or panache and the unflinching manner in which they delivered their messages to whomsoever they were sent.
As some of us can testify, Elijah’s zeal for his God consumed him. Recall that it was Elijah who told a prophetic lie that everyone in Israel, including some other prophets of God, had turned to idols and that he was the only one left who had not bowed to worshipping those enemies of God! God then corrected him and told him that there were over 7000 people in Israel who had not bowed to idols. Elijah was simply a man on the go for God. He was one who will stand before an idolatrous king and say: ‘’As the Lord God of Israel liveth, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word’’(1 Kings: 17,18 and 19: 18 tell of the zealous exploits of Elijah).
The second of the prophets was Amos a simple rural farmer, ‘’a dresser of the sycamore tree’’, as he himself described his humble existence to the nobles of Jerusalem who were not comfortable with his words. But God saw something in him and sent him from Judah to go to Southern Isarel and prophesy to the people. His message was not a pleasant one to the ears of a sinful king, his cabinet and the rich men and women of southern Israel to whom he was sent, a people who had turned tone deaf to the tingling of their consciences.
Israel was in prosperity and this blinded them to some of the key laws and regulation given by God to guide conduct. They rich men and their wives became callous, unfeeling, insensitive and cruel. Many business people manipulated weights and measures in order to maximize obscene profits. Amos described the wives of these rich men as ‘’You cows of Bashan’’ as the women were luxuriating in their husbands’ ungodly profit, painting their faces with costly make-ups, adorning their bodies with costly lotions or ointments and wearing expensive accoutrements and jewelry. They lived in this luxury and became fat like the cows of Bashan which were nourished in a rich plain, all at the expense of the poor.
The most memorable of some of Prophet Amos prophecies to Israel was about what he called ‘’the day of the Lord’’, the day in which peoples and the nations will come under judgement. That day, he hinted, will be such a terrible and terrifying day. It will be ‘’as if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him’’ (Amos 5:16-18).
The key theme of this prophecy was the conduct of Israel in war; some of the wars were justified ones but their approach in them was the problem. They acted cruelly or inhumanely and God who is compassionate towards his creatures was not happy about this.
Today, as happened thousands of years ago, Israel is engaged in a war with their brothers, the people of Palestine, who are also the children of their father Abraham. In this war against brothers, Israel is showing extreme beastliness. News is now emerging as to how Israel is using white phosphorous, a very corrosive chemical on persons and crops in Southern Lebanon and in Gaza as well. Phosphorous is a waster and witherer. It can wither a forest and turn it into a wilderness in no time. It renders land infertile for many seasons. It destroys people, crops and luxuriant vegetations. It is only cruel and animalistic hearts that can use such a substance in fighting a war against brothers or even strangers for that matter.
In this on-going Israeli war on Gaza, in which Israel is committing ‘’Gazaocide’’, women and children are being eliminated in a war in which Israel lies to the world she is engaged in ‘’an act of self-defense’’. The footage, a few days ago, on AL Jazeera TV showing Israeli soldiers sitting on well- crafted settees puffing on their cigars and taunting Palestinian captives who are sitting on the floor, tied and blindfolded, is very galling.
Prophet Amos is not around now to be sent to Israel but I can recall some of his prophecies to the Israelites and all nations who fight beastly wars. I invite Benjamin Netanyahu, his far-right governing coalition partners, his war cabinet and eminent and not so eminent Israelis to read all of Prophet Amos prophecies in the Biblical book of his name with focus on chapters 1 and 2. Therein is prescribed the punishment that will be inflicted on all nations that engage in what we helpless people of the world today call ‘’war crimes’’.
I do not know which nations they are today, but for Damascus (Syria), they shall be harshly judged because ‘’they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron’’( Amos 1:3); for Gaza, their punishment will come ‘’because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom’’( 1:6); for Tyrus, their offense is ‘’delivering the whole captivity to Edom, and remembering not the brotherly covenant’’(1:9); for Edom, his punishment will be ‘’because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever’’(1:11); for Ammon, theirs is ‘’because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border’’ (1:13); for Moab, his is ‘’because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime’’(2:1).
Whether the above verdicts were on Israel or many other nations of the time but Israel is today guilty of those offenses and more in its war against the Palestinians. Elegant houses are reduced to rubbles burying whole families and community of persons. Your conduct or attitude in carrying out an assignment even if it is sanctioned by God, matters to God and to man. A people of God cannot afford to be seen as a heartless people who are vengeful, unforgiving, extremely destructive, hateful and malicious and a people who turn their helpless victims to mockery.
Hamas may have provoked the current war on October 7 with a display that appears barbarous to many people. But it can never be a justification for the kind of retaliatory onslaught that the world has been forced to seeing in the past four months. No one or nation is justified by God to kill mercilessly and to destroy utterly unless He himself commands you do so.
