A Famine of Yahweh's Words

Amos 8 opens with a vision built on a play on words: Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. In Hebrew, the word for summer fruit sounds like the word for end. Then Yahweh said to me, The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. Israel was like fruit fully ripe.

The cause was greed toward the poor. Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail. The merchants were impatient for the Sabbath to end so they could sell, making the ephah small, and the shekel large. They used deceit in measures and would buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. Judgment is summarized as a day of mourning.

Then comes a unique judgment. Behold, the days come, says the Lord Yahweh, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing Yahweh's words. They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek Yahweh's word, and will not find it. Those who silenced the prophets would lose the voice they had rejected. In the New Testament, Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God's mouth (Matthew 4:4).