“In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!” – Amos 8:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 6, 2020): Amos 8

The American musician, Prince, released his hit song “1999” in 1982. It was a prophetic offering of what the turn of the next millennium might hold for the inhabitants of the earth. Prince wrote in the song that “I was dreamin' when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast. But life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last.” Whatever you might think of the music or the musician, you have to admit that, at least, that statement is true. Neither life nor parties are meant to last. Both have a “best before date” that cannot be ignored. Of course, Prince’s decision to the “best before date” was to “Party like it’s 1999.” At the height of the Y2K hysterical outbreak, 1999 became the song of the century. The Television Music Station VH1 ushered in the last year of the party by playing the song for the first twenty-four hours of the namesake year; the song was played continuously from midnight, December 31, 1998, until Midnight, January 1, 1999.

But eventually, the party ends. Amos is speaking in a time of prosperity, a time when the party seems to be endless. We have a problem with most translations of the text. The Hebrew word transliterated as “heykal” can’t mean temple as it is usually translated in this verse. The term means something like “great house,” but the prophecy is written to Israel and the Great Temple resided in Jerusalem in Judah. Therefore, it is probably better translated as “palace.” A party was taking place in the “great house” or “palace” of the king, but the party had to soon come to an end. And when it did, it would come to an end violently.

The prophecy is about the eventual overthrow of the nation by Assyria. The party began to end in 732 B.C.E., or a little more than three decades after the prophecy of Amos, with the defeat of Israel and the removal of part of their territory by the prevailing Assyrians. But it wasn’t until 720 B.C.E. that Assyria took the rest of the nation and the Kingdom of Israel disappeared from the history books. Sargon II of Assyria tells the story of the end of the Kingdom in 720 B.C.E. "Samaria I looked at, I captured; 27,280 men who dwelt in it I carried away." Thus, a little more than two centuries after the beginning of the party with the revolt of Jeroboam in 930 B.C.E., the party ended with finality. The songs of the “great house” turned to tears of grief, and then only silence was heard from the Israelites of Samaria.

Unfortunately, Israel didn’t listen to the pleas of Amos. Instead, it almost seems they heard the Twentieth Century voice of Prince and followed his advice instead. Prince arrives at this conclusion for his hit song. “Everybody's got a bomb, we could all die any day. But before I let that happen, I'll dance my life away.”

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Amos 9