This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts after the king’s share had been harvested and just as the late crops were coming up. When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, “Sovereign LORD, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!” – Amos 7:1-2

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 5, 2020): Amos 7

Tax Freedom Day. It is the day that if you had paid everything that you had earned up to that point to the government, then for the rest of the year you are working for yourself. In the United States, Tax Freedom day often takes place in mid-April. In Canada, it often occurs in late May or early June. India, in 2000, celebrated Tax Freedom Day on March 14, one of the earlier dates available. Austria, in 2019, celebrated Tax Freedom Day on August 5, one of the later dates in the year. The concept has taken a lot of criticism. The tax burden is often exaggerated over the actual level of personal tax paid. Another criticism is that Tax Freedom Day does not reflect the way that life works. We could declare “Mortgage Freedom Day” or maybe “Utilities Freedom Day” and have just another concept as useless as Tax Freedom Day.

In Amos’s era, Tax Freedom Day was a reality. The taxes owed to the King were paid out of the first cut of the crops. The farmer got paid out of the late harvest. And Amos receives a vision of a plague of locusts descending on Israel just in time for the gathering of the late crop. The King had been paid. Tax Freedom Day had passed. It would be like being unable to work from May to December having finished paying your tax bill in mid-April.

Amos receives the vision, and then immediately begins to intercede for the nation with God. He begs God to consider the frailty of Israel. David Hubbard reminds us that God had chosen Jacob over Esau even though Esau was the larger man of the two brothers. “God had deliberately chosen him [Jacob] and therefore was obligated to stand by him in his helplessness” (David Hubbard). Amos believes that if God sends his judgment, then Israel will not survive.

And it likely this belief that sends Amos on his mission to the Northern Kingdom. He may not have been from Israel, but he loved his neighbors and wanted only the best for them. He sincerely wanted them to turn back to God and avoid the disaster that was on the way.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Amos 8