Ever hear of an eclipse? The sun has "darkened" Every year there are at least TWO eclipses (they may or may not be total eclipses). By now it should come as no surprise that this is not a messianic prophecy. Amos lived about 620 years before Jesus, during the reigns of Uzziyahu in Judah and Y'ravam (Jeroboam II) in Israel. Amos begins with his prophecy of an earthquake (chapter 1). The earthquake happened two years later (see Zechariah 14:5 "And you shall flee as you fled because of the earthquake, in the days of Uzziyahu the King of Judah."). It is rather surprising that any missionary would point to the prophet Amos as proof of Jesus when the prophet clearly said: "G-d will never do anything" (כִּ֣י לֹ֧א יַֽעֲשֶׂ֛ה "" דָּבָ֑ר / ki lo ya'asseh HaShem davar) "unless He has revealed His secret" (כִּי אִם־גָּלָ֣ה סוֹד֔וֹ / ki im galah sodo) to one or more of His prophets (הַנְּבִיאִֽים / ha-n'viim)." (Amos 3:7). Amos uses both future and past tense -- meaning FOREVER. G-d will never do anything that was not revealed to the prophets. The word יַֽעֲשֶׂ֛ה / ya'asseh is future tense (meaning that this is open-ended and refers to all future actions), and גָּלָ֣ה / galah is past tense (so the "revealing of the secret must come before the act itself. G-d will never do something and only tell the prophets "after the fact." Jesus is never mentioned in the T'nach (we're seeing that pretty clearly as we go through the list of 365 supposed prophecies!). We're never told that the messiah will come as an atoning "sacrifice", only to be killed before fulfilling even one messianic prophecies. Nope. Never happened. G-d never told His prophets any such thing. Missionaries will claim that Jesus can be found in the T'nach in "types" and "shadows" -- but Amos clearly says here that is false. If G-d was going to throw out is ETERNAL Torah and choose to kill himself for himself (makes no sense) to fix a mistake He made ("original" sin) -- then He would have told His prophets and they would have told US. Amos destroys the idea of Jesus as a messiah, let alone a part of a triune god. . . Amos' messages are very familiar by now: the people are not following G-d. Amos is warning them to return to G-d or beware the consequences. Amos foresees the end of the northern kingdom of Israel (the ten tribes). The population will be devastated -- only one in ten will survive. There is still time, Amos says, to avoid the horror. (Negative prophecies are always given as a warning of something which can be avoided). "Seek the L-rd and live, lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it consume with none to quench it for Bethel. . . Seek good and not evil in order that you live, and so the L-rd G-d of Hosts shall be with you, as you said.. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice. . . " Amos 5:6; 14-15. Yet another death knell to Christianity: no need for a "human" sacrifice (Jesus). Just "Seek good and not evil in order that you live." Amos goes further. He says that G-d rejects the people’s sacrifices; He won’t accept them. If you want G-d then forget sacrifices and pursue justice and righteousness ! A relationship with G-d isn’t about sacrifices. Amos even brings up the fact that Jews did not bring sacrifices at all for forty years in the desert as they left Egyptian slavery for the land of Israel: "Did you offer Me sacrifices and meal-offerings in the desert forty years, O house of Israel?" Amos 5:25. So -- really, really surprising that any missionary would point to the prophet Amos! In his visions Amos saw G-d gathering locusts for a swarm. The locusts devoured everything (in his vision). Then Amos saw a huge fire, devouring all before it (another vision). Amos prayed to G-d to not send the punishment and G-d agreed to not send the locusts or the fire (chapter 7). A false prophet lied about Amos to the ruler of Israel (the northern kingdom) in an effort to make him flee to Judah -- but Amos was wealthy. He did not "prophesy for money" -- but because G-d spoke to him. . . He would not stop warning the people.. Which brings us to chapter 8 -- the chapter the list maker claims is a prophecy about Jesus and eclipses. Amos is speaking of the end of the world as he knew it: the end of the northern kingdom of Israel: "The end has come to My people Israel. I will no longer pardon them." Amos 8:2. He is not speaking of the Jewish people (also called "Israel) -- he is speaking of the northern kingdom by that name which was destroyed over 2700 years ago. It has been over 2000 years since Jesus so "no" this had nothing to do with him. He sees the end of the northern kingdom of Israel. The image of a darkened sun (and an enduring sun) are used as analogies as well. The prophet Isaiah used them. In The Guide for the Perplexed by the Rambam he explained that the darkened sun usually means the fall of a nation -- in this case Amos is warning of the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. The Rambam wrote: "the metaphor frequently employed by Isaiah (of the darkened sun), and less frequently by other prophets, when they describe the the ruin of a kingdom or the destruction of a great nation. . . in phrases like the following:--"The stars have fallen," "The heavens are overthrown," "The sun is darkened," "The earth is waste, and trembles," and similar metaphors. . . "and when they speak of the approach of a nation's prosperity, they say, "The light of the sun and moon has increased," "A new heaven and a new earth has been created," or they use similar phrases. So also the prophets, in referring to the ruin of a person, of a nation, or of a country, describe it as the result of G-d's great anger and wrath, whilst the prosperity" The Guide for the Perplexed. Amos chapter 8 begins with the analogy of figs -- it is full of metaphor and analogy since all prophets other than Moses received their messages through visions and dreams. . . The vision of a basket of bad figs are not bad figs -- and the vision of a darkened sun is not literal either -- as mentioned at the start of this post there are two a year, every year! Within two years of beginning his prophecies there was an earthquake and an eclipse- - not surprising since eclipses are fairly common. . . In context of Amos 8 the image is metaphor, not literal. The land quaking and the eclipse of the sun at "mid-day" is about the end of the northern kingdom of Israel. It has nothing to do with the messiah: "The end has come to My people Israel. I will no longer pardon them.. . Shall the land not quake for this, and shall all its inhabitants [not] be destroyed? Yea, it shall rise up wholly like the rain cloud, and it shall cast up and sink like the river of Egypt. And it shall come to pass on that day, says the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to set at midday, and I will darken the land on a sunny day." Amos 8:2;8-9. All of this happened nearly 700 years before Jesus and had nothing to do with him.
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