The structure of Amos 5:1–17 is meant to focus our attention on the song of praise to God (Amos 5:8–9). God is the One who is at the centre everything—not us, nor the church, the society, the law courts, and certainly not the parliament, but God.
God is the one who made the constellations—Pleiades and Orion are the names given to some of the stars we see at night. God made them. He is in a class of his own. He is the Creator. God also turns midnight into dawn, and daylight into darkness. He is the master of the sun, the one who set it on its path and upholds it day by day. He is the Sustainer of the universe. Finally, God is also the Judge. He called for the waters of the sea to cover the earth in the time of Noah. He makes destruction flash forth against the strong. He is glorious. Creator, Sustainer, and Judge—who else gets to define what justice looks like but God? He is at the centre of everything. He controls the world.
But that is not all we learn about God. In the very middle of this song, at the end of verse 8, we have the proclamation: the Lord is his name. Lord is the name by which God revealed himself to the people of Israel. I AM who I AM (Exodus 3:14). That is not a name which we can learn by looking at the stars or walking in the mountains. That is a name which God has to reveal to us. That is a name we can only learn because God has chosen to draw near to us.
In his dealings with humanity, Israel in particular, the Lord has shown us what he is like. He is gracious, generous, patient, forgiving, loving, holy, just, and good. We remember the famous words spoken to Moses in Exodus 34:6–7, we remember his actions throughout their history. Deliverance from Egypt, provision in a desert, judgment on his enemies. The Lord, the One who is at the centre of everything, he is the one who perfectly marries power and grace, justice and mercy, being fair and being kind. Of course we see these qualities most clearly at the cross of Jesus Christ, where the Son of God satisfied the demands of God’s justice so that mercy can be shown to sinners. That is where the love of God was ultimately displayed (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10–11), God using his power to serve and not to be served (Mark 10:45).
The significance of this hymn and focus on the Lord is to teach us that we can never make sense of justice (including social justice) without focusing on God. The Lord is the Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of this world. He defines what justice looks like, he determines what is right and wrong and has revealed it to us in his law. To leave him out of the picture is not only very foolish, but also very arrogant. It assumes that we are at the centre of this world; it ignores reality. And yet that was an attitude that dominated in Israel; it is also an attitude that dominates our society today. Whether it is in TV shows, newspapers, board meetings, law courts, or parliamentary decisions, there is a decrease of the mentioning of God or what he says in the Bible.
As an example, consider what has happened during 2020 and 2021. Throughout the world, governments and health organizations have said that justice requires shutting down economies and limiting freedom of religion. Millions of people have been subjected to poverty because their jobs were deemed non-essential.
Public worship of God on the Lord’s Day has been prohibited. The results have been that more and more people suffer from hunger and there is an untold increase in abortions and child abandonment. Most likely we will all know of people who have spent their last days on earth alone, isolated in hospitals or old-age homes. This is the kind of justice that our world has come up with—a justice that goes by the name of saving lives,
but that has no concern for the lives of unborn children, the quality of life, or the spiritual and eternal life. When God is left out of the picture, justice becomes defined by whoever has the most power.
8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is his name;