the Week of Christ the King / Proper 29 / Ordinary 34
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Green's Literal Translation
Amos 2:11
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I made some of your sons to be prophets and some of your young men to be Nazirites. People of Israel, it is true." This is what the Lord said.
"Then I raised up some of your sons to be prophets, And some of your young men to be Nazirites. Is this not so, you sons of Israel?" declares the LORD.
I made some of your children to be prophets and some of your young people to be Nazirites. People of Israel, isn't this true?" says the Lord .
I made some of your sons prophets and some of your young men Nazirites. Is this not true, you Israelites?" The Lord is speaking!
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O you sons of Israel? says Yahweh.
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. [Is it] not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.
"Then I raised up some of your sons to be prophets [who gave you My revelation], And some of your young men to be Nazirites (dedicated ones). Is this not true, O you children of Israel?" says the LORD.
And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?" declares the Lord .
I raised up some of your sons for prophets, And some of your young men for Nazirites. Isn't this true, You children of Israel?" says Yahweh.
And Y reiside of youre sones in to profetis, and Nayareis of youre yonge men. Whether it is not so, ye sones of Israel? seith the Lord.
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.
I raised up prophets from your sons and Nazirites from your young men. Is this not true, O children of Israel?" declares the LORD.
I chose some of you to be prophets and others to be Nazirites. People of Israel, you know this is true. I, the Lord , have spoken!
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith Jehovah.
And some of your sons I made prophets, and some of your young men I made separate for myself. Is it not even so, O children of Israel? says the Lord.
I raised up some of your sons to be prophets, other young men of yours to be n'zirim. People of Isra'el! Isn't that true?" asks Adonai .
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, ye children of Israel? saith Jehovah.
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.
And I raised vp of your sonnes for Prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not euen thus, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord ?
I chose some of your sons to be prophets and others to be Nazirites. Can you deny this, my people of Israel?" asks the Lord .
Then I raised up some of your sons to speak for Me, and some of your young men to be Nazirites. Is this not true, you sons of Israel?" says the Lord.
And I raised up some of your children to be prophets and some of your youths to be nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel? says the Lord .
And I raysed vp of your sonnes for Prophets, and of your yong men for Nazarites. Is it not euen thus, O ye children of Israel, sayth the Lorde?
And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O you children of Israel? says the LORD.
And I raised up, of your sons, for prophets, and, of your young men, for Nazirites, - Was it not even so, ye sons of Israel? Demandeth Yahweh;
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not so, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord?
And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?" says the LORD.
And I raysed vp of your sonnes for prophetes, and of your young men for Nazarites: Is it not euen thus, O ye children of Israel, sayth the Lorde?
And I took of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for consecration. Are not these things so, ye sons of Israel? saith the Lord.
I chose some of your sons to be prophets and some of your young men to be nazirites. Isn't this true, people of Israel? I, the Lord , have spoken.
I raised up some of your sons as prophetsand some of your young men as Nazirites.Is this not the case, Israelites?
I raised up some of your sons for prophets, And some of your young men for Nazirim. Isn't this true, You children of Yisra'el?" says the LORD.
And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the Lord .
And I raised up some of your sons to be prophets and some of your young men to be Nazirites. Is it not so, O people of Israel? This is the declaration of Yahweh!
And I raise of your sons for prophets, And of your choice ones for Nazarites, Is not this true, O sons of Israel? An affirmation of Jehovah.
I raysed vp prophetes amonge youre children, and absteyners amonge youre yoge men. Is it not so, o ye children of Israel, sayeth the LORDE?
I raised up some of your sons as prophets, And some of your young men as Nazirites. Is it not so, O you children of Israel?" Says the LORD.
"Then I raised up some of your sons to be prophets And some of your young men to be Nazirites. Is this not so, O sons of Israel?" declares the LORD.
Then I raised up some of your sons to be prophetsAnd some of your choice men to be Nazirites.Is this not so, O sons of Israel?" declares Yahweh.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
I raised: 1 Samuel 3:20, 1 Samuel 19:20, 1 Kings 17:1, 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 19:16, 1 Kings 20:13, 1 Kings 20:35, 1 Kings 20:41, 1 Kings 22:8, 2 Kings 2:2-5, 2 Kings 6:1, 2 Kings 17:13, 2 Chronicles 36:15, 2 Peter 1:20, 2 Peter 1:21
and: Amos 7:12, Amos 7:13, Isaiah 30:10, Isaiah 30:11, Jeremiah 11:21, Jeremiah 26:11, Micah 2:6, Matthew 21:34-38, Acts 4:18, Acts 5:28, Acts 7:51, 1 Thessalonians 2:15, 1 Thessalonians 2:16
Nazarites: Numbers 6:2, Judges 13:4-7, Lamentations 4:7, Luke 1:3-17
Is it: Isaiah 5:3, Isaiah 5:4, Jeremiah 2:5, Jeremiah 2:31, Micah 6:3, Micah 6:4
Reciprocal: Ezekiel 25:8 - Seir Hosea 12:13 - General Zechariah 9:13 - and raised
Cross-References
And the sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha. And Raamah's sons were Sheba and Dedan.
and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab. These all were the sons of Joktan.
And they lived from Havilah to Shur, which is facing Egypt as you come toward Assyria; he settled facing all his brothers.
And Saul struck Amalek from Havilah, as you go to Shur, which is before Egypt.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
And I raised up of your sons for prophets,.... Such as Moses, Joshua, and the seventy elders, and others; not only to foretell things to come, but to teach and instruct the people in the doctrines and duties of religion, and to warn them of their sins, and the danger of them:
and of your young men for Nazarites: as Samson, Samuel, and others; whose vow not only obliged them from shaving their hair, but to abstain from drinking wine, and eating grapes, which the youthful age is inclined unto; but such grace was given them, as enabled them to deny themselves sensual gratifications, and to be examples of piety and constant attendance on the service of God, and instructing the people. The Targum is,
"of your young men for teachers;''
these were the spiritual mercies, as the former were the temporal ones, the Lord bestowed on these people, for the truth of which he appeals to them:
[is it] not even thus, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord? can ye deny it? the thing was too notorious to be contradicted.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
And I raised up of your sons for prophets - Amos turns from outward mercies to inward, front past to present, from miracles of power to miracles of grace. God’s past mercies live on in those of today; the mercies of today are the assurance to us that we have a share in the past; His miracles of grace are a token that the miracles of His power are not our condemnation. God had, from the time of Moses, “raised up” prophets. Eldad and Medad Numbers 11:26-29 were images Of those, whom God would raise up beyond the bounds of His promise. Samuel was an Ephrathite 1 Samuel 1:1; Ahijah the Shilonite, that is, of Shiloh in Ephraim, lived on to old age in the kingdom of the ten tribes after their schism, the witness against the apostasy of Jeroboam 1 Kings 14:7-14; 1 Kings 15:29, yet acknowledged by the king whose rise and of the destruction of whose house he prophesied 1 Kings 14:2, 1 Kings 14:4.
Jehu, son of Hanani, was the prophet of both kingdoms 1 Kings 16:1, 1 Kings 16:7, 1 Kings 16:12; 2Ch 19:2; 2 Chronicles 20:34; Micaiah, son of Imlah, was well known to Ahab, as “prophesying evil concerning him” 1 Kings 22:8, 1 Kings 22:18 continually; unknown to Jehoshaphat 1 Kings 22:7. That wondrous pair, marvelous for superhuman sanctity and power among the marvelous miracles of God, Elijalh and Elisha, were both “sons” of Israel, whom God “raised up; Elijjah the Tishbite” 1 Kings 17:1, born doubtless at Thisbe, a village of Naphthali , and one of the sojourners in Gilead; Elisha of Abelmeholah 1 Kings 19:16, on the west side of the valley of the Jordan . And even now He had raised up to them of their own “sons,” Hosea and Jonah. Their presence was the presence of God among them, who, out of the ordinary way of His Providence, “raised” them “up” and filled them with His Spirit; and where the presence of God is, if there is fear, yet there is also hope.
And of your young men for Nazarites - The Nazarite was a fruit of the grace of God in its moral and religions workings, superhuman in holiness and self-denial, as the prophets were of that same grace, conferring superhuman wisdom and knowledge also. Of both, God says, “I raised up,” teaching that both alike, holiness of life and superhman wisdom, were His own special gift to each individual, His own creation. God survived His people, called, and “raised up,” by His grace, out of the crowd, those souls which responded to His call. The life of the Nazarites was a continual protest against the self-indulgence and worldliness of the people. It was a life above nature. Unless any prophet like Samuel 1 Samuel 1:11, was also a Nazarite, they had no special office except to live that life. Their life taught. Nay, it taught in one way the more, because they had no special gifts of wisdom or knowledge, nothing to distinguish them from ordinary people, except extraordinary grace.
They were an evidence, what all might do and be, if they used the grace of God. The power of the grace of God shows itself the more wondrously in these who have nought beside. The essence of the Nazarite life, as expressed by its name, was “separation,” separation from things of the world, with a view to God. The separation was not, necessarily, for more than a limited time. In such case, it answered to the strictness of the Christian Lent. It was a considerable discipline for a time. In those simpler days, when luxury had not been so busy , the absolute prohibition of anything fermented Numbers 6:3-4, whether from the grape or any other substance or vinegar made of either, or any liquor or refreshing food or drink, made in any way from the grape, fresh or dry, its husks or its kernels, while it cut off every evasion, involved the giving up not only every drink, in any way exciting or stimulating, but very much also, which was refreshing. Water, which in the east has seldom the freshness of ours, was their only drink. This, which to individuals may be an easy rule, would not be so in the main.
Those only think an undeviating rule slight, who have never tried one, nor set themselves on system to conquer self-will. Such a rule would not be acted upon, except for God. The long never-shorn hair was probably intended to involve the neglect of personal appearance. Yet this was the body only of the vow; its soul was the dedication to God. The Nazarite not only “separated himself from” Numbers 6:3 those earthly things; he “separated himself to” the Lord Numbers 6:2, Numbers 6:5-6 : he “consecrated to the Lord the days of his separation Numbers 6:12 : all the days of his separation he was holy to the Lord Numbers 6:8 : the separation of his God was upon his head.” Numbers 6:7. The vow was a great and singular thing. “When man or woman shall vow a special vow of a Nazarite” Numbers 6:2. The ritual of the Nazarite likened him to the priest. Giving him no priestly office, it yet even intensified some of the rules of the priesthood.
The priest was to abstain from wine and strong drink, only “when” he “went into the tabernacle of the congregations,” that he might “put difference between holy and unholy, and teach Israel the statutes” of the Lord Leviticus 10:9-11 : the Nazarite, so long as he remained such. The priest might defile himself for certain very near dead Leviticus 21:1-3; the high priest alone and the Nazarite, “neither for father nor mother” Leviticus 21:11-12; Numbers 6:7 : and that for the kindred reason; the high priest, “because the crown of the anointing oil of his God” was “upon him;” the Nazarite, “because the consecration of his God was upon his head!” His consecrated hair was called by the self-same name Numbers 6:19 as the mitre of the priest. It appears to have been woven into “seven locks” Judges 16:13, itself a number of consecration. If his consecration came to an end, that hair was mingled with the sacrifice Numbers 6:18, and on “his” hands alone, besides the priest’s at his consecration, was part of the offering laid Numbers 6:19.
All Israel was, in God’s purpose, “a kingdom of priests” Exodus 19:6; and, among them, the Nazarite was brought yet nearer, not to the priest’s office, but to his character. This must have diffused itself indefinitely through the outward and inward life. Further strictness probably lay in the spirit of the vow. The outward appearance of the Nazarites appears to have been changed by their abstemiousness. “Her Nazarites were purer than snow; they were whiter than milk” Lamentations 4:7. Their countenance had that transparent purity, which sometimes results from a pure abstemious life; as Athanasius is said to have been “bloodless.” John the Immerser, the counterpart of Elijah, ate only of the food of the wilderness, “locusts and wild honey;” his clothing was the hair cloth Luke 1:15; Luke 7:33; Matthew 3:4.
Of James the Just it is related with reference to the Nazarite vow ; “He was holy from his mother’s womb; wine and strong drink he drank not, nor ate any living thing; the razor came not up upon his head; he anointed him not with oil, and he used not a bath.” Nazarites there had been in the most disorganized times of Israel. The histories of Samson and Samuel stand over against one another, as Nazarites who, the one forfeited, the other persevered in, his vocation. Elijah’s ascetic character is as if he had been one of them, or deepened the lines of their rule. Ahaziah’s ungodly messengers described him contemptously as “a man, lord of hair,” as though he had nothing but his prophet’s broad mantle of hair, and “the leather girdle about his loins” .
The Rechabites, although Kenites by origin 1 Chronicles 2:55, had been enrolled in the people of God, and had received a rule from their father, uniting with the abstinence of the Nazarites, a mode of life which kept them aloof from the corruptions of cities Jeremiah 35:7, Jeremiah 35:9. The rules of their Nomadic life were consecrated to God, for He says, “There shall not be cut off from Jonadub, the son of Rechab, a man standing before Me for ever” Jeremiah 35:19, that is, as the servant of God. God uses as to them the term which marks the service of the Levites Deuteronomy 10:8, priests Judges 20:28, and prophets 1 Kings 17:1. Jonadab, the author of their rule, was plainly an ascetic, through whose presence Jehu hoped to cast a religious character over his ambitious execution of God’s command .
But the value which the artful, though impetuous 2 Kings 9:20, bloodstained, captain attached to the presence of the ascetic shows the weight which they had with the people. Strange sight it must have been, the energetic warrior in his coat of mail, and the ascetic, as energetic, in his hair-cloth. Deeper far the cotrast within. But the more marvelous the contrast, the more it attests the influence which the unworldly ascetic had over the world. Like the garb of the prophets, their appearance was a standing rebuke to a life of sense. Like the patriarchs, it professed that they were “strangers and pilgrims upon the earth.” They who sought nothing of the world or of time, were a witness to the belief in their eternal home. The Nazarites must now have been a numerous body, since Amos speaks of them, as a known class, like the prophets, of whose numbers we hear incidentally .
Yet the memory of these, who, amid the general corruption, were, each in his own sphere, centers of pure faith and life, is embalmed in these few words only. So little reason is there to think that God’s commands were neglected by all, because their observance is not related. Amos appeals publicly to the people that the fact was so, that God had raised up Nazarites as well as prophets among them. He had His “little flock” Luke 12:32, His “seven thousand” 1 Kings 19:18, who escaped the eye even of Elijah. The gift of the Nazarites was a special favor to Israel, as a memorial what the grace of God could do for man, what man could do, with the grace of God. His “raising up Nazarites, out of their young men,” men in their first bloom of unmarried , virgin (Deuteronomy 32:25; 2 Chronicles 36:17; Jeremiah 51:22; and in the plur. Psalms 78:63; Psalms 148:12; Isaiah 23:4;. Jeremiah 31:13; Lamentations 1:18; Lamentations 2:21; Zechariah 9:17; and by Amos himself, Amos 8:13), life their picked “very chosen men,” such as furnished the prime of their warriors , stengthened that teaching.
Even now, one devoted to God in his youth is a witness for God, leaven of the world around him. But the Nazarite had also to bear an outward mark for good, to be singular. His appearance bespoke that he had chosen God. His vow was not only a living up to the law; it lay beyond the law, the free-will offering of those whom God called. At an age, when so many do things unlawful, to gratitfy passion, these abstained even from things lawful. “Canst thou not do what these youths and these maidens can? or can they either in themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God?” was Augustine’s upbraiding of himself , on the eve of his conversion, in thought of those who were living a devoted virgin life.
Is it not even thus? - It were enough that God, the Truth, said it. But He condemns not, without giving space for excuse or defense. So he describes the Day of Judgment Matthew 25:24-30, Matthew 25:41-45; Matthew 22:11. “The books were opened - and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” Revelation 20:12. Now, in the time of grace, the question asks, what, written under the picture of Christ crucified, once converted a sinner; “This have I done for thee: What doest thou for Me?” What did they? What had they done? What would they do?
