Golden Nuggets from
Really Old Books:
The Permissive Sense of Amos 3:6
Shall
a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be
evil in a city, and the LORD hath not
done it? (Amos 3:6; King James Version)
Some really bad and quite
disturbing teaching has come from misunderstanding this Bible passage. For
example, Calvinist pastor John Piper wrote an article where he defends his
belief that God was behind the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001
(famously know as 9-11). Piper cites Amos 3:6 among other passages of Scripture
in an attempt to validate his position:
From the smallest thing to the greatest thing, good and evil,
happy and sad, pagan and Christian, pain and pleasure - God governs them all
for his wise and just and good purposes (Isaiah 46:10). Lest we miss the point,
the Bible speaks most clearly to this in the most painful situations. Amos
asks, in time of disaster, “If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD
done it?” (Amos 3:6).[1]
Many more examples of preachers who
misuse Amos 3:6 to teach a warped and distorted view of God’s sovereignty that
makes His character questionable could be cited here. However, what they all
have in common is an inability to properly interpret passages of this nature in
light of God’s character as revealed to us by Jesus – the God who taught that
inflicting natural catastrophes represented a spirit (or attitude) that does
not reflect Him (see Luke 9:51-56).
This is especially true of modern
day ministers who are ignorant of or altogether ignore the “permissive sense”
of the Hebrew language in which these passages were written. Rev. J. H.
Titcomb, who was the vicar of St. Stephen's South Lambeth and rural dean of Clapham,
wrote this in 1874 in defense of the moral teaching of the Bible:
And now let me briefly
note a third and final canon. You may not admit it, or if you admit it you may
laugh at it, but as a matter of Biblical critism, and of Hebrew composition it
is simply indisputable :—viz., “That Jewish writers were frequently in the
habit of attributing to God Himself the evils which He permitted in His
Providence.”
Let me first give, you
one undoubted illustration. “Shall there be evil in a city, and I have not done
it? saith the Lord” (Amos iii. 6). The morality of the Old Testament might
indeed be truly impeached, if this were intended to teach that God was the
actual author of evil. Indeed, the notion is so preposterous, that nothing but
the glaring impossibility of such an idea could have permitted this Jewish
method of phraseology to approximate so apparently close to it.
Falling, however, as
it did, within this well-known line of Hebrew style of composition—viz., that
what God was known to have permitted without any arbitrary intervention
of providence, He was often said to have done— that statement of the
prophet Amos was liable to no misconception. We ourselves, in these western
countries, may pronounce such a method of speech both awkward and loose; but in
eastern lands, our own more precise and formal habits of expression are not by
any means the law.
You are not,
therefore, to deny this Jewish style of writing, because it does not square
with your own laws of thought. You must accept it as a peculiarity of the
country to which it belongs, and of the nation in which it was followed, where
verbal criticisms, like those in vogue among ourselves, were altogether
unknown. And this being so, it supplies us with a canon of Scripture criticism
which at once takes off the edge from several serious impeachments of the moral
teaching of the Old Testament.
Thus, in 2 Samuel
xii., 8, God is actually described as saying to David, “I gave thee thy
master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom;” words which appear to
make the Deity responsible for David's concubinage; and which, although
unsuited to our methods and habits of speech, were, nevertheless,
perfectly well understood by the Hebrew nation. So in that passage where the
Lord is represented as sending forth a “lying spirit in the mouths of the
prophets” (1 Kings xxii. 23). According to the accurate phraseology of western
countries, this language seems appalling; but, under the familiar canon of
criticism to which I now refer, it becomes easy and unimpeachable. The same is
to be said of the corresponding scene in Job i. 6—12. In both these places we
have merely certain conceptions of moral truth thrown into a dramatic form, for
the sake of impressiveness, rather than the record of historical facts.
Criticised with literal rigour, the language in each case may be made to prove
that God holds communion with evil spirits, which is contrary to the whole
tenor of Scripture; but, properly interpreted, according to the genius of
Hebrew literature they are free from any such impeachment.[2]
Seeing that “permission” is the proper
understanding of passages such as Amos 3:6 then some alternative translations
and paraphrases of the passage are appropriate:
Does
the trumpet alarm sound in the city, without the people being scared? Does
anything evil happen to a city, and yahweh hasn’t let it happen? (Yahweh
God’s Word: an Old and New Testament Paraphrase by Go Fish Ministries)
Does
the trumpet sound the alarm in the city without frightening the people? Does
disaster come to a city unless the Eternal One has permitted it? (The VOICE
Translation)
If we keep this understanding of Amos 3:6 and other passages that appear
impugn God’s character, we will not have trouble with so many “Bible
difficulties”. Furthermore, John Piper’s theology, which does God a great
disservice, can be recognized for its distorted picture of Him. Jesus gives us
the perfect picture of God—One who comes to rescue people rather than hurt
them. However, when we reject God as the Israelites did during the time of the
prophet Amos, God will have no choice but to remove His protection and permit
the disaster He tried to protect us from. This is how passages of this nature
must be read and understood.
[1] Piper, John Why I Do Not Say, “God Did Not Cause the
Calamity, but He Can Use It for Good”
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-i-do-not-say-god-did-not-cause-the-calamity-but-he-can-use-it-for-good
(Last accessed: April 11, 2017)
[2] Titcomb, J. H. “The Moral Teaching of the Old Testament”
in Popular Objections to Revealed Truth
(London: Hodder and Stoughten, 1874), pp. 171, 172
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