A Famine of Hearing
9 It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. 10 I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day. 11 Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing Yahweh’s words. 12 They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek Yahweh’s word, and will not find it. 13 In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst. 14 Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives,’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’ they will fall, and never rise up again.”
The worst judgment in the book is not the loss of bread but the withdrawal of the word they had told the prophet to stop speaking.
The day is described as a sun setting at noon and the earth darkened in broad daylight — the same reversal the book has already made of the day they were longing for Amos 5:18.
Verse 10 turns the religious calendar inside out. Feasts into mourning, songs into lamentation, sackcloth, shaved heads. And the comparison is domestic rather than national: like the mourning for an only son. The grief of a house that has lost its future measures the grief of a kingdom.
Then verse 11, the book's most searching sentence. A famine is coming — not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Yahweh.
A priest had ordered this prophet to stop speaking and go home Amos 7:13, and the people had commanded the prophets not to prophesy Amos 2:12. What is announced is that the request will be granted, and the granting will be the punishment.
Verse 12 describes the result as motion without arrival: staggering from sea to sea, from north to east, running to and fro to seek the word of Yahweh, and not finding it. The verb for seeking is the one the book used in its offer of life Amos 5:4. Seeking is now happening, and it is too late for it to be the same act.
Verse 14 names what they had sworn by instead — the sin of Samaria, the god of Dan, the way of Beersheba — three shrines, and none of them answers.
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