Thus says the LORD: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, but they have been led astray by the same lies after which their ancestors walked. So I will send a fire on Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals-- they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.    (Amos 2:4-8)

The first chapter and three verses of the book of Amos castigate the nations surrounding Israel and Judah for various crimes: Aram-Damascus has used farm implements as instruments of torture in the war against Israel, fought in the Transjordanian Israelite province of Gilead (1:3). Gaza and Tyre have sold entire populations into slavery in the copper mines of Edom (1:6, 9). Edom has itself gone back on its covenant with Judah "his brother", slaughtering the population with bloodlust (1:11), and the Ammonites have committed similar atrocities "in order to expand their borders" (1:13). Moab has apparently practiced disgraceful burial practices, burning the bones of another nation's king as a gesture of hatred and spite. The prophet Amos condemns these crimes in his excoriating remarks of 1:3-2:3 - some might say crimes against humanity.¹ But the most damning incriminations are launched at the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in the following verses (2:4-7), and indeed against Israel throughout the rest of the book. The human rights violations committed by the other nations, and outlined in 1:3-2:3, serve as a preface to the list of accusations that the prophet levels against the people of God.

I do not want to lay out the specifics of the divine court case against Israel; the unauthorized use of ill-gotten collateral and the sacrilege of drinking wine taken as a fee or fine (while in the house of the Lord no less!) are symptomatic of the nation's sin as a whole and indicative of the prophet's remonstrations throughout the book. What interests me in this reflection, on the other hand, is why, exactly, these foreign nations are listed first and in this specific order - why should it matter, for instance, that Tyre is mentioned after Damascus? Is any group's crime more or less severe than any other? And why are Israel's and Judah's crimes listed last? Even if there are social evils predominant in Israel, does that match the slaughter of which the Ammonites are accused? Many biblical interpreters have posed these and related questions throughout the ages. Some argue that the prophet originally listed those whom he castigated in a clockwise order, with some nations interpolated later. Others have suggested that all the crimes against humanity for which God will punish the nations may justly be attached to Israel. Many would claim that the nations here are simply listed in order to make the claim of God's sovereignty over all peoples. And while all these solutions may be correct in their individual elements, they all seem to me to evade a salient aspect of the text, namely, the interrelatedness with which these nations were intertwined.

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