Whatever is wormwood?

Sometimes when we read the Bible, especially the Old Testament and specifically the true Prophets of Scripture, we fail in the imagery of the language of centuries and millennia long past. Amos uses a word “לַעֲנָה” we translate into English as wormwood and most of us naturally ask, “whatever is wormwood?”

Truly, we also don’t really understand idioms such as ‘justice in the gate’ much better from Amos’ opening indictments listed previously in Not immune from judgment. If you missed summary of these first four chapters of Amos you might want to take a look through the secure link above.

As for wormwood, we’ll get to a definition after introducing his lament for Israel. We may also point ahead to more obvious application of his warning to the church of these last days.

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“Seek Me that You May Live”

Setting aside current 21st century events, let’s look back to the prophecies of Amos concerning Israel and its middle east neighbors in the 8th century Before Christ, introduced previously in Amos – Not immune from judgment.

Amos 5:

2 She has fallen, she will not rise again—
The virgin Israel.

“The city which goes forth a thousand strong
Will have a hundred left,
And the one which goes forth a hundred strong
Will have ten left to the house of Israel.”

This prediction laments a judgment to come, a warning of consequences more devastating than slight tremors of these past weeks.

A Call to Repentance

4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:

“Seek Me and live…

Through Amos, the LORD God warns those called as his faithful people to repent! Give up worship of your idols on the mountaintops and look to the Lord your God.

6 “Seek the Lord that you may live,
Or He will break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph,
And it will consume with none to quench it for Bethel…

… it will consume everything
with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

Amos 5:6b CSB

You cannot hide from the LORD, Creator of the universe!

Don’t say you worship at Bethel – “the house of God.” And do not come to Gilgal, the gathering place of the Prophets. Nor cross over to Beersheba, well of your sevenfold oath (which Israel has transgressed).

Later Amos will preach [8:14]:

They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.

Amos 5:7 CSB

These unjust leaders literally have set righteousness aside in the dirt.

Wormwood – לַעֲנָה

It is a metaphor for bitterness, a noxious aroma of a poisonous herb such as hemlock. Something about the judgment of Israel’s leaders stinks before the LORD who they claim to worship.

We have heard this from other Prophets of the LORD who likewise warn of sin and call to repentance. Amos warns Israel prior to its fall, but two centuries later (~ 586 BC) Jeremiah uses it in asking how this could happen to Judah and Jerusalem.

1:1 אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָדָד הָעִיר רַבָּתִי עָם הָיְתָה כְּאַלְמָנָה רַבָּתִי בַגֹּויִם שָׂרָתִי בַּמְּדִינֹות הָיְתָה לָמַֽס׃ ס

Lamentations 3:15-19 KJV

He hath filled me with bitterness, 
he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, 
he hath covered me with ashes.
And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: 
I forgat prosperity.
And I said, My strength and my hope 
is perished from the LORD:
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, 
the wormwood and the gall.

The LORD who judges

Amos 5:8

He who made the Pleiades and Orion
 And changes deep darkness into morning,
Who also darkens 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.
 
 It is He who flashes forth with destruction upon the strong,
 So that destruction comes upon the fortress.

They have led their country astray, a people pledged to the LORD to a path of their own destruction. And how do these erring leaders receive the warning of the Prophet Amos?

Indeed how do the sinful always receive truth from the Lord unvarnished?

It will remind us of how their Savior was later received in a rebuilt Jerusalem under Rome. We have just foreshadowed it from the Gospel of John. The Gatekeeper & the Shepherds

The accused react – יָכַח

= to prove, decide, judge, rebuke, reprove, correct, be right

They hate him who reproves in the gate,
And they abhor him who speaks with integrity.

They hate the one who convicts the guilty
at the city gate,
and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.

Amos 5:10 CSB

Sentence of the JUDGE

The LORD makes a few points to the leaders who have misled His people. Amos, who was not a Prophet but called as a shepherd of Tekoa, serves these convicted their just cup of wormwood.

• Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor
• And exact a tribute of grain from them,
• Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone,
  • Yet you will not live in them;
• You have planted pleasant vineyards,
  • yet you will not drink their wine.

12 For I know your crimes are many
and your sins innumerable.

• You who distress the righteous
• and accept bribes
• And turn aside the poor in the gate.
  • (the place of justice *and your poor judgment)

Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time,
For it is an evil time.

Amos 5:13 NKJV

Does this scene seem strangely familiar?

14 Seek good and not evil, that you may live;
And thus may the Lord God of hosts be with you,
Just as you have said!

• Hate evil,
• love good;
• Establish justice in the gate.

Perhaps the Lord God of hosts
May be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Hoping for mercy

We still have NOT heard the sentence of the Judge. But here it comes. after Amos urges Israel’s leaders to bow down before the Lord in repentance.

5:16 לָכֵן כֹּֽה־אָמַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאֹות אֲדֹנָי בְּכָל־רְחֹבֹות מִסְפֵּד וּבְכָל־חוּצֹות יֹאמְרוּ הֹו־הֹו וְקָרְאוּ אִכָּר אֶל־אֵבֶל וּמִסְפֵּד אֶל־יֹודְעֵי נֶֽהִי׃

Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, the Lord,
“There is wailing in all the plazas,
And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’
They also call the farmer to mourning
And professional mourners to lamentation.

Amos 5:16 NASB

Wormwood for the church in this time?

As for the judgment of the LORD imminent for Israel warned by Amos…

God-willing, To be continued...