Daily Manna · Day 344 · December 10
Shadow of Death into Morning
“Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:”
More than seven hundred years before Christ, a man from Tekoa in Judah went north into the kingdom of Israel with a message nobody wanted to hear. His name was Amos. By his own account he was "an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit," with no training as a prophet, and Israel was enjoying a time of great wealth under King Jeroboam.
Amos was preaching to people whose religion seemed to be going very well. The festivals were running, the offerings were coming in, and the singing was good. Meanwhile, in the courts, the poor were being crushed, and everyone had agreed not to mention it. Amos calls this chapter "a lamentation," a funeral song, and he opens it as though Israel had already died: "The virgin of Israel is fallen." Then, in the middle of his charges against them, he stops and looks up. He has just spoken of people who "turn judgment to wormwood," which means they turn justice into something bitter, and a moment later he will say, "They hate him that rebuketh in the gate."
Between those two charges he describes the One they are to seek, and the King James carries the words "Seek him" over from verse six: "Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name." The seven stars and Orion are two groups of stars in the night sky. The last line pictures God calling up the water of the sea and pouring it out over the land. A man who worked outdoors with flocks and fig trees is describing the God who runs all of it.
That is his argument, and it is worth seeing what kind of argument it is. He does not answer their corruption with a better lecture on right and wrong. Amos points to the greatness of the One who is calling them. The God who tells you to change is the God who turns the darkest part of the night into morning, and He has done it faithfully every day you have been alive, including the days you slept through.
This is a hard chapter, and its call is serious: "Seek the LORD, and ye shall live." The hope in it is that the call comes from Someone whose faithfulness you have been living on all along without noticing. Every morning you have ever seen came without your help, and the same God who sent it is calling you back to Him today.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 344 is Weary in Well Doing (Galatians 6:9).