Personal Gain: Amos 1:6-10
Anytime we cease to see the people around us as human beings and treat them as a means for our personal gain, we are no better than those God condemns in this passage. God created life as an expression of His creativity. We are the work of His hands. When we fail to recognize this, we stop seeing life as God sees it.
The next two nations God speaks against are Philistia and Phoenicia. Philistia was the region where the Philistines lived and had five major cities: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath. We know the Philistines primarily because of the conflict between them and the Hebrew people under King Saul and King David. Phoenicia was a region north of Philistia whose people were incredible traders – especially sea-faring traders. The Phoenicians created a complex writing system, one whose impact is great even into the English language.
Both Philistia and Phoenicia are guilty of the same offense by God’s accounting. They raided the nations around them – including the Hebrew people – for the purpose of capturing human beings and selling them into slavery. Amos mentions these nations sold slaves to Edom, but we know they were selling slaves to far more places than Edom. The Phoenicians especially, being able to sail throughout the Mediterranean Sea, spread their slave trade all along the coasts.
A differentiation needs to be made. Most ancient cultures employed slavery and indentured servitude. When a nation conquered another nation, it was common for the conquered people to become indentured to the conquering people. God sends His own people into this kind of arrangement under the Assyrians and Babylonians. Biblical scholars call it the Exile. These exiled indentured servants, however, were not slaves as we typically think of chattel slavery. They were a part of society with very limited rights. As we see with Daniel, Mordecai, and Esther, these people had a possibility of upward social mobility. They were not bought or sold and treated like property. They may not have the most glorious life, but they were indentured servants rather than chattel slaves.
The people of Philistia and Phoenicia are not conquering nations. They are sneaking into areas and stealing human beings. They may do it under the cover of night; they may bring a strike group into an area and force people into bondage. These were raids, not military engagements. They were slavers.
The people of Philistia and Phoenicia are guilty of the same kind of offense as the people from Syria. The Philistines and Phoenicians see human beings as a means to increasing their wealth. They genuinely see the people around them as a commodity to be spent for their own personal gain. They miss the human element and demean the life God has created. Anytime we cease to see the people around us as human beings and treat them as a means for our personal gain, we are no better than those God condemns in this passage.
