Any map of the Middle East from the time of the prophet Amos,
including
this
one (if you want something larger than the map to the right), shows an interesting feature of the judgment of nations we read about
in chapters 1 and 2.
The six Gentile nations — and all eight nations against
which Amos prophesied, including God’s own people in Israel and Judah — are
not chosen willy-nilly from here, there and everywhere in the Middle East; rather,
they comprise a contiguous geographic region of over 50,000 square
kilometers. Israel sits dead center in this region, while Judah abuts it on the
south, Ammon on the east, Moab on the southeast, Philistia on the southwest, Phoenicia (Tyre) on the
northwest, and Damascus (southern Syria) on the north. Only Edom does not have
a common border with Israel, and it has common borders with both Judah and
Moab.
This suggests that rather than a series of separate
judgments, we are considering a single massive, transformative event that affected
every one of these nations to differing degrees.