As discussed briefly in our introductory post, as divine
judgments go, the judgment of nations prophesied in the first few chapters of
the book of Amos is a little unusual.
In the mid-eighth century BC, the eight nations targeted by
the prophet occupied approximately 50,000 square kilometers of contiguous geographic
territory east of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the middle of
modern-day Syria down through Lebanon and Israel to a few dozen kilometres
north of the current Egyptian border and, on the far side of the Dead Sea, well
into Jordan.
National judgments are fairly common in the Old Testament;
simultaneous mass-judgments of multiple nations less so.
