Reflection to the WORD - AMOS 8:4-7
GOD DOES NOT FORGET ANYTHING OR ANYBODYAMOS 8:7 (4-8): “The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”
Once upon a Time, there was Samson in the Holy Land, a biblical figure, one of the judges between the time of Joshua and the first king of Israel, called Saul. Samson was kind of a mythical hero, because God gave him extraordinary strength like superhero power.
Within the mythical explanations there is the understanding that his extraordinary strength or power came from his lengthy hair, because he was a Nazirite from birth.
Usually, the Nazirite Jews take an oath to God that for a particular time period they let their hair grow without cutting it, they do not drink alcohol, or grape juice, or they do not even touch food made of grape, like grape jam etc., and they avoid contacting, touching the body of dead people.
After the period of time expressed in the taken oath, at the end of their Nazirite period, they cut their hair, burn the hair, returning to normalcy, and they bring sin offerings to the temple. According to Scripture they were considered holy to God throughout their Nazarite period.
Practically anybody could have taken a Nazirite oath. For a week, a month, a year, 3 years, etc. It didn't matter what rank what social class, or gender he or she belonged to. It was possible, sometimes with certain conditions, for everybody to take a Nazirite oath.
However, some people were Nazirite from birth, because their parents took an oath on behalf of their child.
This happened to the Prophet Samuel, likely to John the Baptist, and in the case of Samson. They were Nazirite from their birth. In our Bible story with Samson, we get the name of one of the most embittered contemporary enemy of Israel, the Philistines.
The Philistines were not from the Middle East originally, so how they got there?
Historians blame the so-called bronze age collapse, which was caused by the invading so-called Sea people, who according to the Egyptian sources were Greek or proto-Greek speaking tribes. Although mainland Egypt successfully staved them off, the Philistines, arriving mostly from Crete called Kaftor, were successfully created, bridgeheads and settlements in the land of Canaan, establishing cities like Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, later.
At this point, Canaanite ethnicities had no independent states in Canaan, because the Hittite Empire and the Egyptian pharaohs had fought bitter wars for domination for centuries.
At this time the land of Israel belonged fully to Egypt.
This status quo was demolished by the sea people and by the Philistines, who carved out a sizable territory from the Egyptian Canaan, mostly on the Mediterranean coast line around 1200 BCE.
This happened roughly parallel with the Exodus, actually helping the Israeli tribes to carve out their sizable territory from the Egyptian ruled Canaan, called the Judean Hill country.
With the parallel conquer of the Canaanite land, the Philistines and the Israeli tribes became direct neighbors, thus a continuous warfare came to stay between them.
One of the greatest early heroes in this warfare was Samson himself, but the war continued till the era of David's kingship, and the last Philistines strongholds were wiped away ironically by the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar at the beginning of the sixth century BCE.
According to the Bible, Samson won hundreds of victories, but finally the Philistines sent a woman, Delila, to entice him to uncover the secret of his superhuman strength.
Once she learned that his strength belongs to his Nazirite non-cut hair, she cut it and then called the Philistines, who gouged out his eyes and forced him to mill grain at Gaza City.
They also made him a mockery subject.
When they presented him in the Philistines idol temple of Dagon as a prisoner of war, he prayed to God; and as a result he suddenly regained his strength, so he brought down the huge stone columns there, collapsing the temple and killing both himself and the Philistines.
In his prayer he said, as it is written, in the Book of the Judges, chapter 16;
'O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me, I pray Thee, only this once, O God, that I may be this once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes."
Samson asked God, to remember him. And God remembered.
Just as it is written in the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 16': "You have borne your lewdness and your abominations, says Yahweh. … Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant."
It is easy to grasp that the Ruler of the Universe who created the whole existence with its unimaginable vastness and runs it daily with its incalculable complexity and interwoven interconnectedness, must keep everything in mind, all the causes and all the consequences on Earth, in the parallel universes and in the Heavens.
However, God, in the Book of Prophet Isaiah says that " I, even I, am he, who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins."
Nonetheless, it does not mean that God will literally have no knowledge about the transgressions of the law breakers anymore, but it means that God will forgive or has already forgiven them, and will not uphold their sins against them.
Just as it is also written in the Book of Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 31: "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more."
We can be very sure that God does not forget anything or anybody.
When we see that it seems that God often abandoned the good people on Earth without even attempting to rescue them from suffering and often from the bitter death, we should read the Book of Isaiah, chapter 57:
"The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil."
God remembers, and God does not forget anything and everybody.
Then, how the forgiveness of God is possible?
Ultimately, only God does exist on it s own, everything else depends on God with its existence, which may mean that everything else’ existence, including human beings, includes some non-extant substance. Like, everything is vibrates and oscillates in the Universe. Even us.
We breathe in and we breathe out. The heart stops to beat between two heartbeats. We are oscillating as well, in our cells, in our atoms, in our molecules, and it creates a limited reality for our whole beings, as it is written in Psalm 126:
“When the Lord brought back those who returned to Zion from Babylon, we were like those who dream.” The whole Life as we know it, is like a dream.
From good dreams, we hardly want to be ever awakened, but the nightmares can be wiped away by the Lord in a twinkle of an eye, like they never happened. May the Lord wipe away and never remember our transgression, though God does not forget anything and anybody.
May we happily praise the LORD, in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, as it is written in the 32nd Psalm, that “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. AMEN
