Amos describes God’s judgment in terms of earthquake, darkness at noon, and mourning as for an “only son.” Matthew describes Jesus’s death very similarly. These hyperlinks don’t always make it into the cross-references of our Bibles, but I think they should in light of the way all three aspects of judgment overlap in Amos 8:8–10 and Matthew 27:45–54.

Recognizing the hyperlinks and reading Amos with an eye towards Jesus does justice to the purpose of the prophets and the Hebrew Bible as a whole, the purpose of pointing forward to the hope of both judgment and new creation when God and his Messiah arrive. Seeing these hyperlinks also invites the reader to imagine how the cycles of injustice, judgment, mercy, and salvation might be playing out in their own world. If the portraits of Amos were (1) relevant to his own day and (2) relevant the days of Jesus, then (3) they very well might relevant to the reader’s world, too. The books of the prophets were collected into the Hebrew Bible not just to preserve God’s “I told you so” for his BC-era people. Their messages, with all their dramatic imagery and metaphor, are relevant to every part of God’s story, including our own.

First, I’ll point out three overlapping aspects of Amos’s portrait of judgment. Second, we’ll look at how these same three aspects appear in Matthew’s portrait of Jesus’s death, and third, I’ll offer some thoughts about why it all matters.

Earthquake (Amos 8:8)

The very first verse of Amos introduces the book with reference to an earthquake:

The words of Amos … two years before the earthquake. (Amos 1:1)

The concept of an earthquake could stand behind several of Amos’s visions of destruction. Danny Carroll points to Amos 2:13; 3:14–15; 4:11, 13; 6:9–11; 9:1, 5, 9.¹ But two of these verses are particularly relevant because they explicitly mention Israel shaking, like an earthquake (8:8; 9:9).

In chapter 8, Amos describes the way Israel plots and schemes to make money, disregard Yahweh’s instructions, and take advantage of vulnerable people. Amos says in response,

Is this not the reason that the land will tremble? (Amos 8:8)

This verse—Amos 8:8—is the one that I want to draw special attention to because in the next two verses Amos will add two more important aspects to his portrait of judgment, aspects that are relevant to Matthew’s description of Jesus’s death. However, before we move to the next aspect, there’s one more important verse in chapter 9. Amos describes Israel as a sinful kingdom and says,

Look, I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations, like one shakes a sieve … (Amos 9:9)

We will come back to Amos 9 below. For now, just notice that Israel’s injustice is the reason that “the land will tremble” (Amos 8:8). This is not incidental to the message of Amos. The book is introduced with reference to an earthquake (1:1), and there are two other explicit mentions of Israel being shaken (8:8; 9:9).²

Darkness at Noon (Amos 8:9)

In the next verse, Amos 8:9, the prophet adds another important feature to his portrait of judgment. In addition to the earthquake (8:8), there will be darkness at noon (8:9). Amos says,

And it will happen on that day — a declaration of the Lord Yahweh — I will bring down the sun at noon. I will make the land go dark when it’s time for light. (Amos 8:9)

Those opening words are noteworthy: “And it will happen on that day …” (בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא). The words make clear that in the prophet’s mind he envisions both aspects of judgment happening at on the same day: the land will tremble (8:8) and the sun will go dark at noon (8:9).

Only Son (Amos 8:10)

After saying “the land will tremble” (Amos 8:8) and the sun go dark at noon (Amos 8:9), Amos 8:10 follows up with a striking statement about mourning for an “only son.”

I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lament. I’ll put sackcloth on your waists and baldness upon your head. I will make it like mourning for an only son, and it’s end like a bitter day. (Amos 8:10)

The language of “only son” is worth zooming in on for a moment because the way the ancient Greek translations render the Hebrew is striking. Here’s the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and a less widely known ancient Greek translation, that of Symmachus:

• MT: יָחִיד, only one/son/child
• LXX: ἀγαπητοῦ, beloved
• Sym = μονογενοῦς, only begotten³
  

“Beloved” (ἀγαπητός) and “only begotten” (μονογενής) are terms explicitly associated with Jesus in the New Testament (e.g. Matt 3:17; John 3:16).

Combining all three aspects of judgment in Amos 8:8–10, we see the land shaken, the sun going dark specifically at noon (בַּצָּהֳרָיִם), and mourning as for an “only son” (יָחִיד). All three of these aspects show up in Matthew’s description of Jesus’s death.

Jesus’s Death in Matthew

Matthew is the only Gospel that features all three aspects of judgment in Amos 8:8–10. Mark and Luke both include darkness at noon (Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44), and in this same context Mark explicitly mentions Jesus as God’s son (Mark 15:39). Matthew has all three.

First comes the darkness at noon. As Jesus hangs on the cross, mocked by those around him, Matthew says,

There was darkness on the whole land from the sixth hour until the ninth hour. (Matthew 27:45)

All morning, from roughly 6am to noon, Jesus hangs on the cross in darkness. After he dies, Matthew says,

… The land shook and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened … (Matthew 27:51–52)

A centurion is standing by watching all these things, and here’s how Matthew brings the scene to a close:

The centurion and those keeping watch over Jesus with him, when they saw the earthquake and the things that happened, they were afraid saying, “Truly this man was [the] son of God.” (Matthew 27:54)

For Matthew, Amos’s day of Yahweh happens (again) as God’s son is crucified.

Raising the Booth of David

Judgment is not the final word in either Amos or Matthew. In Amos, the three aspects of judgment described above (earthquake, darkness, mourning for a son) represent the decreative chaos that was unleashed on the world because of Israel’s injustice. In Matthew, the same symbols represent the decreative chaos unleashed upon God’s Son by “a wicked kingdom” — the conspiracy of Israel’s religious leaders, Rome, and the Jewish crowds prodded by their leaders to bark like inhumane beasts, “Crucify him!” (Matt 27:22; cf. Psalm 22:12ff.).

The next major movement in both stories—both Amos and Matthew—is resurrection. After describing how Israel will be shaken like a sieve (9:9), Amos says,

On that day I will raise the booth of David that has fallen. I will fix their torn places. I will raise their ruins. I will build it like the days of old. (Amos 9:11)

The language is repetitive and emphatic: I will raise, fix, raise, build. It’s not an exaggeration to talk about Amos and resurrection. The earthquake (9:9) leads to resurrection “of the booth of David” (9:11). The parallels in Matthew’s story are more beautiful. Jesus, introduced in the first verse of the Gospel as “son of David,” was torn down when the earth shook and the lights went out, but he is raised, fixed, and built up again. Mourning for the death of an only Son is joyfully interrupted when the rebuilt Booth of David suddenly says, “Hi” (Matt 28:9).

The Reader’s World

Seeing the same pattern of decreation and new creation in Amos and Matthew invites us to imagine God’s advent in our own world.

Prepare to meet your God, Israel … Seek Yahweh and live. (Amos 4:12; 5:6)

Throughout Scripture, when God shows up there is judgment for some and salvation for others. The paradigmatic portrait of salvation in the Bible is the exodus story, which meant salvation for Israel and judgment for Pharaoh and his army. Again, the “day of Yahweh” at the end of Israel’s history brought exile and judgment for Israel, but the faithful remnant pointed forward to a shoot from the stump of Jesse rising up and leading to new creation (Isaiah 11). At the end of Jesus’s life, another day of Yahweh played out. The temple of Jesus’s body was torn, but he was built up again, and a faithful remnant took his teaching into all nations (Matt 28:19–20). Because the faithful remnant of disciples went out, we now know Jesus and confess him as Lord. We seek to follow him and respond to all his teaching, including the way he pointed forward to a coming day of Yahweh, “the end of the age” (Matt 24:14; 28:20).

The cycles of judgment and salvation repeat. Whether at the end of our life or at the end of the age, “prepare to meet your God … seek Yahweh and live” is good news.

Conclusion

We should read Amos with an eye towards how his words are a part of the unified story that leads to Jesus, but we cannot stop there. The story goes on. Our lives are a part of that same story that culminated in Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jonathan Pennington, in his book Come and See, writes,

The most important question to ask is this: how does this text benefit my soul and the lives of others?⁴

I hope it’s beneficial in-and-of itself to recognize the connections described above between Amos and Matthew. I just finished reading Kevin Vanhoozer’s Mere Christian Hermeneutics, and I hope this post illustrates what it looks like to read the Old Testament as he suggests: both “trans-figurally” and “transfigurally,” with an “eschatological frame of reference,” with a “christoscopic” lens.⁵

What would it look like to heed the Amos’s call to “prepare to meet your God … seek Yahweh and live”? The answer to that question comes from daily personal reflection, but it’s done in light of Christ, the fulfillment of all Scripture.

In close, I would like to point to another helpful part of Pennington’s Come and See. He mentions four questions to think through as we seek to apply Scripture to our lives. Each question highlights a different way in which the message of Scripture can be applied:

1. What should I do? (Duty)
2. Who am I? (Character)
3. Where should we go? (Goals)
4. How can I see? (Discernment)⁶
   

As we meditate on the repeating patterns of judgment, salvation, decreation, and new creation, it’s helpful to ask different types of application questions: What should we do? Who should we be? Where should we go? How do the repeating patterns in Amos and Matthew impact the way I see the world?

Footnotes

1. M. Daniel Carroll R., The Book of Amos, New International Commentary on the Old and New Testament (Eerdmans, 2020), 456. ↩
2. Those aren’t typos. Oddly enough, each mention of earthquake/shaking is in a matching chapter-verse pair: 1:1, 8:8, 9:9. ↩
3. The reading of Symmachus (and the LXX) come from Joseph Zeigler, ed. Duodecim Prophetae, Vol. XIII. Vetus Testamentum Graecum. Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis Editum. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984. I don’t have access to Felix Albrecht’s new edition of this volume, but if anyone does and something has changed here, I’d love to know! ↩
4. Jonathan Pennington, Come and See: The Journey of Knowing God through Scripture, (Crossway, 2023), 100. ↩
5. Kevin J Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically (Zondervan Academic, 2024). ↩
6. Pennington, Come and See, 102. Pennington credits these questions to Dan Doriani, citing Daniel M. Doriani, Putting the Truth to Work: The Theory and Practice of Biblical Application (P&R, 2001) and Dan Doriani, “Applying Scripture,” The Gospel Coalition, accessed April 26, 2022, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org. ↩