Our reading in chapter 6 of Amos included these words quoted in Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 in the New Testament:
25“Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel? 26No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—the images you made for yourselves. 27So I will send you into exile, to a land east of Damascus,c” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Heaven’s Armies.
We should understand this as an exaggeration or hyperbole. The NET notes are helpful here: Like Jer 7:22-23, this passage seems to contradict the Pentateuchal accounts that indicate Israel did offer sacrifices during the wilderness period. It is likely that both Amos and Jeremiah overstate the case to emphasize the relative insignificance of sacrifices in comparison to weightier matters of the covenant.
9(If there are ten men left in one house, they will all die. 10And when a relative who is responsible to dispose of the deadd goes into the house to carry out the bodies, he will ask the last survivor, “Is anyone else with you?” When the person begins to swear, “No, by . . .,” he will interrupt and say, “Stop! Don’t even mention the name of the LORD.”)
So what’s going on here?! An uncle would come in to literally ‘burn’ the corpses. (Translated as ‘dispose of the dead’ in the NLT.) The NET note gives three ideas of why the uncle would not want the Lord’s name to be invoked:
This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment;
the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved;
an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.
We are too far from the situation to be dogmatic as to which to pick.
https://www.bible.com/bible/116/amo.7.nlt
We turn now to Isaiah 48. In Isaiah 47, we heard how God criticized the Babylonians just like Amos criticized the people of Judah and the Northern Kingdom for living in uncaring luxury built upon the unjust treatment of others. And God taunted the Babylonians to use their magic charms to try to charm away his coming judgment.
https://www.bible.com/bible/116/isa.48.nlt
We turn now to Revelation 1. The apostle John clearly tells us that he is the author of this book and that he was at that time in exile on the island of Patmos.
Four early church fathers affirm that John was exiled to the island of Patmos during Domitian’s reign. They wrote that the government allowed John to return to Ephesus after this emperor died. And I have seen a picture of John’s tomb at Ephesus. Domitian died in A.D. 96. Consequently many interpreters date the writing of this book near A.D. 95 or 96.
“Perhaps more than any other book in the NT, the Apocalypse enjoyed wide distribution and early recognition.”
Estimates vary that from 278 to 500 allusions to Old Testament verses are found in the book of Revelation, but John never actually quotes from the Old Testament. There are major allusions to the prophets Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Amos, and Zechariah, as well as to Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Psalms.
Not listed above is Genesis. But Mears writes: What we saw in the beginning in Genesis is consummated in Revelation.
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In Genesis the heaven and earth were created. In Revelation we glimpse a new heaven and earth.
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In Genesis the sun and moon appear. In Revelation we read there there will no longer be a need for the sun and moon.
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In Genesis there is a garden with the tree of life. In Revelation the garden is included in the holy city with trees of life on both sides of a river of life.
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In Genesis there is the marriage of the first Adam. In Revelation we see the marriage supper of the second Adam, Christ.
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In Genesis we see the beginning of sin. In Revelation sin is vanquished and completely eliminated.
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In Genesis our adversary Satan appears and brings sorrow, pain, and tears. In Revelation Satan is finally given his everlasting judgment in the lake of fire, and sorrow, pain, and tears will no longer plague us.
The book of Revelation has the reputation of being a hard book to understand, and people have often said to me that it must be hard to translate. On the contrary, Revelation is a rather easy book to translate! And John’s main points in writing this book are not at all hard to understand. To help us understand, here are two important points:
Remember that this book is full of symbolism and that many things are not to be taken literally.
Realize that most of this book is not arranged chronologically. What we have instead is a series of visions that show the same events from different perspectives.
https://www.bible.com/bible/116/rev.1.nlt
