The Divided Kingdom
- When
- c. 760 BC
- Written by
- Amos, a herdsman of Tekoa
- Chapters
- 9
The big idea
A shepherd from Judah confronts prosperous Israel: their worship is empty while they crush the poor, so judgment is coming. Yet God will raise up David’s fallen tent.
Themes
- The day of the Lord
- Justice for the poor
- Empty worship
- David’s house restored
Memory verse
But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Key passages
- 1–2Judgment on the nations
- 5:21–24I hate your feasts
- 7Amos’s call and visions
- 9:11–15The tabernacle of David raised
Links to other Scripture
- Acts 15:15–17James quotes Amos
- James 2:1–9No respect of persons
- James 5:1–6Woe to the rich
- Matthew 25:31–46The least of these
Read the text
Choose a chapter to read it here in the King James Version. Verses with a dotted underline have notes from Bible scholars. Tap one to open them.
Notes from
Chapters
King James text and the commentaries of Henry, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Gill, Clarke, Calvin, and Keil and Delitzsch are in the public domain. Tyndale Open Study Notes are used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, from tyndaleopenresources.com. Texts were reformatted for this site.
Journal prompts
Keep a journal or notebook for your study. Write your answers there, in your own words.
- Where do you see Christ in this book?
- Amos says God hates empty worship that ignores the poor. How are your prayers and your treatment of others connected?
- Let justice roll down like waters. Where do you see injustice that you could do something about?
- God promised to raise up David’s fallen tent. What fallen thing in your life are you asking him to raise?
- In one sentence, this book is about…