Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 2:11

"And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith Jehovah." — Amos 2:11 (ASV)

And I raised up of your sons for prophets—Amos turns from outward mercies to inward, from past to present, from miracles of power to miracles of grace. God’s past mercies live on in those of today; the mercies of today are the assurance to us that we have a share in the past; His miracles of grace are a token that the miracles of His power are not our condemnation. God had, from the time of Moses, “raised up” prophets. Eldad and Medad (Numbers 11:26–29) were images of those whom God would raise up beyond the bounds of His promise. Samuel was an Ephrathite (1 Samuel 1:1); Ahijah the Shilonite, that is, of Shiloh in Ephraim, lived on to old age in the kingdom of the ten tribes after their schism, the witness against the apostasy of Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:7–14; 1 Kings 15:29), yet acknowledged by the king whose rise and the destruction of whose house he prophesied (1 Kings 14:2, 4).

Jehu, son of Hanani, was the prophet of both kingdoms (1 Kings 16:1, 7, 12; 2 Chronicles 19:2; 2 Chronicles 20:34); Micaiah, son of Imlah, was well known to Ahab, as prophesying evil concerning him (1 Kings 22:8, 18) continually; unknown to Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:7). That wondrous pair, marvelous for superhuman sanctity and power among the marvelous miracles of God, Elijah and Elisha, were both “sons” of Israel, whom God “raised up; Elijah the Tishbite (1 Kings 17:1), born, doubtless, at Thisbe, a village of Naphtali, and one of the sojourners in Gilead; Elisha of Abelmeholah (1 Kings 19:16), on the west side of the valley of the Jordan.

And even now He had raised up to them of their own “sons,” Hosea and Jonah. Their presence was the presence of God among them, who, out of the ordinary way of His Providence, “raised” them “up” and filled them with His Spirit; and where the presence of God is, if there is fear, yet there is also hope.

And of your young men for Nazarites—The Nazarite was a fruit of the grace of God in its moral and religious workings, superhuman in holiness and self-denial, as the prophets were of that same grace, conferring superhuman wisdom and knowledge also. Of both, God says, I raised up, teaching that both alike, holiness of life and superhuman wisdom, were His own special gift to each individual, His own creation. God survived His people, called, and “raised up,” by His grace, out of the crowd, those souls which responded to His call. The life of the Nazarites was a continual protest against the self-indulgence and worldliness of the people. It was a life above nature. Unless any prophet like Samuel (1 Samuel 1:11) was also a Nazarite, they had no special office except to live that life.

Their life taught. Indeed, it taught all the more because they had no special gifts of wisdom or knowledge, nothing to distinguish them from ordinary people, except extraordinary grace.

They were evidence of what all might do and be, if they used the grace of God. The power of the grace of God shows itself the more wondrously in those who have nothing else.

The essence of the Nazarite life, as expressed by its name, was “separation,” separation from things of the world, with a view to God. The separation was not necessarily for more than a limited time. In such a case, it corresponded to the strictness of the Christian Lent. It was a considerable discipline for a time.

In those simpler days, when luxury was not so prevalent, the absolute prohibition of anything fermented (Numbers 6:3–4)—whether from the grape or any other substance, or vinegar made of either, or any liquor or refreshing food or drink, made in any way from the grape, fresh or dry, its husks or its kernels—while it cut off every evasion, involved giving up not only every drink that was in any way exciting or stimulating, but also much that was refreshing. Water, which in the East seldom has the freshness of ours, was their only drink. This, which to individuals may be an easy rule, would not be so generally.

An undeviating rule seems slight only to those who have never tried one, nor systematically set themselves to conquer self-will. Such a rule would not be acted upon, except for God. The long, never-shorn hair was probably intended to involve the neglect of personal appearance. Yet this was only the body of the vow; its soul was the dedication to God. The Nazarite not only separated himself from (Numbers 6:3) those earthly things; he separated himself to the Lord (Numbers 6:2, 5-6); he consecrated to the Lord the days of his separation (Numbers 6:12); all the days of his separation he was holy to the Lord (Numbers 6:8); the separation of his God was upon his head (Numbers 6:7).

The vow was a great and singular thing. When man or woman shall vow a special vow of a Nazarite (Numbers 6:2). The ritual of the Nazarite likened him to the priest. Giving him no priestly office, it nevertheless intensified some of the rules of the priesthood.

The priest was to abstain from wine and strong drink only when he went into the tabernacle of the congregations, that he might put difference between holy and unholy, and teach Israel the statutes of the Lord (Leviticus 10:9–11); the Nazarite, so long as he remained such. The priest might defile himself for certain very near dead (Leviticus 21:1–3); the high priest alone and the Nazarite, neither for father nor mother (Leviticus 21:11–12; Numbers 6:7)—and that for a similar reason: the high priest, because the crown of the anointing oil of his God was upon him; the Nazarite, because the consecration of his God was upon his head! His consecrated hair was called by the very same name (Numbers 6:19) as the mitre of the priest. It appears to have been woven into seven locks (Judges 16:13), itself a number of consecration.

If his consecration came to an end, that hair was mingled with the sacrifice (Numbers 6:18), and on his hands alone, besides the priest’s at his consecration, was part of the offering laid (Numbers 6:19).

All Israel was, in God’s purpose, a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6); and, among them, the Nazarite was brought still nearer, not to the priest’s office, but to his character. This must have diffused itself indefinitely through the outward and inward life. Further strictness probably lay in the spirit of the vow.

The outward appearance of the Nazarites seems to have been changed by their abstemiousness: Her Nazarites were purer than snow; they were whiter than milk (Lamentations 4:7). Their countenance had that transparent purity which sometimes results from a pure, abstemious life; as Athanasius is said to have been “bloodless.” John the Immerser, the counterpart of Elijah, ate only of the food of the wilderness, locusts and wild honey; his clothing was haircloth (Luke 1:15; Luke 7:33; Matthew 3:4).

Of James the Just it is related with reference to the Nazarite vow: “He was holy from his mother’s womb; he did not drink wine or strong drink, nor did he eat any living thing; the razor did not come upon his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, and he did not use a bath.” There had been Nazarites in the most disorganized times of Israel. The histories of Samson and Samuel stand in contrast to one another, as Nazarites who, the one forfeited, the other persevered in, his vocation. Elijah’s ascetic character is as if he had been one of them, or deepened the lines of their rule. Ahaziah’s ungodly messengers described him contemptuously as a man, lord of hair, as though he had nothing but his prophet’s broad mantle of hair, and the leather girdle about his loins.

The Rechabites, although Kenites by origin (1 Chronicles 2:55), had been enrolled in the people of God, and had received a rule from their father, uniting with the abstinence of the Nazarites, a mode of life which kept them aloof from the corruptions of cities (Jeremiah 35:7, 9). The rules of their nomadic life were consecrated to God, for He says, There shall not be cut off from Jonadab, the son of Rechab, a man standing before Me for ever (Jeremiah 35:19), that is, as the servant of God. Concerning them, God uses the term which marks the service of the Levites (Deuteronomy 10:8), priests (Judges 20:28), and prophets (1 Kings 17:1). Jonadab, the author of their rule, was plainly an ascetic, through whose presence Jehu hoped to cast a religious character over his ambitious execution of God’s command.

But the value which the artful, though impetuous (2 Kings 9:20), bloodstained captain attached to the presence of the ascetic shows the weight which they had with the people. Strange sight it must have been, the energetic warrior in his coat of mail, and the ascetic, as energetic, in his haircloth. Deeper far was the contrast within. But the more marvelous the contrast, the more it attests the influence which the unworldly ascetic had over the world.

Like the garb of the prophets, their appearance was a standing rebuke to a life of sense. Like the patriarchs, it professed that they were strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. They who sought nothing of the world or of time were a witness to the belief in their eternal home. The Nazarites must now have been a numerous body, since Amos speaks of them as a known class, like the prophets, of whose numbers we hear incidentally.

Yet the memory of these, who, amid the general corruption, were, each in his own sphere, centers of pure faith and life, is embalmed in these few words only. So little reason is there to think that God’s commands were neglected by all, because their observance is not related. Amos appeals publicly to the people that the fact was so, that God had raised up Nazarites as well as prophets among them. He had His little flock (Luke 12:32), His seven thousand (1 Kings 19:18), who escaped the eye even of Elijah.

The gift of the Nazarites was a special favor to Israel, as a memorial of what the grace of God could do for man, and what man could do with the grace of God. His raising up Nazarites, out of their young men—men in their first bloom of unmarried, virgin life (Deuteronomy 32:25; 2 Chronicles 36:17; Jeremiah 51:22; and in the plural, Psalms 78:63; Psalms 148:12; Isaiah 23:4; Jeremiah 31:13; Lamentations 1:18; Lamentations 2:21; Zechariah 9:17; and by Amos himself, Amos 8:13), their picked “very chosen men,” such as furnished the prime of their warriors—strengthened that teaching.

Even now, one devoted to God in his youth is a witness for God, a leaven to the world around him. But the Nazarite also had to bear an outward mark for good, to be singular. His appearance bespoke that he had chosen God.

His vow was not only a living up to the law; it lay beyond the law, the free-will offering of those whom God called. At an age when so many do unlawful things to gratify passion, these abstained even from lawful things.

“Can you not do what these young men and young women can? Or can they do this by themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God?” was Augustine’s upbraiding of himself on the eve of his conversion, as he thought of those who were living a devoted virgin life.

Is it not even thus?—It would be enough that God, the Truth, said it. But He does not condemn without giving space for excuse or defense. So He describes the Day of Judgment (Matthew 25:24–30, 41-45; Matthew 22:11). The books were opened—and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works (Revelation 20:12). Now, in the time of grace, the question asks, what, written under the picture of Christ crucified, once converted a sinner: “This I have done for you: What do you do for Me?” What did they? What had they done? What would they do?