Haftorah Parsha Vayeishev

Amos 2:6-16 3:1-8.

In this haftorah Amos prophesied using the sale of Joseph by his brothers, the sin of selling the righteous for
silver (Amos 2:6) to explain subsequent rectification by God on beloved Israel.
Amos opens with a rebuke to the Jewish People. G-d had been patient with them for three major sins
including sexual impropriety, idolatry and murder, but the fourth sin, mistreatment of innocents, widows,
orphans and the poor crossed over the line.
In the same way that Hosea contrasted God's mercy to Israel even through their
disloyalty and betrayal, Amos recounts how God gave them the land of the Canaanites
and blessed their children with prophetic spirit, expecting them to adhere to a higher
standard of behavior (vv 9-11). But the people gave the Nazirites (=their teachers,
Targum) wine to drink so that they would not be able to give legal rulings (cf. Lev.
10:9-11) and they told the true prophets to stop prophesying (cf. Amos 7:12). Amos
warns that these sins will completely undermine the strength of the nation (vv 13-16).
The haftorah ends with an admonition from G-d, one that also recalls His eternal love
for His people: "Hearken to this word which the Lord spoke about you, O children of
Israel, concerning the entire nation that I brought up from the land of Egypt. 'Only you
did I love above all the families of the earth; therefore, I will visit upon you all your
iniquities'" As opposed to other nations to whom G-d does not pay close attention,
G-d's love for His nation causes Him to punish them for their misdeeds, to cleanse
them and prod them back onto the path of the just.
V 1: The prophet urges the people to HEAR, understand and internalize the word of
God that he will speak. Amos explicitly addresses the ENTIRE FAMILY of Israel - the
kingdom of Judah and the Ten Tribes.
V 2: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth". This text offers a crucial
insight into the deepest mystery of the world, why Israel suffers more than all the
other nations, as history clearly testifies until this very day. In the words of RaDaK: "It
is because I know and love you and have chosen you from all the peoples that I will
therefore punish you for all your sins, because you have seen and known all My signs
and wonders that I performed on your behalf, and you know I have benefited you.
Justice therefore demands that I punish you for your sins. For when the servants who
minister directly before the king disobey his orders, he shows greater anger towards
them than he does towards those who are not so close to him. God pays little
attention to the nations of the world regardless of whether they do good or evil except
when their wrongdoing is very serious as in the case of the generation of the flood.
But in the case of Israel , He punishes them for all their sins precisely because they
are close to Him."
Vv 3-6 contain a series of seven interrelated rhetorical questions leading to the
inevitable conclusion that the doom foretold by the prophets will come about.
1. "Can two walk together unless they be agreed?" (v 3): Before I punish you, I make it
known through My prophets in case it might bring you to repent. If I did not make
myself known to and "meet" the prophet and reveal My secret to him in order to

reprove you, how could he have fabricated his prophecies, for how could he have
known what I am going to do? Know that I have sent him (RaDaK).
2. "Will a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey?" (v 4) The holy spirit in the
mouth of the prophet is the "roar of the lion". Just as the lion only roars when he has
his prey, so the prophets only prophesy doom when the decree has been made. The
lion also alludes to Nebuchadnezzar (Rashi).
3. "Will a young lion cry out from his lair if he has taken nothing?" (v 4). The lion does
not roar before he has his prey in order not to give it a warning in time for it to escape
(RaDaK).
4. "Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where there is no trap for it?" (v 5): The
enemy will not leave you alone and go away empty-handed (RaDaK).
5. "Does a snare spring up from the earth and have taken nothing at all?" (v 5). How
can it be that you sin yet your sins will not be a snare for you? (Rashi).
6. "Shall a shofar be sounded in the city and the people not be afraid?" When the
watchman warns the people of an onslaught of enemies, the people become filled
with fear. So you should have feared on hearing the warnings of the prophets.
7. "Shall evil befall a city and the Lord has not done it?" When the evil comes, you will
know that it has been sent by God as the penalty for not heeding His prophets.
Vv 9-10: The prophet calls on the Philistines and Egyptians to come to witness the
coming tumult in Shomron, capital of the Ten Tribes, as a result of their oppression and
robbery.
V 11: The enemies are poised all around the land, ready to bring down the arrogant
nation.
V 12: When a lion snatches a lamb, the shepherd tries to retrieve at least a mere
couple of bones or a piece of ear, even though they are of no use whatever, in order
to prove to his master that the lamb was taken as prey and that he did not steal it
(Metzudas David). The metaphor comes to emphasize how absolute the destruction of
the kingdom of the Ten Tribes would be. Only the few members of the Ten Tribes who
attached themselves to the House of Judah would survive (see Rashi).
Vv 13-15: The first section of this prophecy concludes with the warning that the
coming doom will destroy Jeraboam's idolatrous altar of Beith El together with the
opulence of Shomron, whose inhabitants were so wealthy that they had separate
winter and summer houses.
"May G-d return our hearts to the Holy One, restore us to our land and re-build the
temple in Jerusalem quickly in our times. " Amen