Response to Amos 9:14-15 comment

I was going to do this in a comment, but I'm a rambler and it won't fit in a comment. :) Sorry, GR!

Regarding my previous post and a comment on it...

Amos 9:14-15 (NIV) -

I will bring back my exiled [g] people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God.

Yes, it does seem to contradict my statement. But when I read the entire passage, beginning with verse 11, I think it agrees with my statement. Read Amos 9:11-15 (NIV):

"In that day I will restore David's fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name," declares the LORD, who will do these things.
"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills.

14 I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God.

Amos wrote before the Northern Kingdom was taken by Assyria. He witnessed first-hand the long-term Assyrian plunder. He told the people why this was happening and that they needed to repent. But, he did shine a light of hope, much like Jeremiah and Isaiah who promised that the Kingdom would return. He spoke of the coming LORD and His Kingdom.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary tells it like this:

Christ died to gather together the children of God that were scattered abroad, here said to be those who were called by his name. The Lord saith this, who doeth this, who can do it, who has determined to do it, the power of whose grace is engaged for doing it. Verses #(13 to 15) may refer to the early times of Christianity, but will receive a more glorious fulfilment in the events which all the prophets more or less foretold, and may be understood of the happy state when the fulness both of the Jews and the Gentiles come into the church. Let us continue earnest in prayer for the fulfilment of these prophecies, in the peace, purity, and the beauty of the church. God marvellously preserves his elect amidst the most fearful confusions and miseries. When all seems desperate, he wonderfully revives his church, and blesses her with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. And great shall be the glory of that period, in which not one good thing promised shall remain unfulfilled.

And Edmund Halley's Bible Handbook says this of Amos 9:

Further Prediction of Captivity (1-8). Within 30 years it came to pass, and the apostate kingdom ceased to exist.
The restored Throne of David (8-15). An ever-recurrent prophetic vision of radiant days beyond the gloom. Amos lived near Bethlehem, the city of David. He took it to heart that the Ten Tribes had renounced the Davidic Throne, which God had ordained for his people, and for 200 years had obstinately declined to return to its fold. His last word: In coming days David's Kingdom, which they had despised, will recover, and rule, not over one nation only, but over a World of Nations in Eternal Glory.

The restoration of Israel is, as I said, Christ's Kingdom. It's you and me, brother! It has nothing to do with the current physical city of Jerusalem. It has nothing to do with the mountainous land just west of the Jordan River. It has to do with the people Christ claimed for Himself. Praise God! We will be restored into a land of milk and honey!

Thank you for your comments, GR. I did a lot of reading today.