individual corruption, when there is nothing to be done but to smite.  That period is not reached because God changes, but because men get deeper in sin.  Because ’the harvest is ripe,’ the long-delayed command, ‘Put in thy sickle’ is given to the angel of judgment, and the clusters of those black grapes, whose juice in the wine-press of the wrath of God is blood, are cut down and cast in.  It is a solemn lesson, applying to each soul as well as to communities.  By neglect of God’s voice, and persistence in our own evil ways, we can make ourselves such that we are ripe for judgment, and can compel long-suffering to strike.  Which are we ripening for—­the harvest when the wheat shall be gathered into Christ’s barns, or that when the tares shall be bound in bundles for burning?

The tragedy of that fruit-gathering is described with extraordinary grimness and force in the abrupt language of verse 3.  The merry songs sung in the palace (this rendering seems more appropriate here than ‘temple’) will be broken off, and the singers’ voices will quaver into shrill shrieks, so suddenly will the judgment be.  Then comes a picture as abrupt in its condensed terribleness as anything in Tacitus—­’Many the corpses; everywhere they fling them; hush!’ We see the ghastly masses of dead (’corpse’ is in the singular, as if a collective noun), so numerous that no burial-places could hold them; and no ceremonial attended them, but they were rudely flung anywhere by anybody (no nominative is given), with no accustomed voice of mourning, but in gloomy silence.  It is like Defoe’s picture of the dead-cart in the plague of London.  Such is ever the end of departing from God—­songs palsied into silence or turned into wailing when the judgment bursts; death stalking supreme, and silence brooding over all.

The crimes that ripened men for this terrible harvest are next set forth, in part, in verses 4 to 6.  These verses partly coincide verbally with the previous indictment in Amos ii. 6, etc., which, however, is more comprehensive.  Here only one form of sin is dealt with.  And what was the sin that deserved the bad eminence of being thus selected as the chief sign that Israel was ripe and rotten?  Precisely the one which gets most indulgence in the Christian Church; namely, eagerness to be rich, and sharp, unkindly dealing.  These men, who were only fit to be swept out of the land, were most punctual in their religious duties.  They would not on any account do business either on a festival or on Sabbath, but they were very impatient till—­shall we say?  Monday morning came—­that they might get to their beloved work again.