GOD's Judgment Upon Damascus

Damascus is the capital city of Syria, Israel's neighbor to the northeast. Syria was always at war with Israel.

God used the Syrians to chasten Israel, and then He used the Assyrians to punish Syria. (2 Kings 10:32; 13:3; Isaiah 10:5)

1. JUDGMENT UPON SYRIA.
   How did the Syrians fill up their measure of iniquities against God and His people Israel? 'Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron.' (Amos 1:3).

“Three and four” equals seven, the number of completion or perfection, suggesting their sin had multiplied and come to the full (Lev. 26:18, 21, 24). The idea is that their judgment was inescapable and irrevocable.

'...threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron.' This horrible atrocity, refers to the tearing and mangling of human bodies with iron threshing instruments, as was perpetrated by the Syrian King Hazael of Damascus.

2. GOD'S JUDGMENT UPON HAZAEL.
   Hazael a murderer and usurper, with savage cruelty, devastated Gilead all the way from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea.
   Amos 1:4; Jeremiah 49:27; 2 Kings 8:7-15.

3. GOD'S JUDGMENT IS INESCAPABLE.
   Amos does not mention who Syria's adversary would be, but we know this prophecy was fulfilled in 732 BC when Tiglath-pileser III, the King of Assyria, went up against Damascus and conquered the Syrians. He carried them captive to Kir (an Assyrian province on the Kir River) and slew King Rezin of Syria (Amos 1:5; cf. 2 Kings 16:7-9).

Little has changed in 3,000 years. Syria sponsors terror groups, and many of these leaders live in Damascus.