Amos 2:1
Thus says the Lord, “For three transgressions of Moab and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime.
Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime.
Grave desecration is a serious offense and that’s what this is going to be about. The prophet Amos recalls this sin committed by Moab against the king of Edom.
2 Kings 23:16
Now when Josiah turned, he saw the graves that were there on the mountain, and he sent and took the bones from the graves and burned them on the altar and defiled it according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.
According to 2 Kings 23:16, the burning of the bones of the dead is a desecration.
It is probable that Moab used the lime of bones for its lime industry, for plastering walls. This shows that we cannot speak too directly of a cremation in our sense of the word.
Yet on the other hand it is true that in both cases – then and now – the cremation must be seen as a disgrace, even though many people no longer experience it that way today. The Word corrects this experience.
Certainly, burial is also a humiliation. Nevertheless, it is good to hold on to that in our time. Isn’t our Lord Jesus also buried?! Thus He has sanctified the sepulcher for His own. And made it to a kind of Gateway to Life.
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