The Curse in Amos 8:12 and the Impact of My Blog

The prophet Amos delivered his oracle during a period of material prosperity in Israel, yet spiritual famine gripped the land. His words capture a paradox that resonates across millennia: “They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it” (Amos 8:12). In Amos’s original context, this curse promised that despite frantic searching, the word of God would be inaccessible to a people who had rejected divine instruction. Yet in our contemporary moment, this ancient text illuminates a strikingly different reality. Far from experiencing famine, our world witnesses an unprecedented hunger for biblical knowledge, one that transcends geographical boundaries, national borders, and cultural divides. And I have been given the profound privilege of witnessing and participating in answering that hunger through my Old Testament blog.

The evidence of this global spiritual appetite manifests in the remarkable reach my blog has achieved across nearly every nation on earth. What began as a calling to teach and interpret Scripture has become an unexpectedly far-reaching ministry. Through my blog, seekers from sea to sea, and from north to east are indeed running to and fro—and through faithful Old Testament scholarship and careful interpretation, they are finding the word of the LORD. What Amos portrayed as judgment has been transformed, through God’s grace and the medium of digital communication, into a tool for biblical education and spiritual formation that reaches around the globe.

The Curse and Its Context

To truly appreciate the significance of Amos’s statement, we need to understand the historical and theological background from which it arose. Writing in the eighth century BCE, Amos spoke to the northern kingdom of Israel during a time of relative peace and economic growth. However, this material wealth camouflaged a spiritual crisis. The wealthy exploited the poor, merchants engaged in dishonest practices, and religious rituals had become empty routines detached from justice and righteousness. Essentially, the people had turned away from the word of the LORD.

Amos’s oracle of judgment, therefore, carries a particular sting: the removal of access to God’s word is the ultimate punishment for those who had forsaken it. The image of people wandering desperately from sea to sea and from north to east, covering the entire compass of their known world, evokes futility and exhaustion. They search everywhere, with intensity and determination, yet find nothing. The word of God, once readily available through prophets and priestly instruction, becomes absent. This is not merely a physical scarcity but a spiritual catastrophe: a people severed from divine guidance in their greatest moment of need.

Yet the verse also carries an implicit message about human nature and our fundamental orientation. Even in rebellion, even after rejecting God’s word, the people still seek it. The very act of searching, however futile in Amos’s context, testifies to an inextinguishable human longing for transcendent truth, for guidance, for meaning that transcends the material and the immediate.

The Global Hunger for Old Testament Knowledge—And My Blog’s Response

In the twenty-first century, the ancient hunger for God’s word manifests in forms the prophet could scarcely have imagined. No longer confined to the geographical boundaries of ancient Israel or limited by the scarcity of written texts, the search for biblical understanding has become truly global. The desire to comprehend the Old Testament, to grapple with its wisdom, its history, its prophecies, and its spiritual depth, reaches across oceans and continents, transcending religious, cultural, and national boundaries.

I recognized this hunger early in my ministry. As a professor of Old Testament, I have always believed that biblical scholarship should not stay confined within the walls of academic institutions. The insights gained through years of study, careful attention to historical context, and nuanced understanding of Hebrew language and ancient Near Eastern culture deserve to reach a much broader audience than seminaries and universities can serve. This conviction led me to start my Old Testament blog: a platform dedicated to making serious biblical scholarship accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world, with genuine curiosity about Scripture.

What has resulted is nothing short of remarkable. My blog has become a bridge connecting biblical scholars to global audiences. It has transformed what could have remained academic exercises into resources that reach seekers in nearly every nation on earth. When I sit down to write a post on Old Testament interpretation, I do not write merely for scholars in my field. I write knowing that my words will be read in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and beyond. I write with the conviction that the Old Testament speaks to universal human questions, and that people across all cultural and national boundaries deserve access to faithful, careful biblical interpretation.

The Remarkable Impact: Statistics That Testify to Global Reach

The data I get from my blog analytics tells a story that moves me deeply every time I look at it. These are not just numbers on a screen; they stand for real people in real places who are seriously engaging with Scripture and seeking a deeper understanding of God’s word. The statistics from my blog show the reach and depth of this global ministry in ways I could hardly have imagined when I first started writing.

In a single week—from October 16 to October 22, 2025—my blog attracted visitors from 99 different countries and territories. Ninety-nine! In just seven days, people from nearly a hundred distinct political entities found their way to my blog seeking biblical insight. This is not the work of a massive media empire or a heavily funded organization. This is the fruit of faithful scholarship made accessible through a single blog platform. These visitors came from every inhabited continent. They came from nations where Christianity flourishes and from nations where Christians are a small minority. They came from wealthy developed countries and from developing nations. They came rich and poor, educated and less formally trained, young and old. But they all came seeking the word of the LORD, and I have had the privilege of providing it.

Since I began blogging, my blog has had nearly three million total reads. Three million! When I started this ministry, I hoped my posts might reach hundreds of readers. The reality has surpassed my expectations in ways both humbling and rewarding. Almost three million people have intentionally chosen to spend their time reading my Old Testament interpretation and scholarship. That is three million chances to help someone understand Scripture more deeply, to clear up a confusion, to connect ancient texts to modern issues, to deepen faith, and to strengthen knowledge.

The most notable example is my post “Who Was King Lemuel?” This single essay has been read by 87,900 people. King Lemuel is a relatively unknown biblical figure, appearing only in Proverbs 31 as the recipient of his mother’s guidance. Yet my detailed analysis of this figure, covering questions of historical background, literary purpose, and modern relevance, has attracted nearly ninety thousand readers from around the world. This reveals something important: people want to understand the Old Testament in depth. They are not satisfied with shallow readings. They seek careful scholarship and thorough interpretation whenever they can find it.

And my blog reaches them. Over the years of blogging, my visitor statistics show visitors from approximately 196 countries, territories, and possessions. This covers most of the world’s inhabited political regions. From Australia to Zimbabwe, from Canada to the Philippines, from Norway to South Africa, my readers come from all over the globe. While a few major nations are missing from my visitor records, specifically North Korea, Iran, and Tajikistan, the fact that I have readers from nearly every other country demonstrates a truly worldwide interest in Old Testament texts and interpretation through my blog.

From Famine to Feast: My Blog as God’s Instrument of Grace

This global phenomenon encourages us to reflect on Amos’s words in light of what God has accomplished through my blog. The prophet declared a curse: those who seek would find nothing. Yet, through my ministry, that curse has been lifted. Those seeking the word of the LORD through my blog are indeed finding it. They search across the internet, from sea to sea and from north to east, discovering faithful biblical scholarship that helps them understand Scripture more deeply.

I do not say this with arrogance, but rather with profound gratitude. I am acutely aware that whatever fruit my blog bears comes from God’s grace and guidance. I am simply a channel through which biblical knowledge flows. Yet I am deeply honored to serve in this capacity. When I receive emails from readers in distant countries expressing gratitude for an insight that clarified a confusing passage, helped them in their personal faith journey, or equipped them to teach others more faithfully, I am reminded of the sacred privilege I have been granted.

Several factors have enabled my blog to reach this unprecedented audience. First, the technological infrastructure of the internet has eliminated the scarcity that once limited access to biblical scholarship. In Amos’s world, texts were scarce and concentrated. In ours, knowledge disseminates instantaneously across the globe. My scholarly work, produced in my study, reaches a teenager in rural Mongolia just as readily as it reaches a seminarian in London. This democratization of information has unleashed the latent hunger for Old Testament knowledge that may have always existed but could never be adequately satisfied by limited resources.

Second, I have committed myself to maintaining rigorous scholarship while presenting it in an accessible language. I do not oversimplify to the point of distortion. I engage seriously with historical contexts, Hebrew linguistics, textual criticism, and interpretive complexity. Yet, I do so with clear writing and concrete examples that make scholarly insights accessible to intelligent readers regardless of their academic background. The nearly three million reads my blog has accumulated testify that people hunger not for simplistic soundbites but for genuine understanding that respects both their intelligence and their questions.

Third, I have never lost sight of why this work matters. The Old Testament is not just an object of historical interest or an academic subject. It is Scripture, divinely inspired, authoritative, and always relevant. The texts speak to timeless human issues: suffering and divine justice, the pursuit of wisdom, the nature of covenant and community, the potential for redemption, and the tension between judgment and mercy. These are not just historical topics; they address issues that remain urgent today. A reader in Singapore faces many of the same existential questions as one in São Paulo. The psalms’ expressions of lament resonate across cultures and continents. The prophetic critique of injustice has immediate contemporary relevance. The wisdom literature tackles perennial human struggles. By presenting the Old Testament as the living word of God instead of just historical artifacts, my blog helps readers worldwide engage with Scripture in ways that transform their faith and understanding.

The Democratization of Biblical Knowledge

The statistics of my blog readership also illuminate broader patterns about who seeks Old Testament knowledge and why. The geographic diversity of my visitors suggests that engagement with the Old Testament is not primarily driven by denominational loyalty or institutional requirements. Rather, it reflects genuine intellectual and spiritual curiosity. People are seeking to understand these ancient texts on their own terms, driven by personal conviction rather than external coercion. And my blog has become a trusted resource for this pursuit.

This represents a significant shift in how biblical knowledge is pursued, and I am honored to be part of facilitating that shift. In earlier periods, formal education, clerical authority, and institutional structures largely determined who had access to biblical interpretation and what interpretations were considered legitimate. Today, individuals exercise considerable agency in selecting their sources, pursuing their questions, and forming their own understanding. A visitor from a small town in Eastern Europe can spend an afternoon exploring my Old Testament blog, encountering interpretations and perspectives that would have been unavailable to their ancestors. A pastor in sub-Saharan Africa can access a careful scholarly analysis of a biblical passage to deepen his sermon preparation. A student in Asia can explore the historical context of a prophetic book to enrich her university studies.

My blog has become an instrument for this democratization. I deliberately make my work freely available. I do not gate my content behind paywalls or require subscriptions. I believe that biblical scholarship is too important to be restricted to the wealthy or the privileged. When I post about King Lemuel or any other biblical topic, I do so with the conviction that a farmer in India has just as much right to biblical insight as a tenured professor in a prestigious university.

The data bears witness to the hunger this creates and the impact my blog has in satisfying it. The nearly three million reads over three years represent three million individuals choosing to invest time in understanding God’s word more deeply. They come from 196 countries and territories. In a single week, ninety-nine nations access my blog. These readers cannot all be driven by academic requirements or institutional expectations. Rather, they represent something far more fundamental: human beings across every culture and nation seeking meaning, seeking wisdom, seeking encounter with Scripture. And through my blog, they are finding what they seek.

Conclusion: My Blog as an Answer to Amos’s Promise

As I reflect on Amos 8:12, I am struck by its paradoxical application to my ministry. The prophet spoke judgment through the promise of spiritual famine. Yet God, in his grace, has transformed what could have remained merely prophecy into an instrument for spiritual abundance. Through my Old Testament blog, I have been given the extraordinary privilege of responding to the ancient and universal human hunger for God’s word.

The statistics are remarkable: nearly three million reads, 196 countries represented, ninety-nine nations visiting in a single week, 87,900 readers of a post about King Lemuel. But behind these numbers stand real people, seekers in every corner of the earth who have found in my blog a resource that helps them understand Scripture more faithfully. Some come from strong Christian backgrounds seeking to deepen their knowledge. Others come from secular contexts, curious about these ancient texts and their relevance. Still others come from cultures where Christianity is a new or minority faith, eager to engage with Scripture as seriously as possible.

To all of these seekers, my blog extends the same welcome: Come and study the Old Testament carefully and faithfully. Bring your questions, your confusion, your desire to understand. You will find here rigorous scholarship that respects both your intelligence and your faith. You will discover that these ancient texts continue to speak with power to the contemporary human condition. You will encounter a God who is just and merciful, demanding and gracious, powerful and intimate. Through careful attention to historical context, linguistic nuance, and literary artistry, you will encounter Scripture not as an artifact but as a living word.

Amos promised that those who seek the word of the LORD would find it nowhere. Yet in our time, through the grace of God and the technological realities of digital communication, I have been able to help ensure that seekers across the entire globe, from sea to sea and from north to east, do indeed find it. My blog exists to serve this purpose: to make the treasures of Old Testament scholarship accessible to any person anywhere who hungers for a deeper understanding of Scripture.

If you have found this essay and are reading these words, I invite you to subscribe to my blog. Whether you are a pastor trying to understand a difficult text, a student writing a paper, a curious seeker exploring Scripture for the first time, or a scholar looking for fresh interpretive insights, my blog welcomes you. Join the hundreds of thousands from nearly every nation who have discovered that faithful Old Testament interpretation can transform understanding and deepen faith.

The word of the LORD is being sought by people everywhere. And through my blog, it is being found.

Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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