WHAT STRUCK me most while watching the videos of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake and its aftershocks was not the collapsing buildings, the swaying structures, or even the panic on people’s faces. It was the voices.
These were not news reports or professionally edited documentaries. They were random videos posted on social media by ordinary people who happened to be holding their phones when the ground suddenly began to shake.
Again and again, amid the confusion and terror, I heard the same cry: “Lord! Tama na po, Lord!”
The words came spontaneously. No one seemed to be reciting a memorized prayer. No one was trying to formulate a theological statement. They were simply crying out from the depths of their fear.
Yet the more I listened, the more those words reminded me of another cry recorded almost three thousand years ago in the Book of Amos: “O Lord God, cease, I beseech you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small?” (Amos 7:5)
The similarity is striking. The people in those videos were not claiming innocence. They were not making arguments. They were not trying to explain why the earthquake was happening. They were simply overwhelmed by their own fragility.
Before the terrifying power of nature, all illusions of human strength vanished. What remained was the humble recognition of human smallness and the instinctive appeal for mercy.
“How can Jacob stand? He is so small.”
One of the most familiar ways of describing a prophet in the Judaeo-Christian tradition is as God’s messenger or spokesperson. The prophet receives God’s word and delivers it faithfully to the people. “Thus says the Lord” is the classic prophetic formula. The prophet speaks for God.
The role of mediation, intercession, and propitiation belonged more properly to the priests. They stood between God and the people through ritual sacrifice. They offered prayers and acts of atonement on behalf of the nation.
And yet, when we read the prophetic literature carefully, we discover something unexpected. There are moments when the prophet can no longer remain a mere messenger. Having seen what God intends to reveal, having been allowed to glimpse the catastrophe that looms ahead, the prophet is overcome by compassion. He dares to cross the boundary of his role. Instead of simply speaking for God to the people, he begins speaking for the people to God.
The clearest example is the prophet Amos. After six chapters of denouncing Israel’s sins—its corruption, exploitation of the poor, dishonest commerce, and religious hypocrisy—Amos is shown a vision of devastation. He sees locusts consuming the land. He sees a fire so fierce that it threatens to devour everything. The message is unmistakable: disaster is coming.
But something surprising happens. Amos does not merely report the vision. He interrupts it. “O Lord God, forgive, I beseech you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small?” (Amos 7:2)
Then again: “O Lord God, cease, I beseech you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small?” (Amos 7:5)
Notice what Amos does not say. He does not claim that Israel is innocent. He does not deny the people’s wrongdoing. He does not excuse their sins.
Instead, he appeals to their frailty.
“Jacob is so small.”
The prophet who has just spent six chapters exposing the nation’s crimes suddenly finds himself pleading for mercy. He sees not only the people’s guilt; he also sees their vulnerability. And the Lord relents.
Amos is not alone. Moses had done the same after the sin of the golden calf. Samuel considered it a sin to cease praying for Israel. Jeremiah repeatedly interceded for a people whom God had already warned him not to pray for. Again and again, the prophets find themselves caught between God’s justice and God’s mercy.
Perhaps this is because the true prophet is not a detached observer. He does not stand outside the people. He belongs to them. Their sins grieve him, but so does their suffering. The closer he comes to God, the more he begins to share not only God’s indignation at evil but also God’s compassion for sinners.
Jonah—whom many scholars regard as a fictional character—is the amusing exception. Sent to Nineveh, he finally announces the coming judgment. But when the Ninevites repent and God relents, Jonah sulks. He is disappointed that the punishment has been withdrawn. The book is almost satirical. While Amos pleads for mercy, Jonah resents it. Yet precisely by contrast, Jonah helps us see what is most characteristic of the prophetic vocation: not merely announcing judgment but participating in God’s desire to save.
I remember waking up one night in 2019, at the height of the killings associated with Tokhang. I was drenched in sweat. The dream remained vivid in my mind long after I opened my eyes.
In the dream, I saw what Moses described in the book of Exodus—a bush on fire but not burning out. Then I looked around and saw scenes of devastation. Buildings had collapsed. Communities were in ruins. People wandered in confusion amid the destruction.
What disturbed me most was not the devastation itself but the sense that I was being asked to announce it. It was as though I was being shown a looming catastrophe and commanded to proclaim it as a warning.
Yet in the dream I found myself unable to do so. Like Amos, I found myself pleading instead. I was arguing with God. I was interceding on behalf of the people.
I knew their faults. I knew the violence, the hatred, the indifference, and the cruelty that had become part of our national life. I knew the innocent blood that cried out from the ground. I knew that there are moments in history when a nation seems to be racing headlong toward its own destruction. Yet the vision of suffering overwhelmed every desire to condemn.
I should clarify that I do not believe God sends earthquakes, wars, epidemics, or other calamities in order to punish people. The God revealed by Jesus is not a vindictive deity who delights in destruction. On the contrary, Jesus rejected the easy assumption that those who suffer calamities must somehow deserve them. When the tower of Siloam collapsed and killed eighteen people, he asked, “Do you think they were more guilty than all the others?” His answer was unequivocal: “By no means.”
Yet human beings have an uncanny ability to bring suffering upon themselves and upon one another. Violence, greed, corruption, indifference, and the abuse of creation carry consequences that can become disastrous. Nations, like individuals, can move toward self-destruction when they refuse the paths of justice, compassion, and truth.
The prophetic vision, then, is not a prediction of divine revenge. It is a warning about the consequences of turning away from what gives life. The prophet sees the danger and cries out. But having seen the danger, he also pleads for mercy. He sees not only human guilt but also human fragility.
That is what Amos saw when he prayed: “How can Jacob stand? He is so small?”
Perhaps this is what prophetic intercession ultimately is. It is allowing oneself to be moved by the same compassion that rises spontaneously from the hearts of people when they find themselves helpless before forces greater than themselves. It is hearing their cry before it is even uttered. It is standing before God and saying, not because the people are innocent but because they are frail: “Forgive, Lord. How can Jacob stand? He is so small?”
Perhaps that is what happens when prophecy comes close to the heart of God. The prophet begins by speaking for God. But sometimes, after seeing what God sees and feeling what God feels, he cannot help but speak also for the people.
The prophet who truly knows God does not delight in punishment. Like Moses, like Jeremiah, like Amos, he discovers within himself the heart of an intercessor.
For the closer one comes to God, the more one discovers that God’s deepest impulse is not condemnation but compassion.
And sometimes the only prayer left is the same one heard amid a trembling earth:
“Lord, tama na po, Lord
