THE BOOK OF AMOS
THE genuineness of the bulk of the Book of Amos is not doubted by
any critic. The only passages suspected as interpolations are the
three references to Judah, the three famous outbreaks in praise of
the might of Jehovah the Creator, the final prospect of a hope that
does not gleam in any other part of the book, with a few clauses
alleged to reflect a stage of history later than that in which Amos
worked. In all, these verses amount to only twenty-six or
twenty-seven out of one hundred and forty-six. Each of them can be
discussed separately as we reach it, and we may now pass to consider
the general course of the prophecy which is independent of them.
The Book of Amos consists of Three Groups of Oracles, under one
title, which is evidently meant to cover them all.
The title runs as follows:-
"Words of ‘Amos-who was of the herdsmen of Tekoa’-which he saw
concerning Israel in the days of ‘Uzziah king of Judah, and in the
days of Jarab’am son of Joash, king of Israel: two years before the
earthquake."
The Three Sections, with their contents, are as follows:-
FIRST SECTION: CHAPTERS 1, 2
THE HEATHEN’S CRIMES AND ISRAEL’S
A series of short oracles of the same form, directed impartially
against the political crimes of all the states of Palestine, and
culminating in a more detailed denunciation of the social evils of
Israel, whose doom is foretold, beneath the same flood of war as
shall overwhelm all her neighbors.
SECOND SECTION: CHAPTERS 3-6
ISRAEL’S CRIMES AND DOOM
A series of various oracles of denunciation, which have no
further logical connection than is supplied by a general sameness of
subject, and a perceptible increase of detail and articulateness
from beginning to end of the section. They are usually grouped
according to the recurrence of the formula "Hear this word," which
stands at the head of our present chaps, 3, 4, and 5; and by the two
cries of "Woe" at Amo 5:18 and Amo 6:1. But even more obvious than
these commencements are the various climaxes to which they lead up.
These are all threats of judgment, and each is more strenuous or
explicit than the one that has preceded it. They close with Amo
3:15; Amo 4:3; Amo 4:12; Amo 5:17; Amo 5:27; Amo 6:14; and according
to them the oracles may be conveniently divided into six groups.
1. Amo 3:1-15 After the main theme of judgment is stated in Amo
3:1-2, we have in Amo 3:3-8 a parenthesis on the prophet’s right to
threaten doom; after which Amo 3:9-15, following directly on,
emphasize the social disorder, threaten the land with invasion, the
people with extinction and the overthrow of their civilization.
2. Amo 4:1-3, beginning with the formula "Hear this word," is
directed against women and describes the siege of the capital and
their captivity.
3. Amo 4:4-12, with no opening formula, contrasts the people’s vain
propitiation of God by ritual with His treatment of them by various
physical chastisements-drought, blight, and locusts, pestilence,
earthquake-and summons them to prepare for another, unnamed,
visitation. "Jehovah God of Hosts is His Name."
4. Amo 5:1-17, beginning with the formula "Hear this word," and a
dirge over a vision of the nation’s defeat, attacks, like the
previous group, the lavish ritual, sets in contrast to it Jehovah’s
demands for justice and civic purity; and, offering a reprieve if
Israel will repent, closes with the prospect of a universal mourning
(Amo 5:16-17), which, though introduced by a "therefore,’" has no
logical connection with what precedes it.
5. Amo 5:18-26 is the first of the two groups that open with "Woe."
Affirming that the eagerly expected "Day of Jehovah" will be
darkness and disaster on disaster inevitable (Amo 5:18-20), it again
emphasizes Jehovah’s desire for righteousness rather than worship (Amo
5:21-26), and closes with the threat of captivity beyond Damascus.
"Jehovah God of Hosts is His Name," as at the close of 3.
6. Amo 6:1-14 The second "Woe," on them "that are at ease in Zion" (Amo
6:1-2): a satire on the luxuries of the rich and their indifference
to the national suffering (Amo 6:3-6): captivity must come, with the
desolation of the land (Amo 6:9-10); and in a peroration the prophet
reiterates a general downfall of the nation because of its
perversity. "A Nation"-needless to name it!-will oppress Israel from
Hamath to the River of the Arabah.
THIRD SECTION: CHAPTERS 7-9
VISIONS WITH INTERLUDES
The Visions betray traces of development; but
they are interrupted by a piece of narrative and. addresses on the
same themes as chapters 3-6 The FIRST TWO VISIONS (Amo 7:1-6) are of
disasters-locusts and drought-in the realm of nature; they are
averted by prayer from Amos. The THIRD (Amo 7:7-9) is in the sphere,
not of nature, but history: Jehovah standing with a plumb line, as
if to show the nation’s fabric to be utterly twisted, announces that
it shall be overthrown, and that the dynasty of Jeroboam must be put
to the sword. Upon this mention of the king, the first in the book,
there starts the narrative (Amo 7:10-17) of how Amaziah, priest at
Bethel-obviously upon hearing the prophet’s threat-sent word to
Jeroboam; and then (whether before or after getting a reply)
proceeded to silence Amos, who, however, reiterates his prediction
of doom, again described as captivity in a foreign land, and adds a
FOURTH VISION (Amo 8:1-3) of the Kaits or "Summer Fruit," which
suggests Kets, or "End" of the Nation. Here it would seem Amos’
discourses at Bethel take end. Then comes Amo 8:4-6, another
exposure of the sins of the rich; followed by a triple pronouncement
of doom (Amo 8:7), again in the terms of physical
calamities-earthquake (Amo 8:8), eclipse (Amo 8:9-10), and famine (Amo
8:11-14), in the last of which the public worship is again attacked.
A FIFTH VISION, of the Lord by the Altar commanding to smite, {Amo
9:1} is followed by a powerful threat of the hopelessness of escape
from God’s punishment; {Amo 9:1-4} the third of the great
apostrophes to the might of Jehovah (Amo 9:5-6); another statement
of the equality in judgment of Israel with other peoples, and of
their utter destruction (Amo 9:7-8 a). Then (Amo 9:8 b) we meet the
first qualification of the hitherto unrelieved sentence of death.
Captivity is described, not as doom, but as discipline (Amo 9:9);
the sinners of the people, scoffers at doom, shall die (Amo 9:10).
And this seems to leave room for two final oracles of restoration
and glory, the only two in the book, which are couched in the exact
terms of the promises of later prophecy (Amo 9:11-15) and are by
many denied to Amos.
Such is the course of the prophesying of Amos. To have traced it
must have made clear to us the unity of his book, as well as the
character of the period to which he belonged. But it also furnishes
us with a good deal of evidence towards the answer of such necessary
questions as these-whether we can fix an exact date for the whole or
any part, and whether we can trace any logical or historical
development through the chapters, either as these now stand, or in
some such re-arrangement as we saw to be necessary for the authentic
prophecies of Isaiah.
Let us take first the simplest of these tasks-to ascertain the
general period of the book. Twice-by the title and by the portion of
narrative-we are pointed to the reign of Jeroboam II, circa 783-743;
other historical allusions suit the same years. The principalities
of Palestine are all standing, except Gath: but the great northern
cloud which carries their doom has risen and is ready to burst. Now
Assyria, we have seen, had become fatal to Palestine as early as
854. Infrequent invasions of Syria had followed, in one of which, in
803, Rimmon Ni-rari III had subjected Tyre and Sidon, besieged
Damascus, and received tribute from Israel. So far then as the
Assyrian data are concerned, the Book of Amos might have been
written early in the reign of Jeroboam. Even then was the storm
lowering as he describes it. Even then had the lightning broken over
Damascus. There are other symptoms, however, which demand a later
date. They seem to imply, not only Uzziah’s overthrow of Gath, and
Jeroboam’s conquest of Moab and of Aram, but that establishment of
Israel’s political influence from Lebanon to the Dead Sea, which
must have taken Jeroboam several years to accomplish. With this
agree other features of the prophecy-the sense of political security
in Israel, the large increase of wealth, the ample and luxurious
buildings, the gorgeous ritual, the easy ability to recover from
physical calamities, the consequent carelessness and pride of the
upper, classes. All these things imply that the last Syrian
invasions of Israel in the beginning of the century were at least a
generation behind the men into whose careless faces the prophet
hurled his words of doom. During this interval Assyria had again
advanced-in 775, in 773, and in 772. None of these expeditions,
however, had come south of Damascus, and this, their invariable
arrest at some distance from the proper territory of Israel, may
have further flattered the people’s sense of security, though
probably the truth was that Jeroboam, like some of his predecessors,
bought his peace by tribute to the emperor. In 765, when the
Assyrians for the second time invaded Hadrach, in the neighborhood
of Damascus, their records mention a pestilence, which, both because
their armies were then in Syria, and because the plague generally
spreads over the whole of Western Asia, may well have been the
pestilence mentioned by Amos. In 763 a total eclipse of the sun took
place, and is perhaps implied by the ninth verse of his eighth
chapter {Amo 8:9}. If this double allusion to pestilence and eclipse
be correct, it brings the book down to the middle of the century and
the latter half of Jeroboam’s long reign. In 755 the Assyrians came
back to Hadrach; in 754 to Arpad: with these exceptions Syria was
untroubled by them till after 745. It was probably these quiet years
in which Amos found Israel "at ease in Zion." {Amo 6:1} If we went
down further, within the more forward policy of Tiglath-Pileser, who
ascended the throne in 745 and besieged Arpad from 743 to 740, we
should find an occasion for the urgency with which Amos warns Israel
that the invasion of her land and the overthrow of the dynasty of
Jeroboam will be immediate. {Amo 7:9} But Amos might have spoken as
urgently even before Tiglath-Pileser’s accession; and the
probability that Hosea, who prophesied within Jeroboam’s reign,
quotes from Amos seems to imply that the prophecies of the latter
had been current for some time.
Towards the middle of the eighth century-is, therefore, the most
definite date to which we are able to assign the Book of Amos. At so
great a distance the difference of a few unmarked years is
invisible. It is enough that we know the moral dates-the state of
national feeling, the personages alive, the great events which are
behind the prophet, and the still greater which are imminent. We can
see that Amos wrote in the political pride of the latter years of
Jeroboam’s reign, after the pestilence and eclipse of the sixties,
and before the advance of Tiglath-Pileser in the last forties of the
eighth century.
A particular year is indeed offered by the title of the book, which,
if not by Amos himself, must be from only a few years later "Words
of Amos, which he saw in the days of Uzziah and of Jeroboam, two
years before the earthquake." This was the great earthquake of which
other prophets speak as having happened in the days of Uzziah. But
we do not know where to place the year of the earthquake, and are as
far as ever from a definite date.
The mention of the earthquake, however, introduces us to the answer
of another of our questions-whether, with all its unity, the Book of
Amos reveals any lines of progress, either of event or of idea,
either historical or logical.
Granting the truth of the title, that Amos had his prophetic eyes
opened two years before the earthquake, it will be a sign of
historical progress if we find in the book itself any allusions to
the earthquake. Now these are present. In the first division we find
none, unless the threat of God’s visitation in the form of a shaking
of the land be considered as a tremor communicated to the prophet’s
mind from the recent upheaval. But in the second division there is
an obvious reference: the last of the unavailing, chastisements with
which Jehovah has chastised His people is described as a "great
overturning." {Amo 4:11} And in the third division, in two passages,
the judgment, which Amos has already stated will fall in the form of
an invasion, is also figured in the terms of an earthquake. Nor does
this exhaust the tremors which that awful convulsion had started;
but throughout the second and third divisions there is a constant
sense of instability, of the liftableness and breakableness of the
very ground of life. Of course, as we shall see, this was due to the
prophet’s knowledge of the moral explosiveness of society in Israel;
but he could hardly have described the results of that in the terms
he has used, unless himself and his hearers had recently felt the
ground quake under them, and seen whole cities topple over. If,
then, Amos began to prophesy two years before the earthquake, the
bulk of his book was spoken, or at least written down, after the
earthquake had left all Israel trembling.
This proof of progress in the book is confirmed by another feature,
in the abstract given above it is easy to see that the judgments of
the Lord upon Israel were of a twofold character. Some were
physical-famine, drought, blight, locusts, earthquake; and some were
political-battle, defeat, invasion, captivity. Now it is
significant-and I do not think the point has been previously
remarked-that not only are the physical represented as happening
first, but that at one time the prophet seems to have understood
that no others would be needed, that indeed God did not reveal to
him the imminence of political disaster till He had exhausted the
discipline of physical calamities. For this we have double evidence.
In chapter 4 Amos reports that the Lord has sought to rouse Israel
out of the moral lethargy into which their religious services have
soothed them, by withholding bread and water; by blighting their
orchards; by a pestilence, a thoroughly Egyptian one; and by an
earthquake. But these having failed to produce repentance, God must
visit the people once more: how, the prophet does not say, leaving
the imminent terror unnamed, but we know that the Assyrian overthrow
is meant. Now precisely parallel to this is the course of the
Visions in chapter 7. The Lord caused Amos to see (whether in fancy
or in fact we need not now stop to consider) the plague of locusts.
It was so bad as to threaten Israel with destruction. But Amos
interceded, and God answered, "It shall not be." Similarly with a
plague of drought. But then the Vision shifts from the realm of
nature to that of politics. The Lord sets the plumb line to the
fabric of Israel’s life: this is found hopelessly bent and unstable.
It must be pulled down, and the pulling down shall be political: the
family of Jeroboam is to be slain, the people are to go into
captivity. The next Vision, therefore, is of the End-the Final
Judgment of war and defeat, which is followed only by Silence.
Thus, by a double proof, we see not only that the Divine method in
that age was to act first by physical chastisement, and only then by
an inevitable, ultimate doom of war and captivity; but that the
experience of Amos himself, his own intercourse with the Lord,
passed through these two stages. The significance of this for the
picture of the prophet’s life we shall see in our next chapter. Here
we are concerned to ask whether it gives us any clue as to the
extant arrangement of his prophecies, or any justification for
rearranging them, as the prophecies of Isaiah have to be rearranged,
according to the various stages of historical development at which
they were uttered.
We have just seen that the progress from the physical chastisements
to the political, doom is reflected in both the last two sections of
the book. But the same gradual, cumulative method is attributed to
the Divine Providence by the First Section: "For three
transgressions, yea, for four, I will not turn it back"; and then
follow the same disasters of war and captivity as are threatened in
Sections II and III But each section does not only thus end
similarly; each also begins with the record of an immediate
impression made on the prophet by Jehovah. {Amo 1:2; Amo 3:3-8; Amo
7:1-9}
To sum up:-The Book of Amos consists of three sections, which seem
to have received their present form towards the end of Jeroboam’s
reign; and which, after emphasizing their origin as due to the
immediate influence of Jehovah Himself on the prophet, follow pretty
much the same course of the Divine dealings with that generation of
Israel-a course which began with physical chastisements that failed
to produce repentance, and ended with the irrevocable threat of the
Assyrian invasion. Each section, that is to say, starts from the
same point, follows much the same direction, and arrives at exactly
the same conclusion. Chronologically you cannot put one of them
before the other; but from each it is possible to learn the stages
of experience through which Amos himself passed-to discover how God
taught the prophet, not only by the original intuitions from which
all prophecy starts, but by the gradual events of his day both at
home and abroad.
This decides our plan for us. We shall first trace the life and
experience of Amos, as his book enables us to do; and then we shall
examine, in the order in which they lie, the three parallel forms in
which, when he was silenced at Bethel, he collected the fruits of
that experience, and gave them their final expression.
The style of the book is simple and terse. The fixity of the
prophet’s aim-upon a few moral principles and the doom they
demand-keeps his sentences firm and sharp, and sends his paragraphs
rapidly to their climax. That he sees nature only under moral light
renders his poetry austere and occasionally savage. His language is
very pure. There is no ground for Jerome’s charge that he was "imperitus
sermone": we shall have to notice only a few irregularities in
spelling, due perhaps to the dialect of the deserts in which he
passed his life.
The text of the book is for the most part well preserved; but there
are a number of evident corruptions. Of the Greek Version the same
holds good as we have said in more detail of the Greek of Hosea. It
is sometimes correct where the Hebrew text is not, sometimes
suggestive of the emendations required, and sometimes hopelessly
astray.
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