Introduction to Amos
At the time when Amos prophesied both
prosperity and wealth. The warlike Jeroboam II. had
overcome the Syrians,
and
recovered the original territory of his kingdom from Hamath
in the
extreme north to the
had
subdued the restless Edomltes and Philistines,
reduced the Ammonites
to
subjection; and, while largely encouraging agriculture and the arts of
peace, he raised a powerful army, and strongly fortified
(II Chronicles 26.).
resources, was very far from expecting ruin and destruction.
Prosperity in
Both kingdoms had produced its too common fruits — pride, luxury,
selfishness, oppression. In
in
the northern kingdom they were accentuated and increased by the calf-
worship which was still practiced there. To
idolatry, Amos was sent from
iniquity, and to announce to these careless sinners the approach
of Divine
judgment. It was probable
that, in a kingdom where impostors abounded, a
seer, coming from a foreign district and claiming to be commissioned by
the
Lord, might command respect; though the issue proved very different.
Never since the man of God came out of
the
days of the first Jeroboam (1 Kings 13.) had any southern prophet gone
on
such an errand. Now a second message was sent; and in this book the
utterances of the prophet on this great occasion are gathered
together and
arranged in due order. Though his special mission was directed to
Amos does not confine himself altogether to denunciations
of this
kingdom. His cry extended to
surrounded the covenant people.
The book naturally divides itself into four parts:
·
An introduction, chapters 1-2, consists of
denunciations of the heathen
kingdoms bordering on
them, viz.
from God. The judgment on
the remainder of the book particularizes the denounced sins
and confirms
the awful sentence.
·
The addresses, chapters 3-6, contain three
prophetic addresses, divided
by the recurrence of the solemn refrain, “Hear ye.” The
first address
convicts
Lord must needs punish the
nation, and that He has commissioned the
prophet to announce the judgment,
violence; its palaces and holy places shall be destroyed, and its
people
carried into captivity. The second address depicts the sins of
oppression
and idolatry; tells how God had visited the people with
various
chastisements, but they were still
incorrigible; therefore He will
inflict
further punishment, to see if perchance they will repent. In his
third
address Amos laments the fate of
and then, with a double “Woe!” he shows how hopeless
is their trust in
their covenant relation to Jehovah, and how baseless their
fancied security
from danger; for ere long their land should be invaded, their
cities should
be destroyed, and they themselves should be carried into
captivity. This
last “woe” is to affect
(ch. 6:1).
·
The visions 7-9:10) are closely connected
with the preceding
addresses, and carry on the warnings there enunciated, giving, as it
were,
the stages or gradations of punishment. The first two visions,
of locusts
and fire, correspond to the visitations mentioned in ch. 4:6-11. These
chastisements stop short of utter destruction, being alleviated at the
intercession of the prophet. The third and fourth visions confirm the
irrevocable character of the judgments threatened in the previous
addresses. The plumb line intimates that forgiveness is now not to
be
expected. Here Amos introduces an historical episode, detailing Amaziah’s
opposition to his prophecy and God’s sentence upon him. He then
proceeds to the fourth vision, which, under the figure of a basket
of
summer fruit, exhibits
lesson by foretelling that their feasts should be turned to
mourning, and
that those who now
despise the Word of God shall some day suffer a
FAMINE OF THE
WORD! The last vision
displays the Lord destroying
the temple and its worshippers, yea, the whole sinful nation.
Yet it should
not be utterly annihilated. “Sifted” shall the people
be among the nations,
yet shall not one good grain perish.
·
The prophecy ends with one promise — the
only one in the book — that
the fallen kingdom should be raised again, should be extended
by the
incoming of the heathen, should be glorified and enriched with Divine
graces, and that its duration should
be eternal — a promise which has its
fulfillment, not in any temporary restoration of
the foundation of the Christian Church and its final conquest
of the world
(see
the reference to this prophecy by St. James in Acts 15:16). Amos
nowhere mentions the person of the Messiah, but his reference to
the house
of David includes and leads up to Christ.
The
Author
Amos is the third
of the minor prophets. His name is usually taken to
signify “Carrier,” but is better interpreted “Heavy” or “Burden,”
in allusion
to
the grievous message which he had to deliver. Jewish commentators
suggest that he was so called because he stammered or was slow of
speech,
as
Paul says of himself that his speech was considered contemptible. In
old
time he was by some confounded with Amoz, the father
of Isaiah; but
the
final letter of the two names is different, being samec
in the case of the
prophet, and tzadi in that
of the other. The name does not occur elsewhere
in
the Old Testament; but in Luke’s genealogy of our Lord (Luke 3:25),
we
meet with an Amos, son of Naum and father of Mattathias.
Amos was, as he himself tells, a native of Tekoah, a small town of
situate on a hill about five miles south of
district. “A road,” says Dr. Thomson, “leads from
and
mostly deserted region, to Tekus, the ancient Tekoah ....The ruins of
that city are some three miles south of the Pools of Solomon, and cover a
broad swell of the mountain, which runs up to a great height
towards the
southwest” (‘The Land and the Book,’ pp. 304, 330). “Tekoa,” says Mr.
Porter, “is now, and has been for ages, an uninhabited
waste. So complete
has been the
overthrow that I could not find oven a fragment of a wall
sufficient to shade me from the scorching sun. The ruins are scattered over
the
broad summit of one of the highest hills in the Judaean
range. The view
is
magnificent and full of interest. On the west is seen the sweep of the
range from Mizpah to
down, white, rugged, bare, to the
his
sheep, and afterwards wandered a refugee from the court of Saul. On
the
north, a few miles off, I saw
a
wild ravine, is the
fountain of Engedi. And beyond the sea is
the wall-like ridge of Moab, and
to
the south the ruddy-tinted mountains of
silence broods over that wonderful panorama. In the touching words
of the
old Hebrew prophet, ‘the earth mourneth and languisheth’”- (Isaiah
33:9
- Travels in
suborned by Joab, made use of a parable
to incline David’s heart to his banished
son
Absalom (II Samuel 14.). It was also one of the places fortified by
Rehoboam as a defense against invasion from the south (II Chronicles
11:6). Thither Jonathan and Simon, the Maccabeans,
fled to escape the
attack of Bacchides (see I Macc. 9:33,
etc.). At this place Amos was born.
At first a herdsman and a poor cultivator of sycamore trees
(ch.7:14), he received
the
Divine call, and, untrained in the schools, no prophet nor prophet’s son,
was
sent to prophesy against
Master’s word, travelling from
the
temple and summer palace of the king, in order to raise his voice
against the worship of the calf which prevailed there in profane union with
the service of Jehovah. Here he was opposed by Amaziah, the
idolatrous
high priest, who complained of him to the king as a dangerous conspirator.
He was accordingly banished from the northern kingdom, and
compelled to
return to
it
has reached our hands. But he seems to have found opportunity to
deliver his stern message in
expulsion at
midst of the house of
words” (ch. 7:10).
Though of such humble extraction, Amos had an eye to the
geographical
peculiarities of his native land, so as to use with effect his knowledge
of
various localities; nor was he unacquainted with the history of
his own and
other countries. Tradition (ap. Pseudo-Eplph.,
c. 12., ‘De Vit. Proph.’)
asserts that he was cruelly maltreated at
only to die. His tomb there was still shown in
Date
Amos is said (ch.1:1) to have prophesied “in the days of Uzziah
King of
monuments) lasted from B.C. 792 to 740, and Jeroboam’s from B.C. 790
to
749. The time specified above probably refers to the period during
which the two monarchs were contemporaneous, viz. from B.C. 790
to
749, a period of forty-one years. Another computation assigns Jeroboam’s
reign to B.C. 816-775; but there is still some uncertainty about
the exact
date. Hence we cannot determine the time of our prophecy with perfect
satisfaction. It could not have been the commencement of Jeroboam’s
reign, as Amos intimates that this king had already overcome his
enemies
and
regained his lost territory (ch.6:2, 13, compared with II Kings 14:25);
nor
could it have been the end, because he makes no mention of the Assyrians
who
about that time were beginning to threaten
pecification in the text, “two
years before the earthquake,” is not determinate,
as
that event is not mentioned in the historical
books. One that happened in
Uzziah’s day, as Jewish tradition said, in consequence of or coincident with
his
usurpation of the priest’s office
(Josephus, ‘
remembered some centuries afterwards (Zechariah 14:5), and is
perhaps alluded
to
elsewhere (e.g. Joel 3:16; Isaiah 2:19); but we are
unable to fix the date of the
occurrence. Every detail in the prophecy confirms the authenticity of
the
statement in the introduction. Jeroboam is mentioned (ch.7:10), and
the
circumstances of his time, as we noted above, are accurately alluded to.
The taking of
The prophet uttered his warnings, not at intervals during
all the period
named, but at some definite time therein, and probably during a
very short
space. He must have been contemporaneous with, if not a little
earlier than
Hosea, and later than Joel, as he takes up this prophet’s
words in the
commencement of his own prediction (compare ch.1:2 with Joel 3:16),
and
quotes him in ch.9:13.
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