The Twelve Prophets Volume I
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.