vigorous and appalling interpretation of them. Unlike many of the books of the Bible, his is prefaced by a date, "The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he spake concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake," evidently a memorable date well known to the people. Let us imagine this sturdy shepherd in the solitude of his native desert, yet with the towered city of Jerusalem but twelve miles away, the highroad from Hebron to the north but one hour to the west, and a half-hour beyond that the highland, from which the Philistine plain stretched out toward the sea. Ten miles beyond Jerusalem, in the territory of northern Israel, was the royal sanctuary of Bethel, where the worship of Jehovah was conducted with splendor such as had never before been seen in the Northern Kingdom, and less than thirty miles beyond that lay Samaria, the splendid capital, where wealth was pouring in from all sides as the rich men of the nation gravitated toward the more important cities. Thus alone, yet within easy reach of the teeming life of both his own Judea and northern cities, busied with his daily toil, or journeying to Jerusalem, to Bethel, to Gilgal, to Samaria, and even to Damascus, where the markets gave returns for his sheep and his figs, Amos observed and pondered, until a mighty spirit of indignation at what he saw, at what he deemed Israel's blindness and folly, swept over him, possessed him, and sent him forth upon the unwelcome errand of a man whose ruling passion was justice, to a nation wherein there was no justice. As a citizen of Judah, the sternness of his message to northern Israel would hardly be mitigated by sympathy. The substance and the spirit of that message can best be seen in extracts from the pages of his book.1 I The Book of Amos contains nine chapters in our version of the Bible. It is not chronologically arranged and consists of messages of judgment, some of which take the form of visions, and one small section of narrative, probably written down after a visit to Bethel, which is described in these pages a little later. The earthquake alluded to is not definitely dated and has not been found recorded in history. It was probably a local disturbance, but familiar to the people of Palestine. Amos at Bethel Our first selection shows Amos at the great sanctuary at Bethel' on the occasion of one of the stated religious festivals, not as a worshiper, since he would naturally worship at the southern sanctuaries. The king and his retinue are present in the city. No doubt the splendid celebration is accompanied by much dissipation, immoderate eating and drinking, dancing, and revelry, common to oriental religious manifestations. Unlike his predecessors Amos breaks upon these scenes, not with a message to the king, but to the people, a message before the terrors of which, back in his mountain home where he had pleaded with Jehovah for the little nation, even his own heart had quailed. His message takes the form of vision,3 perhaps a true representation of the pictures which had come to his mind in former days, or it may have been only a device chosen by the speaker to make more vivid his stinging words.4 I See location of Bethel on the map. Several centers of worship have already been noted, viz., Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Ramah. The sanctuary at Bethel seems to have been a place to which the king and the court were accustomed to repair for worship at special seasons. It must be borne in mind that the people were expressing at this festival the most intense religious life. There was no lack of religion; it was the misconception of the character of God and of what constituted appropriate worship of such a God which made the difference between their conception of religion and our own. 2 The fact that Amos now appears to the people rather than to the king indicates that the people have developed greatly since the day of Samuel and are now beginning to think and to act independently of king or of prophet. They had come to a consciousness of themselves which they did not before possess. 3 The vision was a very common form of prophetic revelation. It is simply another way of saying "I saw," and does not necessarily indicate that the seeing was with physical eyes. A vision seen only in the mind is equally as strong and as potent in its influence upon life as one seen with the physical eye. 4 Amos 7:1α-c, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8b, 9. 5*The first strophe simply records a vision of the locusts devouring all. The prophet appeals from such destruction to Jehovah, who relents and changes his purpose of destruction. 6 *Notice that Amos uses the double name, the Lord Jehovah. It is the natural expression of his feeling of the power and majesty of Jehovah. 7 *Locusts: The locusts were a fearful scourge in Palestine, coming in swarms and devouring everything green which came in their path. In the beginning of the coming up of the aftergrowth;' 5 Of devouring the herb of the land, Then I said, "O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I pray thee, Jehovah repented him concerning this, 66 'It shall not be," said Jehovah. II3 IO Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me, And it devoured the great deep, And had begun to devour the land; 15 And I said, "O Lord Jehovah, cease, I pray thee. How can Jacob stand, for he is small?" III 4, 5 Thus (the Lord) showed me, 20 And lo! the Lord was stationed Beside a wall, with a plumb-line in his hand. And the Lord said: "Behold I am setting a plumb-line, I * *After growth: possibly the grass which sprang up after the first crop had been cut, or after the grass, to which the king was entitled as a tax for the provender of the domestic and cavalry horses and asses, was cut. 2 Jacob: The prophets continually used representative names. In this case, it is an easy transfer in the mind of the prophet from Israel, which was the name given to Jacob of old by Jehovah, to the old name Jacob, used in this case of the people of Israel. 3 *In the second strophe the vision is of a fire, so intense that it would burn the very foundations of water upon which the Hebrew supposed the surface of the earth to rest, and devour the land. At the petition of the prophet, Jehovah again withdraws his punishment. 4 *In the third strophe, Jehovah is represented as testing the accuracy and correctness of a wall with a plumb line, the wall representing Israel, a process which shows the wall defective and worthy only of destruction. 5 *In moments of great exaltation, religious or otherwise, the poetic form of expression is natural, especially among ancient nations. Thus we find, in the study of the prophets, that almost all of their oracles, visions, or speeches have come down to us in poetic form. The Hebrew poetry had no rhyme. It was chiefly evidenced by length and syntactical arrangement of lines, by cadences of accent in speaking, In the midst of my people Israel, I will not again pass by them any more. 25 And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, And the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword." IV1, 2 Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me, And lo! a basket of summer fruit! 30 And Jehovah said to me, "The end has come unto my people Israel, Hear this, oh ye that tread upon the needy, And are for making the poor of the earth to cease, saying: 35 When will the new moon3 pass that we may sell grain, And the Sabbath that we may offer corn? Diminishing the ephah and enlarging the shekel, Jehovah hath sworn by the glory of Jacob: 40 "I will never forget all their deeds." and by the relation of lines in the strophe or stanza. In the proverbial poetry, which is the least exalted in tone, we find three very distinct kinds of relationship. A line may be: (1) a repetition in another form of the line preceding it; (2) a negative statement of the same preceding line; or (3) a continuance of the statement contained in it. This relationship is called parallelism, and is distinguished as synonymous, antithetic, or synthetic, according to the lines in question. In the more exalted forms of poetry, such as those of the prophets, however, this more formal arrangement is not so common. The spirit and form of the poetry of the prophets would correspond much more nearly with the blank verse of Shakespeare, which is a flexible instrument bound by no hard-and-fast rules for the length, the number, or the words terminating the lines. These poetic utterances generally fall into stanzas, or, as they are usually called, strophes. In the selections which follow, the strophes are observed, but in some cases have been broken purposely, parts having been omitted, or portions of strophes inserted. To see the stanza as it appears in our Standard Version one must consult the Bible itself. For the sake of bringing out the thought of a particular prophet, new juxtapositions have been made. I Amos 8:1, 2b, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 3, 10, 11b, 12, 13, 14. 2 In the fourth vision, the prophet sees Israel as short-lived as a basket of summer fruit. 3 * The new moon, the first of the month, was observed as a popular holiday and marked by religious ceremonies and suspension of trade. The tradesmen are represented as impatient of the holiday and dishonest in their business. On this account shall not the earth tremble, And every inhabitant in her mourn? And shall not the whole of it rise like the Nile,1 45 "And it shall come to pass in that day," And I will darken the earth in the clear day, And the singing-women of the palace shall wail," It is the oracle of the Lord Jehovah:3 A multitude of carcasses! 50 In every place they are cast. "And I will turn your pilgrimages into mourning, And all your songs into dirges, And I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, And upon every head baldness, 55 And I will make it like the mourning for an only son, And the end of it like a bitter day." "And I will send a famine in the land, Not a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water, But for hearing the word of Jehovah. 60 And they shall wander from sea to sea, And from the north even to the rising of the sun they shall To seek the word of Jehovah, but they shall not find it.”4 V5, 6 I saw the Lord standing by the altar, And he said: "Smite the capitals,7 that the thresholds may shake, I Therefore the anger of Jehovah at the deeds of Israel shall convulse the land as if it were a river, rising and falling like the Nile in its annual inundations. 2 The allusion in lines 45-50 is to an eclipse of the sun, which was to the people of that time a certain indication of Jehovah's wrath. 3 *It is the oracle of Jehovah: a technical expression among the prophets for a message from Jehovah. 4 Lines 55-60: a picture of the deepest mourning-a mourning intensified by the lack of any word of kindness from Jehovah, to whose messages through the prophets the people have turned a deaf ear. 5 Amos 9: 1, 2, 3a, b, c, d, 4, 7, 8a, b. 6 *A fifth vision shows Jehovah and the people assembled for worship, Jehovah in anger calling upon the building to fall and destroy the worshipers. 7 *Capitals: the top of the columns supporting the roof of the temple. |