The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. I

amous 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

h it, and we may now pass to consider the general c

ups of Oracles, under one title, which

runs as

g Israel in the days of 'Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jarab

with their content

I., II. The Heathen'

l the states of Palestine, and culminating in a more detailed denunciation of the social evils of I

ps. III.-VI. Israel

cording to the recurrence of the formula Hear this word, which stands at the head of our present chaps. iii., iv. and v.; and by the two cries of Woe at v. 18 and vi. 1. But even more obvious than these commencements are the various climaxes to which they le

rophet's right to threaten doom; after which 9-15, following directly on 2, emphasise the social disord

is word, is directed against women and describ

His treatment of them by various physical chastisements-drought, blight and locusts, pestilence, eart

lavish ritual, sets in contrast to it Jehovah's demands for justice and civic purity; and, offering a reprieve if Israel will repent, closes wi

rkness and disaster on disaster inevitable (18-20), it again emphasises Jehovah's desire for righteousness rather than worsh

tional suffering (3-6): captivity must come, with the desolation of the land (9, 10); and in a peroration the prophet reiterates a general

ps. VII.-IX. Visio

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 (viii. 1-3), of the ?aits or Summer Fruit, which suggests ?êts, or End of the Nation. Here it would seem Amos' discourses at Bethel take end. Then comes viii. 4-6, another exposure of the sins of the rich; followed by a triple pronouncement of doom (7), again in the terms of physical calamities-earthquake (8), eclipse (9, 10), and famine (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 (ix. 1), is

t 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 tr

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.[120] 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 neighbourhood of Damascus, their records mention a pestilence, which, both because their armies were then in Syria, and because the

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

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

er of our questions-whether, with all its unity, the Book of Amos reveals an

unavailing chastisements, with which Jehovah has chastised His people, is described as a great overturning.[125] 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 grou

ne of physical calamities. For this we have double evidence. In chapter iv. 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 vii. The Lord caused Amos to see (whether

, 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 a

ted 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 Se

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. Chronol

to do; and then we shall examine, in the order in which they lie, the three parallel forms in which, when h

graphs 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 Jerom

reek Version the same holds good as we have said in more detail of the Greek of Hosea.[129] It is sometimes corre