-^H OF PHWGjy, BSISSg AMOS: AN ESSAY IN EXEGESIS, /FY H. G. MITCHELL, Professor in Boston University. REVISED EDITION, BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY '^\i i^ibcrstUe Press, Camliritifle 1900 'Z^*^ Copyright, 1893 and 1900, By H. G. MITCHELL. PREFACE. This book first appeared in 1893 as a private ven- re, with the imprint of Messrs. N. J. Bartlett & Co., Boston. That edition having been exhausted, I em warranted in hoping that, if regularly placed Don the market, my work will find even wider peru- .1 and appreciation. Hence its reappearance under le present auspices. It has not been necessary to make many or important langes. Of course, the typographical errors that I ive been able to discover have been corrected. For le convenience of the majority of American students, have adapted the references to Gesenius' Hebrew ■ rammar to the Second Ajnerican Edition. The new .ngHsh edition is too expensive for general use. I ave made but one important modification in the book. formerly held and taught, that Joel and Obadiah pre- ided Amos. I now feel forced by the evidence in le case to assign them both to a much later period. have therefore revised all my references to them •om this standpoint. A few additional notes will be mnd in an Appendix at the end of the volume. iv PREFACE, Those who wish to consult a complete bibliograp of the subject of the prophecies of Amos will fi one in Gunning's Commentary. I append a list the more recent and important works to be consults OORT, De Profet Amos, Theologisch Tijdschrift, XIV. 1880. Steiner, Die ziv'dlf klemen Propheten, 1880. Hoffmann, Versuch zu Amos, Zeitschrift fur alitestamentlii Wissenschaft, III. 1883. VoLLERS, Das Dodekapropheton der Alexandriner, ZAW, L 1883. Gunning, De Godspraken van Amos, 1885. Orelli, Strack and Zockler's Kurzgefasster Kommeniar, 1888. Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, V. 1892. Smith, G. A., The Book of the Twelve Prophets, 1896. Driver, Joel and Amos, in the Cambridge Bible, 1897. NowACK, Die kleinen Prophet en, 1897. Hartung, Der Prophet Amos, 1898. H. G. M. Boston University, January, 1900. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface iii Introductory Studies: Amos of Tekoa i The Date of Amos 12 The Book of Amos 22 Appendix. — Analytical Table 33 Translation and Comments: Translation 36 Comments . , 49 Supplementary Studies: Amos and the Hexateuch 176 The Theology of Amos 185 Amos among the Prophets 199 V INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. >J«ic AMOS OF TEKOA. On a high hill about six miles south of Bethlehem, and twice as far from Jerusalem, lies a mass of ruins of which the Arabic name is Tekua. They are the remains of Tekoa, the home of the prophet Amos. The site is plainly visible from Bethlehem, whence Jerome ^ says that he used to see it daily ; but it is difficult of access and consequently seldom visited by travelers. It is most easily reached from Bethlehem. The path, which is plain enough, but in many places very rough and stony, leaving Jebel Ferdis, or the Frank mountain, where Herod the Great loved to live and finally chose to lie, on the left, brings one in about an hour to wady Khureitun. At this point it is joined by another, and a worse one, from Artas and the Pools of Solomon, and from this point, by descending the wady, the labyrinth which has been wrongly identified with the cave of Adullam (i Sam. xxii. i) can be reached in a few minutes. Crossing the wady, the pil- grim to Tekoa ascends a tributary gorge, sometimes following the stony bed at the bottom of it, and some- 1 See his introduction to the book of Amos. 2 AMOS. times riding along a narrow, slippery ledge at its side, on which even a Syrian horse can hardly find a footing. After half an hour the path, which has hitherto main- tained a southerly direction, suddenly turns eastward, and at the end of another half-hour it emerges into a hollow at the foot of the hill on which Tekoa was situated. The view from the top of the hill is one of the finest in Palestine. Toward the north and the south the ground slopes off into wadys that open into the Dead Sea. Northward, beyond wady Khureitun, rises the symmetrical cone of Jebel Ferdis. Beyond it is Beth- lehem. The Mount of Olives also is visible, but Jeru- salem is hidden by intervening hills. Toward the east, in the foreground, are the naked, conical mountains of " the desert of Tekoa " ; beyond them, about twelve miles distant, and more than four thousand feet below them, glistening like molten silver, lie the waters of the Sea of Salt ; while in the background, suffused with a purple light that makes their ragged masses beautiful, the mountains of Moab rise against the eastern sky. The outlook westward is not so grand, but it has a beauty of its own, especially in the foreground, where lies outspread a broad and shallow valley, whose green grain and brown fallow give a charming variety to the prospect. Such are the surroundings of Tekua. The hill itself is covered with the ruins of the city and fortress by which it was once crowned. These ruins make a pecul- iar impression upon the traveler. They look more like the preparations for a city than the remains of one that has been destroyed. In fact, they have been so little INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 3 disturbed since the city was destroyed by the Turks in 1 138 that it seems as if it would be possible, in a short time, to make them habitable. Were the place restored without the church, whose baptismal font ^ is the most interesting relic of its former importance, one could with little difficulty transport one's self into the eighth century before Christ, and imagine one's self contem- porary with the prophet; for the hills have not changed, and the people of the region cannot be much unlike the former inhabitants. From the hill one can see the black tents of the Arabs dotting the landscape. There is always a cluster of them under its brow, on the eastern side, near the cis- terns which once supplied Tekoa with water. At these cisterns still gather picturesque groups of women, to fill their jars and exchange their simple gossip. In the fields toward the west, or on the surrounding slopes, the men are meanwhile plowing, or sowing, or watching their flocks : sheep, white or brown, or goats as varied in color as Jacob's motley flock, with now and then a stunted cow or tiny donkey among them. Sometimes one of these shepherds is seen against the sky, as he stands like a statue on a projecting rock, wrapped in his sheepskin jacket and armed with a stout club or a rusty musket, while the sheep or the goats graze about him. Sometimes one is heard whiling away the hours by playing upon a rude pipe, whose notes his flock seem to 1 Robinson (^Researches, I. 486) describes it as follows : " Near the middle of the site are the ruins of a Greek church ; among which are several fragments of columns, and a baptismal font of rose-colored lime- stone verging into marble. The font is octagonal, five feet in diameter on the outside, four feet on the inside, and three feet nine inches deep." 4 AMOS. enjoy as well as he. They are fine fellows, these shep- herds, from a physical point of view, — tall and straight, with bright eyes, clearly cut features, and a bearing that betrays a. consciousness of the strength bred in them by their free and simple life. Amos must have looked much like one of these Arab shepherds. He, too, was brown and sturdy. He, too, was clad in sheepskin when he led his flocks to pasture. It was, perhaps, when he was enjoying the grandeur of the prospect from one of his native hills, or soothing his soul with such music as he could make, that the Spirit made him conscious of a higher destiny and forced him to leave his sheep to be a prophet of Jehovah. This call did not find Amos unprepared, for his pre- vious life, besides cultivating the strength and vigor of his physique, had developed certain internal qualities that fitted him for his new vocation. What these were may be gathered from even a superficial perusal of his book. A more thorough study of it impresses them upK)n the imagination until they become as distinct as the features of a well-remembered face. The first element in the prophet's character which strikes the reader of his prophecies is, perhaps, its s im- J E>licity. This characteristic is, in fact, the key to the book, the one without which Amos would probably never have heard the call that he received. It appears in his evident hatred of all sorts of human grandeur. Notice how often he uses the word palace} and how persistently he threatens such abodes with destruction. This characteristic appears also in his sympathy for 1 i. 4, 7, 10, 12, 14; ii. 2, 5j iil 9 bis, IQ, ii, 2i; viii. 3. See also iii. 15; V. 9, II; vi. II. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 5 simple people. The words lowly and needy are almost as frequent as palace} Finally he displays the simplic- ity of his character in his picture of the future of his people (ix. 1 1 ff.). It is the humble house of David that is to rule the Hebrews, and it is the simple products of a fertile soil that are to constitute the wealth of the nation. The simplicity of Amos must have been rooted in his nature, otherwise it would hardly have become so thoroughly characteristic ; but it is easy to see that his circumstances must have greatly favored its develop- ment. Even if, as some suppose, he owned the flocks and groves that he tended, he was probably compara- tively poor.A A bit of bread and a few figs or olives constituted his simple fare, while his flocks furnished the materials of his homely garments. / If he ever indulged himself in greater luxuries it was only on extraordinary occasions, such as a wedding in the neigh- borhood or a pilgrimage to the holy city. It is this, his mode of life, that explains the vehemence with which the shepherd of Tekoa denounces the voluptuous nobles of Samaria, and would have denounced them if they had not been as wicked as they were voluptuous. Amos' simplicity was coupled with a fearlessness that is inspiring. Had he not been as fearless as he was simple he would not have obeyed the call of Jehovah and undertaken the mission to Israel, for there was rea- son to expect that it would prove a dangerous errand. The fact that he undertook it at all is, therefore, a proof of his fearlessness. There is another in the fact that he addressed himself to the wealthy and powerful in Israel, and, not content with condemning them in gen- 1 ii. 6, 7 bis ; iv. i bis ; v. 1 1 ; viii. 4 bis, 6 bis. 6 AMOS. eral terms, arraigned them for one after another of the sins of which they were guilty. It is only necessary to refer to ii. 7 f., vi. 3 ff., and viii. 4 ff. for excellent exam- ples of the relentless directness of his method. More- over, when Amasiah tried to silence him, he took the risk of a personal encounter with that dignitary. Tra- dition says that he remained at his post until, having been cruelly beaten, he was carried to his own country, where, after a few days, he died.^ This may or may not be a correct account of the prophet's end, but there is no doubt that he had in him the stuff of a martyr. Nor is it surprising that he should have shown himself thus fearless. The life of an oriental shepherd tends to develop courage. He has not only to endure all sorts of weather, but sometimes even to encounter the most ferocious beasts, in the care and defense of his flock. Amos must have had such experiences. He, like David, had braved the lion and the bear, and thus prepared himself to meet the dangers to which his prophetic labors exposed him. A combination of simplicity and fearlessness might have made Amos a successful agitator in Israel, but something additional was needed to make him a reliable teacher for his contemporaries, and give to his utter- ances a value for all generations. This additional char- acteristic was discernment, — power to see distinctions, — a power which Amos possessed to a degree not sur- passed in the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. That he was thus gifted two or three references to his book will suffice to show. The kingdom of Israel was, at the time of his mission, enjoying remarkable prosperity. 1 Pseudodorotheus in Chron. paschale^ ed. Dindorf, I. 277. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 7 Those who were most affected by this state of things seem to have supposed that it was a token of Jehovah's favor. Amos was not so easily deceived. He saw that, though the blessing of Jehovah made rich, it was not safe to maintain the converse of this proposition ; that, in fact, the means by which the rich and great had acquired their share of this boasted prosperity were such as must, sooner or later, bring upon them the ven- geance of their God.^ The most remarkable passages in the book are remarkable for the discernment that they manifest. Such are the passages dealing with the forms of religion,^ for which there was no lack of zeal in Israel, and those touching the covenant ^ in which they trusted. So clearly is the truth, with reference to these matters, perceived and stated that one wonders how those who heard the prophet could continue in their error. How did Amos acquire this power } It was partly, no doubt, an original endowment, and partly a supplementary bestowment, but there was another fac- tor. Had he been born and bred in other circumstances than those by which he was actually surrounded, the natural clearness of his vision might have been dimmed, and even the clarifying influence of the divine spirit counteracted. At Tekoa, far enough from the world to escape its bewildering spell, but not too far to allow him to observe its activities, he had leisure to cultivate the gift that was in him, and bring it to the perfection that it finally attained. These are the more noticeable characteristics of Amos as a man. It remains to notice one or two of his pecul- iarities as a writer. 1 iii. lo f.j V. II; vi. 3, 8, 12 f. ^ jy. 4 f. ; v. 21 ff. * iii. 2; ix. 7. 8 AMOS. It used to be the fashion to disparage the style of Amos, as if no good thing could be expected to come from Tekoa. The fashion was set by Jerome/ who, applying to the prophet the words that Paul (2 Cor. xi. 6) uses of himself, said that he was " rude in speech but not in knowledge." Later commentators discovered several words ^ whose forms were supposed to betray a defective education. The truth is that Amos, being a shepherd, often used words and expressions suggested by his calling, and sometimes constructed a sentence in a way that would hardly have been approved by the scribes of Uzziah's court ; but it is a libel to represent him as a bungler at authorship. Judged by any proper standard, he deserves to rank among the first of the sacred writers. He is always clear, and usually remark- ably forcible, in presenting his ideas; sometimes he is so skillful that, but for the faults with which he is charged, one would hardly believe him identical with the shep- herd of Tekoa.^ These supposed faults are therefore comparatively insignificant as blemishes upon the style of Amos, but important as proofs of the authenticity of his book. If, now, due weight be given to the further consideration that the clearness, forcibleness, and skill- fulness of the prophet's style probably depended upon his use of his own language in his own way, it will surely be granted that a better name for the so-called rudeness of Amos* style will be unconventionality or individuality.* 1 See his introduction to Amos. 2 p^rx: ii. 13; DSDtrin V. 10; n«nia vi. 8; IB'^D^ vi. 10; and pHt:?^ vii. 16. 8 See especially iv. 4 f., 12 f. ; vi. 9 f. ; ix. i ff. * As for the words above cited, there is reason to believe that some at least of the irregularities in their orthography are chargeable to careless or ignorant copyists. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 9 One of the most striking peculiarities of Amos as a writer is what may be termed his orderHness. This manifests itself in the structure of the book as a whole, but most clearly in its various divisions. The prophet's thoughts seem naturally to have arranged themselves in some sort of order. Sometimes it is their logical relation that is prominent, as, e.g., in ii. 6-16 and iv. 4- 13, but more frequently it is a series that attracts atten- tion. The nations, e.g., are arranged in order in the first two chapters. In the latter part of the second the sins of Israel and the proofs of Jehovah's goodness form two subordinate series. Other notable instances of the same habit of thought and expression are the series of illustrations in iii. 3 ff., of chastisements, iv. 6 ff., and of visions, vii. i ff. See also vi. 3 ff. and ix. 2 ff. These series, while not so long as to become tire- some, are long enough to impress upon the mind of the reader the truths that they are intended to illustrate, and justify the use of them by the prophet. It might be difficult to trace any connection between the orderli- ness that Amos displays in his book and his vocation, unless it be explained by the leisure enjoyed by the oriental shepherd. It is possible that most of the material of his prophecies had been, in a sense, prepared while he was tending his flock, little think- ing what would become of his reflections, and that to this fact is due the orderly form in which they are presented. There is one respect in which the style of Amos was greatly influenced by his calling. He would not have presented his thoughts so picturesquely as he did had he not had such opportunities for communion with 10 AMOS. nature as this calling permitted. He knew the heavens and the earth in all their moods, the manifold forms of life that stirred about him, the perils and mischances of existence, and the dread phenomena by which his world was sometimes startled. His mind was so full of pic- tures from this source that, when he spoke or wrote, he involuntarily used them to illustrate his ideas on other matters. Hence his book abounds in such figures and illustrations. Notice the following tropes : Jehovah roars (i. 2), war is 2i fire (i. 3), wrath rends (i. 11), the Amorite is destroyed fruit and root (ii. 9), violence is stored {iii. 10), the women of Samaria are kine of Bashan (iv. i), distress is wormwood (v. 7), the Pleiades and Orion represent creation (v. 8), violence bursts or breaks like light (v. 9), Israel takes horns (yi. 13), lack of the word of Jehovah is fami7ie {y'm, 11), the plowman over- takes the reaper^ and the mountains drop must^ in the good time coming (ix. 13), and the Hebrews diXQ plaftted in their soil, never to be uprooted (ix. 15). The compar- isons also are numerous : the Amorites are compared to cedars and oaks (ii. 9) ; the earthquake to a wagon fidl of sheaves (ii. 13); the remnant of Israel to two legs and a hit of an ear (iii. 1 2), and a brand plucked from the flame (iv. 1 1); the vengeance of Jehovah to an zmquench- able fire {w. 6); the peril of Israel to that of one who escapes a lion and a bear to die by a serpent (v. 19) ; willing justice to water and a living stream (v. 24) ; the coTCimg vfOQ \.o motirning for an 071 ly child {y'm. 10); and the captivity of Israel to the shaking of grain in a sieve that retains every good kernel (ix. 9). Add to these several virtual comparisons : the series of illustrations of the relation of cause and effect (iii. 2 ff.), and the two INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 11 of the madness of sin (vi. 12). Finally all the visions of the last three chapters were suggested by scenes and events of which the prophet must have been a witness. This is a long catalogue of illustrations for so short a book, — so long that it is not necessary to refer to those which cannot be traced to his expe- rience as a shepherd to show that in picturesqueness, as in orderliness, Amos surpasses all the rest of the prophets. Tekoa did much for Amos, but it is not necessary to claim that it alone made him all that he was. It has already been hinted that other influences wrought in his development. He was familiar with the history and condition of his own people. Where he learned what he knew about the Hebrews is, for the present, a matter of indifference. It is enough that, as must be admitted, he had, by some means, gotten possession of the great facts of their past and present, and studied them to some purpose. He had not confined his thoughts to his own country. He knew the neighboring nations ; Syria, Phoenicia, PhiHstia, Edom, Moab and Ammon, with their history, and the remoter Egypt and Assyria. The last he does not mention by name, but he shows by his unmistakable references to it that he understood its general character, and appreciated, as few, if any, others did, its importance in western Asia. These mental excursions beyond the horizon of his native place must have helped to make him more than a shepherd before he became a prophet. Then Jehovah, by whose will his previous development had been directed, clothed him with the spirit, and his preparation was complete. 12 AMOS, II. THE DATE OF AMOS. The title to the book of Amos contains, among other things, two statements with reference to the date at which the prophet lived and labored. These statements are generally considered trustworthy even by those who deny that the title is from the hand of Amos. Taking for granted, for the present, that they are reliable, it would seem a very simple matter to fix, at least approx- imately, the date of the prophet. It ought only to be necessary to take the sum of the numbers which, ac- cording to the book of Kings, represent the duration of the reigns of the Judean kings from the first of Uzziah to the sixth of Hezekiah, and add this sum, minus one, to 722, the date of the fall of Samaria, in order to get the earliest date at which Amos could have appeared ; the latest could then be found by subtracting 27, the number of years that Jeroboam II. reigned after Uzziah came to the throne, from this total. Now Uzziah is said to have reigned 52 years, Jotham 16, Ahaz 16, and Hezekiah 6, before Samaria was captured. The sum of these numbers is 90. The first of Uzziah was therefore 90—1+722, or 811 B.C., and the last of Jeroboam II., 811—27, or 784 b.c, between which two dates Amos must have prophesied in Israel. The matter, however, is not so simple as it seems. In the first place, while 2 Kings xviii. 10 says that Samaria fell in the sixth year of Hezekiah, xvi. i of the same book requires one to believe that this event occurred in the thirteenth of Ahaz, at least three years INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 13 before Hezekiah came to the throne, and that, therefore, Uzziah did not begin to reign until 802 B.C. If, now, an attempt be made to arrive at the date of Amos by- using the statements of the books of Kings with refer- ence to the kings of Israel, the result will be found to agree with neither of those already obtained ; for if Jeroboam II. (after Uzziah's accession) reigned 27 years, Zechariah J, Shallum -^^^ Menahem 10, Pekahiah 2, Pe- kah 20, and Hoshea 9, and all together 683^2 years, Uzziah must have succeeded Amaziah in 69—1+722, or 790 B.C. This calculation is based on the supposition that Uzziah began to reign in the fifteenth of Jeroboam II., as 2 Kings xiv. 23 would lead one to conclude. If, however, xv. i, where Azariah, i.e. Uzziah, is said to have begun to reign in the twenty-seventh of Jeroboam II., be taken as a basis, the former must have ascended the throne twelve years later, or in JJ% b.c. The last consideration also affects the lower limit in each of the first two calculations, so that the result is a sixfold one ; viz. Amos may have prophesied between 811 and 784 or 796 B.C. 802 " 775 " 787 " 790 or 778 and 763 " It is plain that only one of these results can be cor- rect. As a matter of fact they are all incorrect. This can easily be proven by data from Assyrian history, whose correctness is unquestionable. Shalmaneser 11. says that he took tribute of Jehu, king of Israel, in 842 B.C. ; but if Uzziah began to reign in 811 or 802, this was clearly impossible, since the last year of Jehu was thus 811 or 802 plus the first 14 of Jeroboam II., the 16 of Jehoash, and the 17 of Jehoahaz, i.e. 858 or 14 AMOS. 849 B.C. It was possible if the first of Uzziah was 790 or yjS, in either of which cases the last of Jehu was 837 B.C. ; but if either of these dates be accepted as correct, it will be found in conflict with other Assyrian data. Thus, whether the first of Uzziah was 790 or yyS B.C., the' last of Jeroboam II. was 763 B.C., and the last of Menahem 763, minus the one of Zechariah and Shallum and the 10 of Menahem, i.e. 752 b.c. ; but Tiglath-pileser III., who did not begin his reign until 745 B.C., says that he took tribute of Menahem, and his statement is confirmed by the Hebrew historian ; for the Pul of 2 Kings xv. 19 is no other than this Assyrian king. In this case, of course, if any earlier date for the beginning of Uzziah's reign be adopted, the discrepancy will only be the greater. Are the chronological data of the books of Kings then worthless } This question has been too hastily answered in the affirmative. They are useless only in the hands of unskilled readers. To those who, by thorough study, have learned how to handle them, they are far from valueless. Indeed, most biblical scholars believe that they can be harmonized with one another and with data from profane sources and combined into a reliable system. This result, however, can only be attained by observing certain requirements which the data themselves, on close examination, suggest. In the first place, as is now generally admitted, one must dis- criminate between two classes of numbers, a more and a less reliable. The former consists of numbers which, like those for the duration of the reigns of the various kings of Judah and Israel, seem to have been derived from tradition or older documents ; the latter, of those INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 15 which, like the relative dates of the rulers of the two kingdoms, are evidently the result of calculation. When numbers belonging to these two classes conflict, the latter must, of course, be rejected in favor of the former. Secondly, though too much has sometimes been made of co-regencies, there are cases in which the Bible itself furnishes authority for asserting them. Thus, e.g.^ 2 Kings xiv. 17 says that Amasiah lived fifteen years after the death of his enemy Jehoash, but it does not say that he ruled over Judah at all after his defeat. Verse 21, indeed, indicates that he was thereupon virtu- ally, if not formally, dethroned, in favor of his son Uz- ziah. Further, toward the end of Uzziah's reign, when he had been smitten with leprosy, Jotham was "over the house, judging the people of the land " (2 Kings XV. 5). In each of these cases the duration of the co- regency must have been reckoned as part of the reigns of two kings ; hence, in part, the excess of the sum of the reigns of the kings of Judah from Amasiah to Ahaz over that of the reigns of the contemporary kings of Israel and over the actual duration of the period between these limits. The effect of a brief co-regency was pro- duced by the practice of counting a last incomplete year of one king as the first of his successor. Thirdly, regard must be had to the synchronisms between Hebrew and Assyrian history. The chronology of the kings of Judah and Israel has been much studied and discussed, and various schemes have been constructed. Only those are of consequence which have been constructed in accordance with the above requirements. They differ, but the differences among them are not serious. The following, for the 16 AMOS. period between 843, when Jehu and Athaliah must have ascended their respective thrones, and 722 B.C., the date of the fall of Samaria, will be found as satis- factory, perhaps, as any : — JuDAH. Israel. I Athaliah = i Jehu = 843 B.C. 6 " U 6 " I Joash J = 838 « 23 " =1'^ " J. I Jehoahaz 1 = 816 (( 39 " =r7 " I I Jehoash 1 = 800 « 40 " 1 2 „ I Amasiah ) = 799 (( [I Uzziah] / ^ = 786 « 15 Amasiah 1 f l6 " "I - 78c [2 Uzziah] J \ I Jeroboam II. / ' ^ « 29 Amasiah \ _ „ 16 Uzziah / ~ ^ = 771 (( 38 " \= .7 « [I Jotham] / ^' (-41 « 42 Uzziah \ _ Zechariah [5 Jotham] / 1 Shallum = 749 (( = 745 « . I Menahem '51 Uzziah ) _ r 10 " [14 Jotham] J ~ I I Pekahiah } = 736 « 52 Uzziah 1/2 " 15 Jotham / ~ I I Pekah } = 735 « ^^ " U 2 " I Ahaz / = 734 « 3 " =1 4 " I I Hoshea } = 732 « 13 " = 722 « This scheme will bear examination. It preserves the relations between the kings of Judah and Israel, INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 17 described in the books of Kings. Athaliah of Judah remains the contemporary of Jehu of Israel ; Joash of Jehu, Jehoahaz and Jehoash ; Amasiah of Jehoash and Jeroboam II. ; Uzziah of Jeroboam II., Zechariah, Shal- lum, Menahem, Pekahiah and Pekah; Jotham of Pekah; and Ahaz of Pekah and Hoshea. Perhaps as many of the computed synchronisms as it would be possible to harmonize with any scheme find in this their justifica- tion. Moreover, the requirements of Assyrian chro- nology are met. Jehu begins his reign in time to pay tribute to Shalmaneser II. in 842 B.C., while Uzziah and Ahaz of Judah, and Menahem, Pekah and Hoshea of Israel are all contemporary with Tiglath-pileser III. Yet only one serious change has been made in the biblical data, — that in the length of Pekah's reign. This change was necessary in order that both Menahem and Hoshea might be brought within the eighteen years (745-727 B.C.) during which Tiglath-pileser ruled As- syria. It is also warranted on the ground that Pekah, or any one else, could hardly have maintained himself so long on the throne of Israel in the troubled period immediately preceding the overthrow of the kingdom.^ A glance at the above table will show within what limits the date of Amos must be found. He prophesied 1 Tiglath-pileser III. in his annals claims to have put Pekah to death and set Hoshea upon the vacant throne (comp. 2 Kings xv. 30) ; and, from his account of the matter, it would at first sight seem as if this change of rulers took place in 734 B.C., during the Assyrian king's expedition to Philistia (Schrader, Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament \_KAT\ 255 ff.; Eng- lish, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, paged after the original in the margin). It is probable, however, th"t it occurred two years later, when Damascus was finally reduced by the Assyrian king. Compare Murdter-Delitzsch, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assy riens, 180. 18 AMOS. while Uzziah ruled over Judah, and Jeroboam II. over Israel ; but these two kings ruled contemporaneously, at the longest, from 785 to 745 B.C., and, strictly speaking, only from 771 to 745 B.C. ; hence Amos must have appeared within one of these periods. He was prob- ably not earlier than 771 B.C., for, at the time of his mission to Israel, Jeroboam II. had already fulfilled the prediction of Jonah of Gath-hepher (2 Kings xiv. 25), and restored his kingdom to its original dimensions, " from the entrance to Hamath to the stream of the Arabah" (Am. vi. 14); and until 773 B.C. Assyria was able to assert its sovereignty over Damascus and the surrounding country (Schrader, KA T 482). On the other hand, Amos' mission was not much later than the date above mentioned, for, not long after the death of his father, Uzziah began to display the wisdom and prowess by which he greatly enlarged and strengthened the kingdom of Judah (2 Kings xiv. 22), and there is no evidence that he had made much progress in his career when the book of Amos was written. Gath and Ashdod (2 Chron. xxvi. 6) were still unconquered (Am. vi. 2) ; in fact, the house of David was still so weak that it could fitly be represented as a mere " booth " (Am. ix. 11). Perhaps it will not be far wrong to conclude that 760 B.C. was about the date at which Amos appeared as the prophet of Jehovah at Bethel. This conjecture is neither confirmed nor contradicted by the phrase two years before the eartJiquake, in the title to Amos' book, since it is now impossible to ascer- tain when the earthquake, which is also mentioned by Zechariah (xiv. 5), occurred. Josephus connects it with the attempt of Uzziah to usurp priestly functions INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 19 (2 Chron. xxvi. 16 ff.); but there are good reasons for denying any such connection. The first of these is that, while the earthquake, like the appearance of the prophet, was toward the beginning of Uzziah's reign, his encounter with the priests, and the stroke by which he was punished, practically closed his career. Further, Josephus* account of the matter is so evidently fictitious in those parts where its correctness can be tested that it is best to regard the whole as a product of his imagina- tion.i The most, then, that can be learned from the phrase in question, if it is authentic, is so little that, for the present, it is not worth while to inquire whether or not it has any historical value. On this point see the comments. Reference has already been made to the condition of Israel under Jeroboam II. This king, like his father Jehoash, had successfully defended his kingdom against his hereditary enemies, the Syrians, and even, it would seem (2 Kings xiv. 28), gotten possession of some of their territory. He and his soldiers doubtless enriched themselves at the expense of the conquered nation. Meanwhile his people, relieved from the destructive inroads of their Syrian and other neighbors, had suc- 1 He says {Ant. IX. 10, 4)': " In the meantime a great earthquake shook the ground, and a rent was made in the temple, and the bright rays of the sun shone through it and fell upon the king's face, insomuch that the leprosy seized upon him immediately. And before the city, at a place called Eroge (En Rogel), half the mountain broke off from the rest on the West, and rolled itself four furlongs, and stood still at the East mountain till the roads, as well as the King's Gardens, were spoiled by the obstruc- tion," It is only necessary to turn to Zech. xiv. 4f. to find that the his- torian borrowed from the prophet's description of a future convulsion most of the details with which he adorned the great event of Uzziah's reign. 20 AMOS. ceeded in developing, to an extent not before attained, the resources of their own country. The wealth thus produced was not, it is true, equally distributed, but there was enough for all, and the fact that some had much more than their proportion only served to make the greatness of the aggregate more apparent. What wonder then if the king, as he saw the palaces of his nobles multiplying in Samaria, in spite of now and then a complaint from some less fortunate subject, allowed himself to be convinced that, as they doubtless assured him, his reign was a success, and the country, beyond precedent, prosperous } This state of things, too, seemed likely to last, for no one could see whence evil was to be expected (ix. lo). The immediate neighbors of Israel had, one after another, been humbled. Judah seemed to be recover- ing, but Israel had nothing to fear from Judah and its inexperienced ruler. Even Egypt and Assyria, by which Palestine had, in the past, been repeatedly in- vaded, and between which both of the Hebrew kingdoms were destined to perish, seemed to have ceased to be dangerous. Egypt, no longer a compact nation under a vigorous monarch, had become a confused complex of little principalities, whose petty sovereigns were usually engaged in destroying one another. Once about this time they united against Pianchi, the king of Ethiopia, who had obtained a foothold in the country, but their union only made the task of overthrowing them the easier. They were all obliged to submit and pay trib- ute. When, therefore, Pianchi returned to his own country, he left them as discordant and as powerless against him, or any one else, as could be desired. As- INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 21 Syria, also, was harmless. When Ramman-nirari III. closed his brilliant career in 783 B.C. the empire that he ruled extended from Lake Van on the north to the border of Elam on the south, and from Media on the east to the shore of the Mediterranean on the west (Schrader, K AT 212^^. His son, Shalmaneser III., beaten in a long struggle with Urartu (Ararat), lost his authority over many other provinces (Schrader, KATa^%2\ His grandson, Assurdan III., inherited the remnant of the empire in 772 B.C. During his first eight years he made seven expeditions in various directions, the first and the last into northern Syria. At the end of that time he found enough to busy him at home. In 763 B.C., the year of the eclipse, there arose an insurrection in the ancient capital, Assur. This lasted two years. By the time it was quelled there was another in Arpacha, which was followed by a third in Gozan. Moreover, in the year 759 B.C., when Gozan revolted, the plague, which had already once visited Assyria (765 B.C.) since Assur- dan III. began to reign, returned. In 758 B.C. there was, in the words of the chronicler, "peace in the land " ; but so exhausting had been the effect of these repeated calamities that the king did not again leave the country until his last year, 755 B.C. (i^yi 7" 482 ff.). His successor, Assur-nirari, barely maintained himself upon his throne until 745 B.C., when one of his generals, by the aid of the army, deposed him, and, under the name Tiglath-pileser III., founded the second empire {KAT484 ff.). When, therefore, Amos appeared, Israel was at the height of its prosperity, while Assyria, by which he predicted that it and its neighbors would be destroyed, seemed to be approaching its fall ; but Jeho- 22 AMOS. vah had, for his own glory, chosen things that were base and despised, yea, and things that were not, to bring to nought things that were (i Cor. i. 28). III. THE BOOK OF AMOS. Amos has been characterized as the most orderly among the prophets whose writings are preserved in the Old Testament. It ought not, therefore, to be difficult to analyze his book. It is, in fact, a comparatively easy task. The divisions are usually well-marked, and their relation to one another apparent. Nevertheless, there is not perfect unanimity among scholars, even with ref- erence to the general plan of the book. Some, like Bleek {Einleitiing), divide it into two parts, i.-vi,, and vii.-ix. Others prefer a threefold division, in which, however, they do not all agree. Thus, while most make the three parts i.-ii., iii.-vi., and vii.-ix., Ewald, for example, unites the first two into one, and finds his third part in the last nine verses of the last chapter, while Stade reckons ii. 6-16 to the second, instead of the first, part. Finally, Baur adopts a fourfold division, i.-ii., iii.-vi., vii.-ix. 10, ix. 11-15. The points to be settled are whether there shall be a division at the end of the second chapter, and whether the promises, with which the book closes, shall form a separate part. As above stated, the former of these questions is oftenest answered in the affirmative, the latter in the negative ; and this is really the only defen- INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 23 sible solution ; for, while the first two chapters are com- plete in themselves, — the third chapter making a new beginning as clearly as does the seventh, — the last verses of the ninth are necessary to the completion of the doctrine of the rest of the chapter. Without them only one side of Jehovah's righteousness would have been presented. On the other hand, these last five (Baur), or, for that matter, nine (Ewald), verses are incomplete in themselves. Had Amos intended them to form a distinct part of his book, co-ordinate with i.-ii. and iii.-vi., he would have reproduced in them the ideas prominent in the book, and thus given, them a more independent character. In view of the above con- siderations it seems best to adopt the threefold division, i.-ii., iii.-vi., and vii.-ix. I. The first part serves as an introduction to the sub- ject of which the book as a whole treats. It begins, after the title (i. i), with a startling, yet indefinite, an- nouncement (z^. 2), later imitated by Joel (iv. 16), which must have had the effect of thunder from a clear sky. Jehovah shall roar from Zion, and from Jerusalem utter his voice ; and the pastures of the shepherds shall wilt, and the top of Carmel wither. It is clear from this utterance that Amos is a prophet of wrath. He does not leave one long in suspense regarding those who are in danger. The order in which the nations threatened are men- tioned is very effective. First of all come the three utterly foreign nations, represented by Damascus {yv. 3- 5), Gaza (yv. 6-Z\ and Tyre {yv. 9-10). Then follow three more nearly related to the Hebrews : Edom (yv. 11-12), Ammon (iw. I3-I5)» and Moab (ii. 1-3). Just before Israel comes Judah (yv. 4-5), next of kin to 24 AMOS. the doomed people. When, therefore, Israel is finally mentioned {vv. 6-16), it is as if, while one was watching an approaching storm, it suddenly, having destroyed everything else, struck and shattered the very house over one's head.^ There is, in these first two chapters, an internal as well as an external climax. Not only does the danger constantly increase until the catastrophe is reached, but the fate of the last sufferer seems most dreadful and most richly deserved. This effect is produced, partly by introducing a new element, — the goodness of Jeho- vah, — and partly by dwelling on the case of Israel. Thus, instead of one, Amos lays four distinct transgres- sions to their charge {yv. 6-d,). He also recites four proofs of Jehovah's goodness to them {vv. 9-12). Finally, he describes, with harrowing fulness, the pen- alty of their ingratitude {vv. 13-16). II. The second part, consisting of chapters iii.-vi., 1 The section devoted to Judah is pronounced an interpolation by Duhm {Theologie der Propheten, 119) and others. The reasons given are that it is weak, unlike Amos, and very like one of the Deuteronomic authors. Its seeming weakness arises from its indefinite character. It was necessary, however, for the prophet to put the charge against Judah in this indefinite shape to avoid repetition when he came to Israel, since the two are condemned on practically the same ground, viz. for desertion of their God and disregard of his revealed will. In reply to the second point, let it be observed that the structure of the section as a whole is precisely like that of all the rest. The third point is also mistaken, for, as W. Robertson Smith {Prophets of Israel, 398) observes, and justly : they have contemned the law of Jehovah and have not observed his statutes is not necessarily a Deuteronomic expression. See, further. Supplementary Studies I.; also Kuenen, Onderzoek, II. 361. Wellhausen {Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, V. ) finds another interpolation, i. 1 1 f., which he denies to Amos on the ground that the hostility to Edom there displayed was unknown among the Hebrews before the Chaldean period. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 25 inclusive, is a development of the threefold thought of ii. 6-16. It naturally falls into three divisions, each of which begins with the solemn injunction, Hear ye this word. The first division consists of chapter iii., the second of chapter iv., while the third includes chapters V. and vi. Each of these divisions may be more or less subdivided. The first division is a sort of introduction to the other two. It opens with a brief repetition of the indictment against Israel, in which Judah also is included. This consists of two verses (1-2), the second of which may be regarded as the keynote of the book. Yoti only have I chosen of all t J le families of the earth: therefore will I punish yoii for all yonr iniquities. Having thus stated his text, the prophet, before proceeding to amplify upon it, further prepares the way for his message proper. He accomplishes his object by two distinct means, hence the rest of the chapter falls into two sections, first, vv. 3-8, and second vv. 9-15. The multiplied illustrations of the first section {yv. 3- 8) at first confuse one, but there is never any doubt as to the prophet's meaning, and when the passage is care- fully examined, it displays a degree of rhetorical skill that is surprising. Amos wishes to justify his sudden assumption of the prophetic office, and especially to add weight to what he feels moved to utter. He therefore claims that his appearance, like all other phenomena, is an illustration of the relation of cause and effect ; that, in short, he is the messenger of an angry deity. His illustrations could not have been simpler, yet the effect is very impressive. One forgets the prophet in one's anxiety concerning his message. ? 26 AMOS. The solemnity of the situation is increased by the appearance of the heathen as witnesses to Jehovah's justice in view of Israel's condition. The Philistines and the Egyptians are summoned and shown the cor- ruption of Samaria {vv. 9-10). In their presence Jeho- vah declares his purpose with reference to Israel (vv. 11-12), and finally commands its proclamation to the condemned (vv. 13-15). There is something awful in the thought that the sins of the chosen people have reached such a degree of grossness that Jehovah can safely rely upon strangers to his grace to approve any penalty that he may decree. Having thus presented his credentials, and vindicated in advance the justice of his master, Amos proceeds to the development of his theme. The second division (iv.) is a vivid presentation of the desperate guilt of Israel. First (vv. 1-3) the women, whom he calls ki7ie of BasJimi, are arraigned for their cruelty and wantonness, and threatened with merciless captivity. Then follows a longer section (yv. 4-13), in which the nation as a whole is accused of obstinate hypocrisy in its relations with Jehovah. The first section is too brief to admit of many details, but the second is almost a perfect parallel to ii. 6-16 with its three subdivisions. Tn the first of these sub-sections (vv. 4-5) the prophet exhorts his hearers to an increase of zeal in their relig- ious observances ; but the irony of his exhortation is apparent. It is really a warning that, being such as they are, they can only add to their offensiveness in the eyes of Jehovah by professing to be his wor- shipers. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 27 They are blind to this fact, and their blindness is inexcusable, since Jehovah has given them repeated tokens of his displeasure. Amos rehearses (yv. 6-11) these unheeded chastisements. They are five in num- ber. There are, therefore, in this second sub-section, five strophes, each of which ends with the plaintive refrain, Yet ye returned not unto mey saith Jehovah. TJicrcfore — This word introduces the concluding sub- division (yv. 12-13). Another and a more terrible description of the penalty to be inflicted would naturally follow, but it is for the present withheld. The prophet displays his literary skill in withholding it, and abruptly summoning Israel into the presence of the Almighty, with a description of whose power he closes the section and the division.^ The third and last division of the second part of the book (v.-vi.) contains the same elements as the one preceding, but the tone is, for the most part, entirely different. The effect is such as if Jehovah, dismayed by the terrors of his own anger, had suddenly resolved to make a last attempt to save Israel. The change of tone is very marked in the first section 1 The last verse of chapter iv. is also rejected by many critics, because, as is alleged, it is but loosely connected with the preceding, and because it teaches a doctrine that did not become prominent until the Exile. The first point is not well taken, for a description of the power of the Almighty follows naturally the summons into his presence, and the very abruptness of this description is one element of its power. On the second point it is only necessary to quote i. 2, iii. 6, iv. 6-1 1, vii. i, 4, viii. 8 f., and ix. 13, to show that, to Amos, Jehovah was the Lord of the world, and vi. 12 and ix, 2-4 to prove that the order of thought is not unlike Amos. See on this passage also W. Robertson Smith, PI 398 ; Kuenen, Onderzoek, II. 362. Wellhausen (^SVy V.) is inclined to consider v.\2 also as an addition to the text. 28 AMOS. (v. 1-6). At the beginning of it the prophet breaks into a lament, as if the dreadful result suggested by the therefore of the preceding chapter had already been realized. Fallen^ not to rise agaiuy Is virgin Israel! She is hurled tcpon her soil. With none to raise her tip I This lament, the bitterness of which is explained by V. 3, naturally passes into an exhortation {zw. 4-6), in which a possibility of mercy is not merely suggested, but distinctly presented. To the exhortation is attached a warning that, unless Israel seek Jehovah^ there is no way of escape for thein. The second section (vv. 7-17) is much longer and much more difficult of analysis. In this section the description of the power of Jehovah, with which Amos interrupts his characterization of the children of Israel, makes their danger so manifest that the prophet cannot refrain from renewing his exhortation ; but he sees so plainly that it will remain unheeded that he himself seems to ignore it.^ The third section (yv. 18-27) recalls iv. 4-13, but it has a more serious tone than that passage. Its object is to expose the delusions by which the success of Amos' 1 Vv. 8 f. are of the same character as iv. 13, except that, here, the description of the power of Jehovah interrupts the recital of Israel's trans- gressions instead of being attached to the sentence passed upon them. This, however, is but a variation in the order of thought, like vi. 12 ff. Moreover, the abruptness of the interruption is greatly relieved by regard- ing the definite participle with which v. 7 begins as a sort of vocative. See W. Robertson Smith, PI 398 ; Kuenen, Onderzaek, II. 362. Compare Wellhausen, SV, V. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 29 mission was prevented. He shows first {yv. 18-20) that the day of Jehovah should fill Israel with terror rather than expectation; then (yv. 21-27) that there is no virtue in purely ceremonial observances. In this latter subdivision occurs an exhortation {y. 24), but it is an exhortation only in form. The prophet expects nothing from it ; he therefore proceeds to the decree with which the chapter closes. Therefore take Sakkiith your kijig, even Kewan, your star-god, yo7ir images which ye have made for yourselves y and I will lead you captive beyojid Damascus I The fourth and last section of this division (vi.) recalls iv. 1-3 ; for here, as there, luxury and misery are con- trasted. This passage, however, though more general in its application, is much more abundant in details, and consequently more vivid and impressive than the other. The first section (yru. 1-7) describes the nobles, espe- cially of Israel, — the first of the most favored of peo- ples, — as enjoying the first of all the luxuries of life, and promises them corresponding distinction when their country is overrun and conquered. The second section (8-14) pictures the depth of misery to which they must come in the madness of their resistance to the will of the Almighty.^ III. The break between the second and third parts of the book of Amos is so decided that it cannot be overlooked ; for, although at the end of the sixth chap- ter the fate of Israel seemed sealed, at the beginning of the seventh the case is reopened. Moreover, the method 1 Wellhausen {SV, V.) finds w. 9 f. so difficult of interpretation that he drops them from the text, but they would seem to be a necessary enlargement upon v, 8. 30 AMOS. of the prophet in the third part (vii,-ix.) is strikingly different from that hitherto employed. It is the visions of the last three chapters that distinguish them as com- pared with the rest of the book. There are five of them. The first three form a series illustrating a single truth ; the other two are independent of them and of each other. This part, therefore, also falls into three divis- ions, each consisting of a separate chapter with subor- dinate divisions. The truth taught in the first division (vii.) is that Jehovah, though merciful, will not always permit men to slight his mercy, but that, if they will not return to him, he will punish them as they deserve ; that, in short, justice will avenge mercy. The first section {vv. 1-9) contains the visions and a brief but forcible interpretation. Locusts were formed ; they had all but destroyed vegetation when the prophet interceded and they were withdrawn. A visitation by fire was commanded ; it had emptied the great deep, but just as it was about to devour the parched earth the prophet interceded, and it was quenched. Finally, the plumb-line appeared, and the prophet was powerless to delay any longer the divine vengeance (vv. 7-9). / will not again pass him by, said Jehovah. The second section {vv. 10-17) contains a historical incident in which the prophecy of the preceding is per- sonally applied. Amasiah, high priest at Bethel, follow- ing the example of those who before him had silenced the prophets and forced the nazirites to drink wine, first reports Amos to the king, and then attempts to drive him from the country (2/?7. 10-13). The prophet responds, vindicating his right to a hearing in Israel, INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 31 and foretelling that Amasiah himself will drink most deeply of the cup prepared for his people (iro. 14-17). In the second division (viii.) it is the hopelessness of the case of Israel that is prominent. This is illustrated by the vision of the basket of ripe fruit {vv. 1-3), which, at first sight, might seem merely a repetition of that of the plumb-line. On closer exami- nation it will be found that while the plumb-line symbol- izes the end of Jehovah's mercy, that of the ripe fruit symbolizes the end of Israel's nationality, the result of the divine indignation. The second section is a development of this thought after the manner of parts II. and III. First the dis- honesty of the greedy merchants of Israel is described in all its manifestations, and condemned {yv. 4-8) ; then the darkness and distress of the day of Jehovah is pic- tured (^'i^. 9-10); and finally the total abandonment of his apostate people by their God is predicted (irj, 11-14).! That the children of Israel are doomed is the meanins: of the first three visions. That their fate will be a sad one is the purport of the fourth. Is there no escape } This is the question with which the third and last divis- ion (ix.) deals, and so skillfully that the justice of Jeho- vah is completely vindicated. In the first section {yv. 1-6) the vision and the inter- pretation given to it apply to those who, while they 1 Oort (rr, 1880, 120), with Wellhausen {SV, V.), rejects vv, 11 f. as an interpolation, because they break the connection, and because they predict a dearth of prophets such as was not felt until after the Exile. In reply, it may be said that the question concerning the connection is one that is greatly affected by the interpretation adopted for the context, and that, as a matter of fact, but a single prophet, Oded (2 Chron. xxviii. 9), is mentioned as active in Israel in all the subsequent history. 32 AMOS. know that the prophet's most terrible predictions are meant for them, flatter themselves that, whatever may happen to others, they will be able to protect themselves against even Jehovah. Them Amos charges to remem- ber that it is an omnipresent and omnipotent God whom they have offended.^ " What, then," says one, " becomes of our covenant with Jehovah ? Will he cast off his people ? " Amos' reply to this implied objection {vv. 7-10) destroys the last refuge of hypocrisy, and entitles him to rank with the greatest of the prophets. The gist of this remark- able passage is that only those who fulfill their part of the covenant with Jehovah can expect to enjoy his favor. Not a grain of wheat will be lost, but the chaff must be given to the wind. It must have greatly cheered the hearts of some who heard Amos, when he said. Not a grain^ etc. ; much more when this ray of assurance broadened into the splendid promise of the last section {yv. 11-15), the end of the book. Omnipotence pledges himself not only to rescue the good when the evil are destroyed, but to pre- pare for his saints a glorious future. The house of David, now humble, shall one day recover its former glory, and rule, not only Judah, but all the nations that ever acknowledged its divinely conferred authority.^ 1 If the genuineness of iv. 13 and v. 8 f. be admitted, that of vv. 5 f. of this chapter, which are evidently by the same hand, must be conceded. See W. Robertson Smith, PI 398 ; Kuenen, Onderzoek, II, 362. 2 The consideration above mentioned, viz. the necessity of presenting the reverse of Jehovah's justice, seems to outweigh any objections to the genuineness of vv. 8-15 that can well be urged. The opinion of Well- hausen (^SV, V.), who holds that the mention of a return from captivity proves them to be later than the Exile, must therefore be rejected. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 33 The beginning of the book was compared to the approach of a storm. Later in it the denunciations of the prophet seemed like thunderbolts from the midst of a tempest. When the clouds retreat, as they depart, the sun, bursting forth, paints upon their dark masses a rainbow, the symbol of God's mercy and faithfulness. Such a rainbow is the promise with which Amos com- forts the faithful in Israel, after having predicted the destruction of the nation as such for their sins. The total effect, therefore, is to inspire a cheerful yet humble faith in a just and omnipotent God. APPENDIX. AN ANALYTICAL TABLE. The result of the above analysis may be tabulated as follows : — Approaching Judgment : i. 2-ii. 1 6. 1. Syria: i. 3-5. 2. Philistia; 6-8. 3. Phoenicia: 9-10. 4. Edom: 11-12. 5. Ammon: 13-15. 6. Moab : ii. 1-3. 7. Judah: 4-5. 8. Israel: 6-16. Israel's Wicked- ness: 6-8. Jehovah's Good- ness: 9-12. The Penalty of In- gratitude: 13-16. 34 AMOS. a. The Substance of the Indict- ment: 1-2. b. The Prophet's I. Preliminaries Credentials : Samaria's of Justice : iii. 3-8. Corruption : c. The Approval 9-10. of the Hea- ' Jehovah's Pur- then: 9-15. pose: 11-12. A Proclama- . tion: 13-15. ' a. The Reckless Sensuality of the Women: 1-3. 2. The Depth of ' False Zeal: Israel's Guilt : < b. The Obstinate 4-5- Unheeded II. The iv. Hypocrisy of Chastise- Case of Israel: ^ the Nation : ments: 6-1 1. 4-13. Before Jeho- iii.-vi. vah: 12-13. r A Lament : ' a. A Possibility of J 1-3. Mercy: v. 1-6. | An Exhorta- [ tion: 4-6. b. The Danger of Resistance : 7-17. 3. The Unwilling ' The Day of Severity of c. Some Perilous Jehovah : Jehovah : Delusions : < 18-20. v.-vi. 18-27. Rites and Ceremonies : >. 21-27. d. The Humilia- The Height of tion of Israel : < Luxury: I-7. vi. The Depth of . Misery: 8-14. INTRODUCTORY STUDIES. 35 I. Justice the Avenger of Mercy: vii. a. The Visions and their In- terpretation : 1-9. b. Their Signifi- cance for Amasiah : 10-17. The Locusts : 1-3- The Fire : 4-6. The Plumb- line : 7-9. Amasiah's In- terference : 10-13. Amos' An- swer: 14-17. III. Israel's Fate Illustrated: vii.-ix. The Fruit of Sin the End of Israel : viii. a. The Basket of Ripe Fruit : ' A New Indict- ment: 4-8. b. The Bitter End of Israel : < 4-14. Distress and Darkness : 9-10. Apostate, Abandoned : 11-14. The Destroyer of Sinners the Hope of his Saints : ix. a. A Smitten Sanctuary : 1-6. b. A Forfeited Distinction : 7-10. c. A Purified Remnant : I1-15. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. I. THE WORDS OF AMOS: who was among the shepherds from Tekoa : what he beheld concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. (2) Said he: I. Jehovah shall roar from Zion, Yea from Jerusalem utter his voice ; Then shall the pastures of the shepherds wilt. And the top of Carmel wither. 1. (3) Thus saith Jehovah : Because Damascus hath transgressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it : — because they threshed Gilead with iron-shod sledges ; (4) but I will send fire into the house of Hazael and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad. (5) I will also break the bar of Damascus, and cut off him who dwell- eth therein from Bikath-awen, and him who holdeth the scepter from Beth-eden ; and the people of Aram shall go captive to Kir, saith Jehovah. 2. (6) Thus saith Jehovah : Because Gaza hath trans- gressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it: — 36 TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 37 because they led completely captive to deliver to Edom ; (7) but I will send fire within the wall of Gaza and it shall devour her palaces. (8) I will also cut off him who dwelleth therein from Ashdod and him who holdeth the scepter from Ashkelon ; yea I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord Jehovah. 3. (9) Thus saith Jehovah : Because Tyre hath trans- gressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it : — because they delivered a complete captivity to Edom and remembered not a brotherly covenant; (10) but I will send fire within the wall of Tyre and it shall devour her palaces. 4. (11) Thus saith Jehovah: Because Edom hath transgressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it : — because he pursued his brother with the sword, stifling his pity, while his wrath ever rent and his fury he nursed without ceasing; (12) but I will send fire into Teman and it shall devour the palaces of Bosrah. 5. (13) Thus saith Jehovah: Because the children of Ammon have transgressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it : — because they disemboweled the preg- nant women of Gilead for the sake of enlarging their border; (14) but I will kindle fire within the wall of Rabbah and it shall devour her palaces, with clamor in a day of battle, with commotion in a day of tempest ; (15) and their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith Jehovah. 6. (ii. i) Thus saith Jehovah : Because Moab hath transgressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it : — because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime ; (2) but I will send fire into Moab and it shall 38 AMOS. devour the palaces of Keriyyoth ; and Moab shall die amid tumult, with clamor, with the sound of the trum- pet ; (3) yea I will cut off the judge from her midst, and all her princes will I slay with him, saith Jehovah. 7. (4) Thus saith Jehovah : Because Judah hath trans- gressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it : — because they have contemned the law of Jehovah and have not observed his statutes : nay, the lies after which their fathers went have led them also astray ; (5) but I will send fire into Judah and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem. 8. a. (6) Thus saith Jehovah : Because Israel hath transgressed three, yea four, times I will not revoke it : — because they sell for money the guiltless, and the needy for a pair of shoes. (7) Nay, they pant for dust of the earth upon the heads of the lowly and turn aside the way of the humble. A man also and his father go to the maid for the sake of profaning my holy name. (8) They even stretch themselves on garments taken in pledge beside every altar, and the wine of such as have been fined they drink in the houses of their gods. d. (9) Yet it was I who destroyed before them the Amorite whose height was like the height of cedars, and his strength like t/iat of the oaks ; yea I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. (10) I myself also brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you in the desert forty years, to possess the land of the Amorite. (11) Moreover I ordained some of your chil- dren for prophets, and some of your youths for nazirites. Is not this indeed so, children of Israel .'* saith Jehovah. (12) But ye made the nazirites drink wine and the prophets ye charged, saying : Ye shall not prophesy. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 39 c. (13) Lo, I will cause a trembling under you such as the cart that is full of sheaves causeth. (14) Then shall refuge fail the swift, and the strong shall not assert his strength, nor shall the mighty rescue himself. (15) Nay, he who handleth the bow shall not stand, nor shall the swift of foot rescue, nor he who rideth the horse deliver, himself; (16) but the stoutest of heart among the mighty shall flee naked in that day, saith Jehovah. II. 1. a. (iii. i) Hear this word that Jehovah hath spoken against you, children of Israel, — against the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt. (2) You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities. b. (3) Do two walk together except they have joined each other } (4) Doth a lion roar in the wood when there is no prey for him } or doth a young lion utter his voice from his lair except he have caught something } (5) Doth a bird fall upon [a snare of] the ground if there be no springe for her.? or doth a snare fly up from the ground and catch nothing at all } (6) If a trumpet be blown in a city, do not the people tremble } or if evil befall a city, is it not Jehovah who hath wrought it.? (7) But the Lord Jehovah doeth naught except he have revealed his purpose to his servants the prophets. (8) A lion hath roared ! who can but fear } The Lord Jehovah hath spoken! who can but prophesy? c. (9) Proclaim ye over the palaces in Ashdod, and over the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say : Assem- ble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria and see the manifold uproar therein, and oppression in her 40 AMOS. midst (lo) Nay, they know not how to do right, saith Jehovah, but store up violence and oppression in their palaces. (ii) Therefore thus saith the Lord, Jehovah : A foe, even round about the land ! and he shall strip thee of thy strength, and thy palaces shall be plundered. (12) Thus saith Jehovah : As the shepherd snatcheth from the mouth of the lion two legs or a bit of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be rescued, who sit in Samaria, in the corner of a couch and in the damask of a divan. (13) Hear ye and declare unto the house of Jacob, saith the Lord Jehovah, the God of hosts, (14) that in the day when I punish Israel for his sins I will also visit the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be broken off and fall to the ground. (15) I will also smite the winter-house together with the summer- house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, yea many houses shall disappear, saith Jehovah. 2. a. (iv. i) Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the lowly, who crush the needy ; who say to their lords : Fetch for us to drink ! (2) The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by his holi- ness that, lo, days are coming upon you when ye shall be taken with hooks, yea, the last of you with fish- hooks. (3) Then shall ye go forth through the breaches, each one straight forward, and be driven toward Har- mon (?), saith Jehovah. b. (4) Come to Bethel and transgress ! to Gilgal — add transgression to transgression ! Nay, bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days, (5) and burn of leavened bread a thank-offering, and TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS, 41 proclaim freewill-offerings, make them known ; for thus ye love to do, children of Israel ! saith the Lord Jehovah. (6) Yet it was I who gave you nothing to eat in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places : but ye did not return unto me, saith Jehovah. (7) Moreover it was I who withheld from you the rain while yet there were three months until harvest ; I also made it rain upon one city, while upon another city I did not make it rain ; one field was rained upon, and the field where- upon I did not make it rain dried up ; (8) and when they of two or three cities staggered to another city for water to drink, they were not satisfied : but ye did not return unto me, saith Jehovah. (9) I smote you with blight and decay ; your many gardens, and vineyards, and fig-trees, and olive-trees the locust devoured : but ye did not return unto me, saith Jehovah. (10) I sent among you the pestilence, after the manner of Egypt ; I slew with the sword your youths, with your captured horses, and I caused the stench of your camp to rise into your very noses : but ye did not return unto me, saith Jehovah, (n) I overthrew some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were like a brand snatched from the blaze : but ye did not return unto me, saith Jehovah. (12) Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel! — and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. (13) But lo, he who formeth moun- tains, and createth the wind, and telleth man what is his thought ; who maketh dawn darkness and walketh on the heights of the earth — Jehovah, the God of hosts is his name ! 42 AMOS. 3. a. (v. i) Hear this word, a lament, which I uplift over you, house of Israel, (2) Fallen, not to rise again, Is virgin Israel ; She is hurled upon her soil. With none to raise her up ! (3) For thus saith the Lord Jehovah : The city that goeth forth a thousand strong shall have but 3. hundred left, and the one that goeth forth a hundred strong shall have but ten left in the house of Israel. (4) But thus saith Jehovah to the house of Israel : Seek me and live ; (5) and seek not Bethel, nor go to Gilgal, nor cross to Beersheba ; for Gilgal shall go into galling captivity and Bethel shall become Bet/i-Awen. (6) Seek Jehovah and live, lest he fall like fire upon the house of Joseph and it devour, and there be none to quench it for Bethel. b. (7) Those who turn justice to wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground ! — (8) He who maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth gloom into morning and darkeneth day into night ; who calleth the waters of the sea and poureth them upon the face of the earth : Jehovah is his name ! (9) Who causeth violence to burst upon the strong, yea, destruction shall come upon the stronghold! — (10) They hate in the gate one who reproveth, and one who speaketh uprightly they abhor. (11) Therefore, because ye trample upon the lowly and take a present of grain from him, though ye have built houses of hewn stone ye shall not dwell in them, though ye have planted pleasant vineyards ye shall not drink their wine. (12) For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins grievous : persecutors of the TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 43 guiltless ! takers of bribes ! yea, the needy they thrust aside in the gate! (13) Therefore he that is prudent will keep silence at such a time, for it is an evil time. (14) Seek good and not evil, that ye may live and that Jehovah, the God of hosts, may be with you as ye say. (15) Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate ; perchance Jehovah, the God of hosts, will spare a remnant of Joseph. (16) Therefore, thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, the Lord : In all squares shall there be lamentation, and in all streets shall they say. Woe ! woe ! and they shall summon the husbandman to mourn- ing and require lamentation of those who are skilled in wailing. (17) Yea, in all the vineyards there shall be lamentation, for I will pass through thy midst, saith Jehovah. c. (18) Woe to those who wish for the day of Jeho- vah ! Why, then, would ye the day of Jehovah } It is darkness and not light : (19) as if a man were fleeing from a lion, and a bear should meet him, and, when he came home and rested his hand against the wall, a ser- pent should bite him. (20) Is not the day of Jehovah darkness rather than light, yea, gloomy without any brightness } (21)1 hate, I despise, your feasts, and I take no delight in your festivals ; (22) for when ye offer unto me burnt- offerings and your vegetable offerings, I am not pleased, and I regard not the peace-offering of your fatlings. (23) Away from me with the noise of thy songs, and let me not hear the sound of thy psalteries! — (24) But let justice roll as water and righteousness like a living stream! (25) Did ye bring me sacrifices and a vege- table offering in the desert forty years, house of Israel ? 44 AMOS. — (26) Nay, take Sakkuth, your king, even Kewan, your star-god, your images that ye have made for yourselves, (27) and I will lead you captive beyond Damascus, saith Jehovah, whose name is the God of hosts. d. (vi. i) Woe unto the careless in Zion, and the reckless in the mountain of Samaria, the noted of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come ! — (2) Go over to Kalneh and see, and go thence to Hamath the great, and go down to Gath of the Philis- tines. Are they fairer than these kingdoms } or is their border wider than your border .'' — (3) Those who post- pone the evil day but bring near the seat of violence ; (4) who lie on ivory couches, yea stretched upon their divans, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall; (5) who twitter to the note of the psaltery, think that for them, as for David, are instru- ments of music ! (6) who drink wine from basins and anoint themselves with the first of oils, but are not grieved on account of the affliction of Joseph. (7) There- fore shall they now go into captivity at the head of the captives and the shout of banqueters shall cease. (8) The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by himself, saith Jehovah, the God of hosts : I abhor the glory of Jacob and his palaces I hate ; yea I will give over the city and all that is in it. (9) And it shall come to pass that, if there be left ten men in one house, they shall die. (10) And when one's relative and burier shall take one to carry the bones forth from the house, and shall say to him who is in the inmost of the house : Is there yet any with thee } he shall say : None ! Then shall he say : Hush ! for one may not make mention of the name of Jehovah. (11) For lo, Jehovah will command, and TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 45 the great house shall be smitten to atoms and the small house to breaches. (12) Can horses run on the rock? or can one plow the sea with oxen ? But ye have turned justice to gall and the fruit of righteousness to worm- wood : (13) who rejoice in that which is not and say: Have we not in our strength taken to ourselves horns ? (14) For lo, I will raise up against you, house of Israel, saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, a nation, and they shall oppress you from the entrance to Hamath unto the stream of the Arabah. III. 1. a. (vii. i) Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me : Lo, he formed locusts as the aftergrowth began to spring ; and lo, it was the aftergrowth after the king's shearing. (2) Now it came to pass, when they would have wholly devoured the herbage of the land, that I said : Lord Jehovah, prithee forgive ! How shall Jacob stand, since he is so small.? (3) Jehovah repented him of this. It shall not be, said Jehovah. (4) Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me : Lo, the Lord Jehovah called to punish by fire, and it devoured the great deep and would have devoured the field. (5) Then I said : Lord Jehovah, prithee cease! How shall Jacob stand, since he is so small t (6) Jehovah repented him of this. This also shall not be, said the Lord Jehovah. (7) Thus he showed me : Lo, the Lord was standing by a plumb wall with a plumb-line in his hand. (8) Then said Jehovah to me : What seest thou, Amos 1 and I said : A plumb-line. Then said the Lord : Lo, I will place a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel ; I will not again pass him by. (9) But the high-places of 46 AMOS. Isaac shall be laid waste, and the sanctuaries of Israel destroyed ; and I will arise against the house of Jero- boam with the sword. b. (lo) Then Amasiah, the priest at Bethel, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying : Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel ; the land is not able to contain all his words, (i i) For thus saith Amos : By the sword shall Jeroboam die, and Israel shall surely go into captivity off their land. (12) Ama- siah said also to Amos : Seer, go, flee thee to the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and there prophesy ; (13) but at Bethel thou shalt no longer prophesy, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal residence. (14) Then Amos answered and said to Amasiah : I am not a prophet, nor a son of the prophets, but I am a shepherd and a tender of sycamores; (15) but Jeho- vah took me from behind the flock, and Jehovah said to me: Go prophesy to my people Israel. (16) And now hear thou the word of Jehovah. Thou sayest : Thou shalt not prophesy against Israel, neither shalt thou preach against the house of Isaac. (17) Therefore, thus saith Jehovah : Thy wife shall play the harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line, and thou thyself shalt die on an unclean soil, and Israel shall surely go into captivity off their land. 2. a. (viii. i) Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me : Lo, there was a basket of ripe fruit. (2) And he said : What seest thou, Amos } And I said : A basket of ripe fruit. Then said he to me : My people Israel are ripe for their end ; I will not again pass them by. (3) But the songs of the palace shall become howls in that day, TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 47 saith the Lord Jehovah. Many shall be the corpses ; everywhere shall they be cast. Hush ! b. (4) Hear this, ye who pant after the needy and to destroy the humble of the land, (5) saying : When will the new-moon be past, that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, that we may open corn? diminishing the ephah, and enlarging the shekel, and providing false balances : — (6) buying the lowly for money, and the needy for a pair of shoes ; — may even sell the refuse of the corn. (7) Jehovah hath sworn by the glory of Jacob : I will never forget all their deeds. (8) Shall not the land on this account tremble, and every one dwelling in it mourn } Yea, it shall rise like the Nile, all of it, [and heave] and fall like the Nile of Egypt. (9) And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will cause the sun to set at noon, and bring darkness upon the land in bright day ; (10) and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation ; and I will bring upon all loins sackcloth, and upon all heads baldness. Yea, I will make it as mourning for an only child, and the end thereof as a bitter day. (11) Lo, days are coming, saith Jehovah, when I will send famine into the land ; not hunger for bread nor thirst for water, but to hear the word[s] of Jehovah ; (12) and they shall stray from sea to sea, and from the north to the east shall they wander, seeking the word of Jehovah, but they shall not find it. (13) In that day shall the fairest maidens and the youths faint for thirst, (14) who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say : By thy god, O Dan ! and : By the way of Beersheba ! yea, they shall fall and not rise again. 48 AMOS. 3. a. (ix. i) I saw the Lord standing by the altar; and he said : Smite the capital that the threshold quake, and break them upon the heads of all of them ; and the last of them I will slay with the sword ; there shall not a fugitive of them flee, nor shall a refugee among them escape. (2) If they burst into sheol, thence shall my hand fetch them ; and if they climb into the heavens, thence will I bring them down ; (3) if they hide them- selves in the top of Carmel, there will I seek and thence will I fetch them ; and if they cover themselves from my eyes at the bottom of the sea, there will I command the serpent to bite them ; (4) and if they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command that the sword slay them ; yea, I will fix my eye upon them for evil and not for good. (5) But the Lord Jehovah of hosts, who toucheth the earth and it quaketh, and all who dwell in it mourn ; yea, it riseth like the Nile, all of it, and falleth like the Nile of Egypt ; (6) who build- eth in the heavens his chambers, and as for his vault, over the earth hath he fixed it ; who calleth the waters of the sea and poureth them upon the face of the earth, — Jehovah is his name. b. (7) Are ye not like the children of Kush unto me, children of Israel.? saith Jehovah. If I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, did I not also bring the Philistines from Caphtor, and Aram from Kir } (8) Lo, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah are against the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it off the face of the ground ; only I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith Jehovah. (9) For lo, I will command and cause the house of Israel to be shaken among all nations as graiJt is shaken in a sieve, but there shall not a kernel TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 49 fall to the earth. (lo) By the sword shall all the sinners among my people die, who say : Evil will not reach, will not befall us. c. (ii) In that day will I raise up the fallen hut of David, and wall up their breaches, and raise up his ruins, and rebuild it as in days of old; (12) in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations over which my name has been proclaimed, saith Jehovah, who doeth this. (13) Lo, days are coming, saith Jehovah, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and he who treadeth grapes him who soweth seed, and the mountains shall drop must, and all the hills flow therewith. (14) Then will I restore my captive people Israel, and they shall rebuild the waste cities and dwell in them, and plant vineyards and drink the wine from them, and make gardens and eat the fruit from them. (15) Yea, I will plant them upon their soil, and they shall not again be uprooted from their soil which I have given them, saith Jehovah, thy God. COMMENTS. THE TITLE (i. i). Each of the prophetic books is furnished with a title of some sort. Sometimes it is very brief, like that pre- fixed to the single chapter of which the book of Obadiah consists, and sometimes it takes several verses, as in the case of that of Jeremiah. In most cases it is a super- scription proper without a predicate, but the books of Ezekiel, Jonah, Haggai, and Zechariah begin with a complete statement concerning at least the author. 50 AMOS. The title to the book of Amos is a simple superscription in which, besides the name and origin of the author, and the date of his prophetic activity, the subject of his work is given. Some of these details have already been partially discussed, but it will be worth while to review them in their connection. The words of : the book of Jeremiah is the only other that is described as the zvords of a prophet. In the titles to all the others the work is called tJie word of Jehovah (Eze. i. 3 ; Hos. i. i ; Joel i. i ; Jon. i. i ; Mic. i. I ; Zaph. i. i ; Hag. i. i ; Zech. i. i); or the vision of a given prophet (Isa. i. i ; Oba. i); or a burden whose subject is not always defined (Nah. i. i ; Hab. i. i ; Mai. i. i). This peculiar expression would at first sight seem to warrant the reader in regarding the books thus described as purely human productions, but this mis- take is prevented, in the case of Jeremiah, by the addi- tion, in V. 2, of the relative clause, to whom came the word of Jehovah, etc., and in the case of Amos by the use of a verb in a following clause which refers the substance of the words of Amos to a higher source. — Amos (lit. Bearer,^ comp. Amasiah, Jehovah hath borne, 2 Chron. xvii. 16) is not to be confounded with the father of Isaiah, whose name is the same in Greek ^ and might be spelled with the same letters in English, but is an entirely different word in Hebrew. Amos and Isaiah were doubtless closely related, but the tie between them was one, not of the flesh, but of the spirit. — among the 1 Jewish interpreters say that the prophet was so named because he was " pressed with his tongue," i.e. slow of speech. Waj. Rab. x. 2. 2 Hence the mistake of Clement of Alexandria and other early Greek authors. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 51 shepherds : the word here rendered shepherd occurs only once elsewhere in the Old Testament (2 Kings iii. 4), where it must be understood in the sense of sheep- owner. Hence it is possible that Amos may have owned the sheep that he tended. Compare vii. 14.^ The peo- ple of Tekoa were largely, perhaps almost wholly, engaged in rearing sheep, and Amos was one of their number. — from Tekoa : Tekoa was their home and the center from which they led their sheep into the sur- rounding pastures. It was in the tribe of Judah, and became the portion of Ashur, son of Hezron, of the family of Pharez (i Chron. ii. 24 ; iv. 5). Thence came the wise woman whom Joab sent to David to plead for Absalom's recall from banishment (2 Sam. xiv. 2), and Ira, one of David's captains (2 Sam. xxiii. 26 ; i Chron. xi. 28 ; xxvii. 9). It was fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chron. xi. 6), and was thenceforward a rallying-point for the Jews in times of danger (2 Chron. xx. 20; Jer. vi. i). It was re-occupied after the exile, and its inhabitants assisted in restoring Jerusalem (Neh. iii. 5, 27). It was a place of importance as late as the period of the crusades, but it is now only a heap of ruins.^ — what he saw : the relative is rendered wJiat instead of wJiichy to indicate that the antecedent is not the words of Amos 1 The Septuagint has kv 'AKKapei/x, which would correspond to D^l-K, husbandmeti, but whether the translators had a different text or merely misread that of the Masoretes is hard to determine. VoUers {ZA W, III. 262) suggests that the present Greek text is a corruption of kv 'NaKKapel/x. Note also that, according to the Septuagint, it was not the prophet, but the words of the prophet, 'which were in Akkareim. 2 This whole clause, who . . . Tekoa, is by some {e.g. Orelli) regarded as a later but reliable addition to the original title. Gratz (^Geschichte der yuden, I. 403) identifies Tekoa with the Eltekeh of Josh. xix. 44, thus making Amos a Danite. See also Oort, TT^ XIV. 122 ff. 52 AMOS. but the word of Jehovah therein contained, of which alone it is proper to say that he beheld it in the sense of the verb here used ; for this verb, which only rarely in poetry means see in the sense of perceive, is the proper word by which to describe the insight with which the prophets are represented as endowed. Thus, according to the title, the book of Isaiah is The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he beheld, etc. Ewald endeavors to do justice to this verb in the title to Amos by render- ing the clause, which he as a seer spake. The words are the words of Amos, but the substance of his message is of divine origin and authority. See Jer. i. if. — con- cerning Israel, i.e. Israel in the narrower sense, the northern kingdom (i Kings xii. i6ff.). Israel, in this sense, was the especial object of the mission of Amos, yet he by no means leaves Judah unnoticed (ii. 4 ; iii. i ; vi. I f. ; ix. 11). Perhaps, however, some of these refer- ences to Judah were an afterthought added when the prophet came to put his words into permanent form. There are other indications that the book of Amos was not written until some time after the original prophecies were delivered. — Uzziah : also called Azariah (2 Kings XV. i), the son of Amasiah, who reigned over Judah longest of all her kings. The events of his reign are described 2 Kings xiv. 21 f. ; xv. i ff. and 2 Chron. xxvi. I ff. Later in his reign the prophets Hosea and Isaiah made their appearance (Isa. i. i ; Hos. i. i). For a discussion of his date see the Introductory Studies II. — Jeroboam: the second of his name, the son of Jehoash, who, longer than any of the rest of the kings of Israel, maintained himself upon the throne, and, in the course of his reign, restored the kingdom to its original limits. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 53 His reign is described 2 Kings xiv. 23 ff. For his date see the Introductory Studies 11. — two years before the earthquake : for a discussion of the chronological value of these words see Introductory Studies 11. There is room for doubt as to their authenticity. Of course, if Amos at once committed his prophecies to writing he could not have prefixed to them the present title ; and if the title or any part of it is later than the rest of the book, especially if it is considerably later, any data ccn- tained in it may be mistaken. ^ On the other hand, it is possible that Amos delayed his book some time after his mission to Israel was fulfilled, and himself added to the title the note of time under discussion. In this case such allusions to earthquakes as iv. 11, viii. 8, ix. 5, and perhaps ii. 13, might be explained as details which did not belong to his original utterances. They certainly sound like reminiscenc.es of the great " earthquake in the days of Uzziah." Compare Oort, TT 135 ff. (2) Said he, lit. and^ or then^ he said, i.e. after he had seen the vision of the future with which Jehovah had honored him, he, Amos, made it known to those whom it concerned. I. APPROACHING JUDGMENT (i. i-ii. 16). The first part of the book opens with an abrupt proc- lamation whose terrors are only enhanced by its indefi- 1 Hoffmann {ZAW, HI. 87 ff., 122 f.) rejects HTH ItTK and all that follows, explaining it as a later addition to the original title based on infer- ences from various passages in the book ; e.g. iv. 1 1 and viii. 9, combined with vii. 8 and viii. 2. Wellhausen {^SV, V.) denies the above statements, and asserts that the title, though later than the rest of the book, must have been added by a contemporary of Amos. 54 AMOS. niteness ; and this is followed by an indictment against each of the surrounding nations and, finally, against Israel. The first half of the tetrastich with which Amos begins his prophecies is, word for word, a repetition of the first half of Joel iv. i6. The order of the two books would suggest that Amos quoted from Joel, and there seems at first sight to be a confirmation of this sugges- tion in the fact that, while, in the book of Joel, these words are a part of a connected discourse, Amos makes them a sort of text, of which his book is the develop- ment (Meyrick). The divergence in the immediate con- text might be similarly interpreted, since Amos would be more likely to diverge from Joel than Joel from Amos. These indications, however, are found to be misleading, when one observes that Joel's conception of the effect produced is an exaggeration of that of Amos. This is proof that the former quoted from the latter, and not vice versa. P"or another variation on the prophet's words see Jer. xxv. 30. Compare Gunning. — Jehovah shall roar : Joel uses the word ivar as a synonym for tJiunder (see Job xxxvii. 4), but Amos has in mind the comparison implied in the word, as is clear from iii. 8, where Jehovah appears under the name of the lion. — from Zion : Zion is here, as often (vi. i ; Isa. ii. 3), applied to the whole of the holy city. Its original appli- cation is disputed, but the latest researches tend to show that it was first of all the name of the hill now called Ophel, then of the whole ridge, on the northern summit of which the temple was built, and finally of the city of which this temple was the chief ornament. See Klaiber, ZDPV, III. 189 ff.; IV. 18 ff.; "^le^m, Handwdrterbuch TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 55 des Biblischen AltertJmnis. Compare Smith, Bible Dic- tionary, — from Jerusalem : Amos, though a Jew, nowhere lays stress on any pecuUar relation between Jehovah and his own nation. It would not have been wise, in view of his object, to dwell on any such topic. Yet he now and then uses language which shows that he regarded Judah as enjoying such a relation. Here, e.g.^ the capital of Judah is represented as the abode of Jehovah, and implicitly as the proper center of worship. In ii. 4 the Jews are described as the recipients, and therefore the custodians, of the law of Jehovah. If it be objected that the first of these passages is a quota- tion, and the second perhaps an interpolation, there remains ix. ii, in which it is the royal house of Judah through which the restoration of Israel is to be wrought. — the pastures of the shepherds : the uplands in south- eastern Palestine on which Amos and his followers pastured their flocks. — shall wilt : as if the roar of Jehovah were accompanied by a desolating sirocco (Hos. xiii. 15). — Carmel, lit. the Garde^i} There was a city Carmel, the home of Nabal (i Sam. xxv. 5), not far from Tekoa, southward ; the prophet, however, has in mind the mountain of this name on the coast of Palestine, west of the plain of Esdraelon. It is a ridge, rather than a peak like Tabor. It is more than twelve miles long from southeast to northwest, and about 1800 feet high toward the southeastern end where Elijah's altar was situated, but only about 500 feet high where it juts into the Mediterranean. Its beauty and fertility were proverbial among the Hebrews (Isa. xxxv. 2 ; Jer. 1. 19; 1 This name, like several others, usually has the article in Hebrew. See lub'jnz/. 2; jtrsniv. i, etc. 56 AMOS. Cant. vii. 5). It seldom suffered with the surrounding country from drought or other causes ; hepce to picture it as withering at the voice of Jehovah Was to predict an appalling visitation (Isa. xxxiii. 9 ; Nah. i. 4). For a description of the present condition of Mount Carmel and its inhabitants see Oliphant, Haifa, 82 ff. The first of the nations to be called to account for its sins is 1. Syria, vv. 3-5, represented by its capital, Damascus. 3. Thus saith Jehovah, or T/ms said Jehovah: the decree has passed and the fate of the nation is sealed when the prophet delivers his message. This solemn formula is prefixed to each of the sections devoted to the several peoples, and in all but three cases there is a similar formula at the end. The effect is to keep constantly before the mind that it is Jehovah, and not the prophet, by whom the nations are condemned. — Damascus : for that part of Aram or Syria of which it was the capital (2 Sam. viii. 6) ; a country whose extent varied at different times, but in the days of Amos must have been considerable, since it included Beth-eden on the east and the valley between the two ranges of Lebanon on the west (v. 5), though on the south it had probably lost the territory conquered from Israel (2 Kings viii. 28) ; for we are expressly told that Jehoash had retaken from Benhadad the cities which Hazael had taken from Jehoahaz (2 Kings xiii. 25), and further that Jeroboam II. restored the border of Israel from the entrance to Hamath to the sea of the Arabah (2 Kings xiv. 25). The relations between Syria and the neigh- boring nations were seldom pleasant. Between it and TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS, 57 Israel there had been almost constant war since the days of Baasha and Benhadad I. (i Kings xv. i8). During this long feud there had been plenty of oppor- tunities for cruelty on both sides, but the Syrians seem to have outdone their opponents and obtained a reputa- tion for inhumanity. Because they were inhuman, not merely because they had practised their inhumanity on the chosen people, Amos, in the name of Jehovah, con- demns them to destruction. — three, yea four, times : this idiom is used to denote an indefinite, or, as here, an unlimited number. The prophet does not mean that the Syrians have been guilty of just four sins, for the fourth, or all, of which they are now to be punished, but that they have repeatedly transgressed, and there- fore deserve the penalty to be inflicted. Other examples of this use of various pairs of numbers are found Job xxxiii. 14; Prov. xxx. 15, 18; vi. 16; Eccl. xi. 2} See Ges.25 1 34, 6 R. — I will not revoke it : this clause has been variously interpreted. The verb means liter- ally timi back. Some {e.g., Jerome) have taken it in the sense of convert and explained the pronoun as referring to Syria or its people. Most commentators, on the other hand, render the verb reverse or revoke and refer the pronoun to the utterance of v. 2 (Ewald), or to the penalty threatened v. 2 and described vv. 4f. (Marck). It seems best to explain it as referring to a threat of an earlier date, whose fulfilment had been so long de- layed that men began to disregard it and even ques- ^ Jewish interpreters take the clause literally, and D. Kimchi undertakes to state the four sins which had exhausted the patience of Jehovah; viz. the three campaigns against Baasha, Ahab, and Jehoahaz of Israel, and the fourth against Ahaz of Judah (the last of which occurred twenty-five years after Amos' prophecy was uttered !). See also Jerome on the passage. 58 AMOS. tion whether Jehovah really took note of their actions (vi. i). It is this prophetic sentence of which Amos makes Jehovah say that he will not revoke it. Compare Isa.lv. 11.^ — because introduces an instance, one of many that might be cited to justify the severity of the penalty threatened. — they threshed Gilead : Gilead, in a narrower sense, included the country east of the Jor- dan, between the Yarmuk on the north and the Arnon on the south (Deut. iii. 13); but in a broader sense it was sometimes applied to the entire region east of the Jordan claimed by the Israelites (Num. xxxii. 29). It is used in both senses 2 Kings x. 32 f., and it is that pas- sage in which is recorded the event to which, in all probability, Amos here refers, — the invasion of Gilead by Hazael. It is worthy of notice that, 2 Kings xiii. 7, the historian, in describing the treatment of Israel by the Syrians, uses terms similar to those employed by Amos. " The king of Syria," he says, " had destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing." — with iron-shod sledges : ^ the machines here meant are still used in the East under nearly the same name. There are two forms, one of which has small rollers, while both are armed with bits of stone or iron. See Thomson, The Lmid and tJie Booky I. 150 ff. If, as is probably the case, Hazael is here accused of dragging these sledges over his captives, he was not the only con- queror of antiquity who practiced such cruelty (Prov. XX. 26). Even David, on at least one occasion, was 1 Hoffmann proposes to point the verb 13l3''tri<, and refer the suffix to Damascus ; i.e. Syria. 2 bran msi-inn for d^iiinn brc^n ^r\ti'2, the adjective pnn being used, as in Isa. xxviii. 27, for the noun to which it should strictly be attached. See Isa. xli. 15. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 59 guilty of similar inhumanity (2 Sam. xii. 31). Hazael and his people, however, had transgressed three, yea four, times in this or other directions. Compare Pusey. 4. I will send fire : fire is a frequent figure for God's wrath or the agency through which it is manifested : see V. 6 ; vii. 4 ; Deut. xxxii. 22 ; especially war : see V. 14; ii. 2 ; Num. xxi. 28. It is, as appears from what follows, a devastating war with which Amos threatens Syria. Hosea (viii. 14) adopts the form of this refrain, and Jeremiah (xlix. 27) copies the verse with only slight modifications.^ — Hazael: the usurper whose elevation to the throne was foretold by Elisha (2 Kings viii. 7 ff.), the contemporary of Joram (2 Kings viii. 29), Jehu (2 Kings x. 32), and Jehoahaz (2 Kings xiii. 22), kings of Israel, whom, one after another, he made his vassals. He must, therefore, have reigned until about 815 b.c. (comp. 2 Kings xiii. 22). He is here mentioned as the founder of the dynasty to which the king who ruled Syria when Amos prophesied belonged. — Benhadad : probably the son and successor of Hazael (2 Kings xiii. 24), the third of his name mentioned in the Old Testa- ment. He was contemporary with Jehoash (2 Kings xiii. 25). It is not impossible that he outlived this king of Israel to see his kingdom further weakened by Jero- boam II. (2 Kings xiv. 28), and hear its overthrow pre- dicted by the prophet Amos, for he may be the same with Mari whom Ramman-nirari, 803 B.C., conquered (Schrader, iT^T 21 1 ff.); but it is not likely that he enjoyed so long a reign. If, therefore, this Benhadad is the son of Hazael, he is here mentioned merely as 1 The accent of Tinbtn remains on the penult because the following word is a monosyllable. Ges.^^ 49, 3 R. 60 AMOS. the successor of his father.^ The force, then, of the parallelism is that the palace of the Syrian kings, with all its strength and beauty, shall be destroyed. Com- pare Pusey. 5. the bar of Damascus : the bar of bronze or iron, with which the gates of the cities were fastened (Jud. xvi. 3 ; I Kings iv. 3 ; Isa. xlv. 2), is here a symbol for the defenses of the capital. Its strength must yield before the instruments of Jehovah's vengeance. Damas- cus is here the city as distinguished from the kingdom (comp. V. 3). It was a very ancient city, for it had existed ever since Abraham migrated to Palestine (Gen. xiv. 5 ; XV. i), and perhaps from a much earlier period. Moreover, it was wealthy and populous. Situated in a well-watered oasis on the line of traffic between eastern and western Asia, it had, in spite of the reverses that it had suffered, maintained its place among the foremost cities of the East. The same causes that made it what it was when Amos predicted its overthrow have repeat- edly restored it and preserved to this day much of its beauty and importance. Its modern name is Demeshk- esh-Shams, Damascus of Syria, or, more briefly, esh- Shams, and it has a population of about 125,000. Thomson, LB^ III. 361 ff. — him who dwelleth therein, lit. a dweller : the inhabitants of Bikath-awen ; the people in distinction from the ruler ; yet not necessarily all of them, for perhaps a remnant may be found among the Syrians who are to go into captivity. — Bikath-awen : 1 The Septuagint here has vlov "ASe/j, son of Adar, as if the Hebrew text were "nn"p ; and this is probably the original name, for in the Assyrian inscriptions, where the name of Benhadad II. occurs, he is always called Bin-hidri (Schrader, in Riehm, HBA). See also the reading llU'lin for ntU'nnn, i Chron. xviil. 3. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 61 the literal meaning of these words is valley of vanity ^ and some of the earlier interpreters {e.g., Jerome) were content to regard them as appellatives ; but most mod- ern commentators, with the Targum and Peshita, find in them, more or less disguised, the name of some par- ticular locality. The most plausible hypothesis is that Amos here refers to the valley stretching nearly north and south between the two ranges of Lebanon, " the valley of Lebanon" of the book of Joshua (xi. 17; xii. 7), the Coele-Syria of the Greeks, and el-Buka'a of the present day. In this valley was situated Baalbec (Baal- buka'a), whose ruined temples are still the admiration of travelers. It was also called Heliopolis, as a center of the sun- or Baal-worship imported from the city of the same name in Egypt. But the Egyptian name of that city was On (Gen. xli. 45). Hence it is supposed that Baalbec was sometimes called by the same name, and that Amos, slightly changing the vocalization, made of On, Azuen, vanity or idolatry ; and this supposition is rendered the more credible by the fact that Ezekiel (xxx. 17) treats in precisely the same way the name of the Egyptian On.^ It is, then, the inhabitants of the beau- tiful valley of Lebanon, the devotees of the splendid worship at Baalbec, who are here threatened. — him who holdeth the scepter : the ruler in distinction from the subject. — Beth-eden : it is clear that this also must be regarded as a proper name (compare the Vulgate), but it is not so clear where the place which bore it was located. It has been identified with Ehden, on the 1 The Septuagint renders pXTUp-tt ^/c 7re5/ou '^v; but this fact is valueless, since the Greek translators render pK 'Q,v even where it is sub- stituted for bx in the name 7X"n'n by Hosea (iv. 15, v, 8, x. 5, 8). 62 AMOS. eastern slope of Lebanon, near the great cedars (Baur) ; with Beit el-Janne, near the foot of Hermon, eastward (Rosenmuller) ; with Jubb Adin, near Malula, north- east of Damascus (Steiner) ; with Jusieh, near Riblah, north of Baalbec (Keil) ; and finally with the Eden of Eze. xxvii. 23, and the Bit-adini of the Assyrian inscrip- tions, a district on both sides of the middle Euphrates, whose inhabitants are called sons of Eden, 2 Kings xix. 12 and Isa. xxxvii. 12 (Riehm, HBA ; Schrader, KAT 327). If the last suggestion is correct, ** the holder of the scepter " must be explained as the ally or viceroy of the Syrian monarch. Wherever Beth-eden may have been situated, the general sense of the passage is evi- dent. It threatens the Syrians, high and low, with slaughter,^ — the people of Aram : those who have not been put to the sword. — Kir : the place from which, according to ix. 7, they emigrated, and to which, accord- ing to the Hebrew of 2 Kings xvi. 9, they were actually deported. The attempts to locate this region have thus far been unsuccessful. The favorite view has been that it was on or near the river Kur in northern Armenia (Baur). One of the latest conjectures places it in the region of Kuris, north of Aleppo (Socin), but a comparison of Isa. xxi. 2 with xxii. 6 would tempt one (with Bochart or Ritter) to look for it in Media. It is to be hoped that further research may lead to its identification.^ The difficulty of locating Kir makes it impossible 1 The rendering of the Septuagint, KaraKSxpu) (pvXrjv e^ avbpCbv Xappdu, is quoted in support of the last hypothesis above mentioned (Riehm, HBA) ; but the translators were so evidently at sea with reference to the rest of the sentence that it does not seem strange to find them mistaking p» for pn. 2 Note the curious mistake of the Septuagint. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 63 to gather from this passage through whose instrumen- tality Amos expected Syria to be punished ; but it appears from v. 27 that he beheved Assyria appointed to overthrow Israel, and there is no reason for suppos- ing that he had any other power in mind when threat- ening the surrounding nations with destruction. As a matter of fact Syria was, within a few years, subdued by Tiglath-pileser III. The first attack, according to the annals of this king, was made in 734 B.C. In 733 he laid siege to Damascus and, in 732, after completely devastating the surrounding country, he took the city, put to death Rezin, its king, and carried its people by thousands into captivity (Schrader, KAT 264 f.). Whether the captives were actually carried to Kir is uncertain, for though the Hebrew text of 2 Kings xvi. 9 so states, the Greek translation omits any exact des- tination. 2. Philistia, vv. 6-Z. 6. Gaza : here, as the largest town, represents Phil- istia, the narrow strip of territory along the shore of the Mediterranean, beginning just south of Jaffa, and extending to the Egyptian frontier. Its people were devoted to commerce, like the Phoenicians, but more warlike than their northern neighbors. It was the dread of their armies that made the Hebrews shun the direct route to Palestine, which, by the way, is but another form of the name Philistia (Ex. xiii. 17). They seem to have been partially conquered under Joshua (Jud. i. 18), but they soon regained their independence, and so thoroughly subdued the invaders (Jud. xv. 11) that it required the inspired enthusiasm of Samuel to rouse his people to resistance (i Sam. vii. 3 ff.), and all the 64 AMOS. skill and courage of Saul and David to accomplish their deliverance (i Sam. xxxi. 4; 2 Sam. viii. i). Even then the Philistines did not cease to be dangerous, but, espe- cially after the division of the kingdom of David, took advantage of every opportunity to inflict injury upon their Hebrew neighbors. Thus it is related that, in the reign of Joram, they joined the Arabians in an attack upon Judah, when Jerusalem was captured and plun- dered, and many of its inhabitants, including almost the entire royal family, carried into captivity (2 Chron. xxi. 16 f.). It is not strange, therefore, that the Philistines should be found among the peoples condemned by Jeho- vah, or that Amos should be able to mention more than one transgression for which they deserved condemna- tion. — they led completely captive : made captive by wholesale (Jer. xiii. 19). The expression here used at once reminds one of the passage just quoted (2 Chron. xxi. 16 f.). The complete captivity can, therefore, hardly be any other than that in the reign of Joram (compare Orelli). — to deliver to Edom, the bitterest ene- mies of the Hebrews. Those who place Joel before Amos suppose Joel iv. 6 and this passage to refei; to the same transaction, although Joel says that the captives were sold to the sons of J avail. The usual method of explaining the discrepancy is to suppose that, by the sons of Javan, not the Greeks (compare Gen. x. 4), but a tribe in the Arabian peninsula are intended (compare Henderson), and Eze. xxvii. 19 (compare v. 13) is quoted in support of this view.^ The Edomites are thus made the middlemen by whom the captives were forwarded to their destination (Baur). 1 Cornill proposes a change in the text of Eze. xxvii. 18 f. that would destroy the force of this reference. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 65 7. Gaza, here the city, was the most southern of the five cities of which the PhiHstine confederacy was com- posed. Like Damascus, it owed its origin and impor- tance to the necessities of commerce, and, like Damascus, though from time immemorial it has been a football for the nations of the Orient, it has remained to this day one of the most important cities of western Asia. It is still, under the name Ghuzzeh, a town of some 16,000 or 18,000 inhabitants. Thomson, Z^, III. 179 ff. 8. Ashdod : Gr. Azotits (Acts viii. 40), near the coast, toward the northern border of Philistia, on the highway between Egypt and Syria, was also a city of importance. It was, according to i Sam. v., the seat of the worship of the fish-god, Dagon. It was always a fortress of consequence, but its strength must have been greatly increased after the days of Amos; for though Uzziah seems to have taken it without great difficulty (2 Chron. xxvi. 6), when attacked by Psammetichus, king of Egypt, it sustained the longest (29 years) siege on record. All that now remains of it is a miserable village on the ruins of its former strength, surrounded by gar- dens and orchards (Thomson, Z^ 158 ff.). — him who holdeth the scepter : each of these cities had its own king. Thus, e.g.^ when Sennachrib invaded Philistia, 701 B.C., the king of Gaza was Zilbel, of Ashdod Mitinti, of Ashkelon Zidka, and of Ekron Padi (Schrader, KAT 291 ff.). — Ashkelon: at this time the only seaport of Philistia, was situated on the Mediter- ranean, north of Gaza, a little more than half the dis- tance between it and Ashdod. It is famous as the birthplace of Herod the Great, who adorned it with splendid public buildings. In the period of the cru- 66 AMOS. sades, on account of its strength it was called "the bride of Syria"; but it was finally, in 1270, destroyed by Sultan Bibars, and it has never since risen out of its ashes. The ruins which mark its site bear the name el-Jurah (Thomson, LB, III. 170 ff.). — I will turn my hand against : not in the sense of timiing it back (Baur), but in that of extending it in a new movement. See '2^2 Sam. viii. 3. — Ekron, perhaps the least important of ' the cities of the Philistine confederacy, lay to the north- east of Ashdod, on the border of the kingdom of Judah. Its local deity was Beelzebub (2 Kings i. 2), the fly-god, who was identified with Satan by the later Jews (Matt. X. 25). No mention of Ekron is found in history after the crusades. Its site was unknown in modern times until Robinson identified it with a village called Akir, a few miles east of Jabneh (Robinson, Res. II. 227 ff. ; Thomson, LB, III. 132 ff.). — the remnant of the Philis- tines does not mean the people of the remaining cities and villages not mentioned in the above enumeration, but, as in the case of Syria, Amos says, to close, that the people, i.e. all that are left, will be carried into cap- tivity, so here he adds that the last of the Philistines, whether in the four cities mentioned or in any other part of the country, will perish. It has seemed strange that so important a town as Gath should not have been mentioned by the prophet, and various reasons have been given for its omission ; e.g., because it belonged to the kingdom of Judah (Kimchi) ; because it had been recovered by Uzziah (Baur); because it had been captured by Hazael (Hitzig); and finally, and this is doubtless the true explanation, because the mode of presentation adopted by Amos did not require a com- TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 67 plete enumeration of the Philistine Pentapolis. In the indictment, v. 6, Gaza alone stands for them all. Why should they all be mentioned in this sentence ? In the following section {vv. 9-10) Tyre throughout represents Phoenicia. See Wellhausen, 5 F, V. — the Lord Jeho- vah : the most frequent compound designation for God in the book of Amos. See the Supplementary Studies II.i Philistia, after having been partially conquered by Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi. 6),^ like Syria, had to suffer at the hands of the Assyrians. In fact, as already stated, Tiglath-pileser III. gave it and Israel his first attention. In a fragmentary account of his expedition of 734 B.C. occurs the following reference to this region : " Hanno of Gaza, who had fled before my troops, escaped to Egypt. Gaza ... [I conquered], its goods, its gods . . . [carried off], my . . . and my image [I set up] " ; and in another inscription " Mitinti of Ashkelon," as well as " Hanno of Gaza," is mentioned among his tributaries (Schrader, i^^ T 25 5 ff.). Thus was fulfilled, as nearly, perhaps, as he himself expected, the prophecy of Amos concerning Philistia. It was, however, even more cruelly treated by Sargon (720 and 711 b.c.) and Sennachrib (701 B.C.), by whom it was so completely 1 mn'' ''31K is variously rendered in the Septuagint : in eight cases, Kvpios 6 deSs ; in three, Kvpios Kvpios ; and in eight, including this, simply Kvpios. In this passage, perhaps the Septuagint has preserved the better reading, since "HK does not precede miT at the close of any other section in these first two chapters. 2 In this passage, Ashdod as well as Gath is said to have been captured and rendered defenseless by the Judean king ; hence these two cities must have been taken after the prophecy of Amos was written, and the omission of Gath by the prophet must have had some other reason than either of the first two above quoted. 68 AMOS. subjugated that it never again resisted an Assyrian king (Schrader, KA T 396 f. ; 398 ff . ; 288 ff. ; 355 ff.). 3. Phcenicia, vv. 9-10. 9. Tyre : here for Phoenicia, the narrow strip of terri- tory along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, extending northward from Carmel, or some point sHghtly south of it, as far as Nahr el-Kebir. It included, besides Tyre, several other cities, the most important of which were Akko (Acts xxi. 7 Ptolemais, now Akka), Achzib (now Zib), Zarephath (now Serafend), Sidon, and Gebal (now Jabla). Its people were the foremost merchants and navigators of antiquity. It was not for their inter- est to make war upon their neighbors, therefore, though they clung to their possessions along the coast (Josh, xiii. 6), they generally maintained peaceful relations with the Hebrews. The king of Tyre entered into a treaty with David (2 Sam. v. 11), which was renewed when Solomon came to the throne (i Kings v. i ff.). The intimacy between the two peoples continued long after the Hebrews had been divided into two kingdoms. Ahab, king of Israel, married Jezebel, daughter of Eth- baal, king of the Sidonians (i Kings xvi. 31), i.e. of the Phoenicians (Josephus, Ajit. viii. 13, 2), and their daugh- ter Athaliah became the wife, and finally the successor, of Ahaziah, king of Judah (2 Kings xi. i). Thus the Hebrews were at one time virtually governed by Phoe- nician princesses. The reaction which resulted in the death of both of these infamous women must have had some effect upon the relations of the Hebrews with the Phoenicians. At any rate it was not long before the prophets began to threaten Phoenicia with destruction, TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 69 and they maintained this attitude toward it to the end (Joel iii. 4 ff. ; Isa. xxiii. ; Jer. xxv. 22 ; Eze. xxvi.). — they delivered a complete captivity : the Phoenicians are not charged with taking captives, as are the Philis- tines (y. 6), but with delivering them, i.e. acting as agents for those who actually took them. Since the captives in this case also were delivered to the Edomites, it is natural to suppose that the same are meant as in the previous instance, viz. those taken during the inva- sion of Judah by the Philistines, in the reign of Joram. The Phoenicians probably followed the earlier, as they did the later, invaders of Judea, "with silver and gold very much," "to buy the children of Israel for slaves " (i Mace. iii. 41). — a brotherly covenant: not a cove- nant between brethren, i.e. Edom and Israel (Ewald) ; it is far better to suppose that the intimate relations between the Hebrews and the Phoenicians are intended. There is express mention of a league between Hiram and Solomon i Kings v. 12, and i Kings ix. 13 the for- mer calls the latter brother. Perhaps a better trans- lation of the above phrase would be a covenant to be bi-ethren. See i Kings xx. 33. 10. Tyre : here the city, the capital of Phoenicia, and the commercial metropolis of the ancient world. The city proper was situated on an island just off the coast of Phoenicia, directly west of Mount Hermon. Its situ- ation accounts both for the degree and the duration of its prosperity, for not only did it early eclipse Sidon and become " the merchant of the peoples to many coasts," but for centuries it successfully resisted all attempts to capture it and succumbed at last, 332 b.c, only after a long siege, to Alexander. It was not completely hum- 70 AJl/OS. bled until 1191 a.d. when it was destroyed by the Mos- lems. On the ruins, still connected with the mainland by the causeway built by Alexander, has since arisen a new town, but it is an insignificant place of only about 3500 inhabitants, having nothing in common with the ancient city but its romantic site and the once magical name Sur (Thomson, LB, II. 607 ff.). The prophecy against Phoenicia, as has already been hinted, was not fulfilled so literally as that against Syria, or even Philistia. The Phoenicians, with charac- teristic discretion, secured the favor of Tiglath-pileser III. by paying him tribute from his first appearance, 743 B.C., in the west (Schrader, KAT 250, 252 f.). When, therefore, in 734, he made his expedition into Philistia, they probably suffered only to the extent of the presents that they sent him (Schrader, KAT 2^7 f.). Even when, later, they entered into a league with their neighbors to throw off the Assyrian yoke, though the kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Sargon, and Isaiah expected that Phoenicia also would be completely con- quered (Isa. xxiii.). Tyre, at least, escaped, after a siege of five years, with comparatively slight injury (Josephus A7it. ix. 14, 2). The prophecy of Amos, however, was fulfilled in that Tyre, with the rest of Phoenicia, was actually conquered and forced to pay tribute to the Assyrian kings to the end of this great monarchy (Schrader, KAT 2SSE.', 355 f.). 4. EdOM, VV. 1 1 -1 2. II. Edom : this name seems sometimes to ha^e covered the whole territory on both sides of the Arabah south of the Dead Sea (Eze. xxv. 8 ff.), but it was TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 71 strictly applied only to the mountainous region east of the Arabah, inhabited by the sons of Esau. Its princi- pal cities were Elath and Ezion-geber, on the Red Sea, Sela in the mountains, and Bosrah toward the northern extremity of the country. Its people were largely free- booters (Gen. xxvii. 39 f.). As such they were the dread of the Hebrews during the Exodus (Num. xx. 21), and a thorn in their flesh after the occupation of Palestine. Subdued by David (2 Sam. viii, 14; 2 Kings xi. 15 ; Ps. Ix. 8), they continued subject to the kings of Judah (i Kings X. 26) until the reign of Joram, when they revolted (2 Chron. xxi. 10), thenceforth remaining inde- pendent until reconquered by Amasiah (2 Kings xiv. 7 ; 2 Chron xxv. 1 1) and Uzziah (2 Kings xiv. 22 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 2). — he pursued his brother with the sword: this expression as fitly characterizes the entire course of the Edomites toward the Hebrews as any particular act in it. The second clause, however, indicates that, on the occasion in question, the condition of the objects of their hostility was such as naturally to excite sympathy. Now, this must have been the state of things in the reign of Joram, under whom Edom revolted ; when, according to 2 Chron. xxi. 16 f., the Philistines and their allies invaded Judah. Perhaps, therefore, that event is here again recalled. Compare Keil. The tie between Edom and Israel, unlike that mentioned v. 9, was a natural one. The Hebrews recognized it (Deut. xxiii. 7). They had before appealed to it in vain (Num. xx. 14). See Ob. 10. — stifling his pity, ht. and corrupted his pity} i.e. suppressed the natural instinct to sympa- 1 The construction is here changed, the Perfect being substituted for the Infinitive Construct. For the tense, see Ges.-^ 112, 3. a. 5; 114, 3 R. 72 AMOS. thize with distress. Compare Eze. xxviii. 17. — his wrath ever rent : did not exhaust itself with one act of cruelty. See Job xvi. g} — his fury he nursed, lit. his fury he kept it. This clause is an intensification of the second, just as the preceding is of the first, specification. The Edomites were not only pitiless, but they cherished vengeful emotions.^ 12. Teman : originally the name of a descendant of Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 11), was afterward applied to a dis- trict, perhaps to a city (Job ii. 11) of Edom. Where the city or district was situated it is now impossible to determine. Jerome says {i.l.) that it lay in the south, but Eze. XXV. 13 indicates that it is rather to be sought in the north of Edom. Kautsch (Riehm, HBA) suggests that it may be identified with the Gebal of Ps. Ixxxiii. 8, and with this suggestion agrees the description in the Ono77tastikon : ** regio principum Edom in terra Gebali- tica." Here, as in Jer. xlix. 20, the name Teman is applied to the whole of Edom. See ii. 2, 5. — Bosrah : not the Bosrah of Jer. xlviii. 24, which was in Moab, but a city, at one time probably the capital of Edom, which has been identified with el-Busaireh, a small village surrounded by extensive ruins, in the district of 1 For 5^"1D''1 Olshausen (Ps. ciii. 9) proposes to read 'IIS^I, and Well- hausen {^SV, V.) adopts this emendation. *iy can doubtless here, as in Isa. ix. 5, mean booty; but HITO in the fol- lowing clause would seem to indicate that this is not the meaning intended. Compare Siegfried and Stade, Lexicon, art. S]"ltO. The translators of the Septuagint evidently pointed the word "TU ; hence et's ixapTvpLov. 2 m^ti^ is not the 3 sing, fern, for IT^^^ (Ewald), but the 3 sing. mas. with a fem. suffix for rTH^^ti?. The tone was shifted to the penult to prevent two accented syllables from coming together, and then the mappik fell out of the last letter. Ges. 58, 3, R I. Wellhausen {SV, V.) avoids any difficulty by dropping the H, TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 73 Jebal (Gebal), about 2| hours south of Tufileh (Robin- son, Res. 11. 167). The Edomites, who had already- paid tribute to Ramman-nirari III. (Schrader, KAT 190), terrified by the vigor with which Tiglath-pileser III. dealt with Syria, Israel, and PhiHstia, returned to their allegiance to the Great King {KAT 257 f.); and thenceforward, so long as the Assyrian empire lasted, though they sometimes rebelled, they never succeeded in ridding themselves of its yoke. Sennacherib {KA T 288 ff.), Esarhaddon {KAT ^S^t), and Assurbanipal {KAT 355 f.) all reckon them among the vassals of Assyria. 5. Ammon, vv. 13-15. 13. the children of Ammon: the descendants of Ammon, son of Lot, by the younger of the daughters who fled with him from Sodom (Gen. xix. 38). At first, with the Moabites, they occupied the territory along the eastern side of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, from the Jabbok to the Arnon (Jud. xi. 13; Josh. xiii. 25); but they were driven by the Amorites eastward across the upper Jabbok, where the Israelites, after the Exodus, found them (Num. xxi. 24; comp. Deut. ii. 19). They did not accept this situation as final ; hence, when the Hebrews had expelled the Amorites, they renewed their attempts to regain their former possessions (Jud. x. 8). They were defeated by Jephthah (Jud. xi. 32), but had to be again expelled from Gilead by Saul (i Sam. xi. 11), and finally, though assisted by the Syrians (2 Sam. x. 8), completely conquered by David (2 Sam. xii. 31). When his kingdom was divided they naturally became tributary to Israel, but they probably did not long remain in this condition (2 Chron. xx. i). 74 AMOS. At any rate, they had become independent when Amos prophesied, else they would hardly have found a place in his indictment, and Uzziah would not have had occa- sion to make war with them (2 Chron. xxvi. 8). — they disemboweled the pregnant women of Gilead : the crime of which the Ammonites are accused was not infrequent in their day (2 Kings xv. 16; see Hos. x. 14; Isa. xiii. 16 ; Nah. iii. 10). That they were not incapable of such an outrage appears from the inhuman proposition that they made to the people of Jabesh-Gilead (i Sam. xi. i). Perhaps it was their notorious inhumanity that led David to treat them with such cruelty as he per- mitted after the capture of Rabbah (2 Sam. xii. 31). When the outrage described was committed it is per- haps impossible to determine with certainty, but there are strong indications that it was connected with the invasion of Gilead by Hazael (2 Kings x. 32). The Ammonites would naturally make common cause with the Syrians, as they did in the time of David (2 Sam. x. 8), and Hazael, who was, in fact, accused by Elisha of being capable of this very crime (2 Kings viii. 12), would be just the leader to permit it in his followers.^ — for the sake of enlarging their border : the purpose denoted is a constant and controlling one, of which the act above described was but a single manifestation. It is implied 1 There is another interpretation of the passage. Kimchi, e.g., trans- lates it, because they brake through the mountains of Gilead, accounting for the indignation of the prophet at this offense by saying that the Ammonites thus violated the law forbidding the removal of boundaries, and incurred the curse pronounced upon such sinners (Deut. xxvii. 17). This, however, is but a subtle attempt of the Jewish exegetes to avoid the mention of a horrible crime. The form min cannot be derived from ^H mountain; and, if it could, the other interpretation would still be required by the known character of the Ammonites. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 75 that the desire to extend their territory, which at first may have had a warrant so far as Gilead was concerned, had become so strong that they would not have hesi- tated at any atrocity by which this passion was to be satisfied. Compare ii. j} 14. I will kindle fire is a mere variation in expression. — Rabbah, or Rabbath (Eze. xxv. 5), or, more fully, Rabbah of the children of Ammon (Deut. iii. 11), the only city of the Ammonites whose name is given in the Hebrew scriptures (comp. 2 Sam. xii. 31), was situated at the head of the Jabbok. That it had been a power- ful stronghold appears from the time spent by David's troops before it (2 Sam. xi. i). In the days of the prophets it had regained some of its former importance (Jer. xlix. 3 ; Eze. xxv. 5). Later still, under the pat- ronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), after whom it was called Philadelphia, it became one of the most important cities east of the Jordan. At the begin- ning of the Christian era it was a member of the group of cities known as Decapolis (Matt. iv. 25). The ruins of the temples, theatres, etc., with which the city was once adorned, now bear the name Amman (Thomson, LB, III. 607 ff. ; Merrill, East of the Jordan, 399 ff. ; Oli- phant, Laiid of Gilead, 251 ff.). — with clamor : not the cries of the terrified Ammonites (Marck), but the shouts and signals of their oncoming enemies (Josh. vi. 5 ; Num. x. 6). These words clearly show that in these first two chapters Amos usQsfire figuratively for zuar. — with commotion in a day of tempest : here the prophet again falls into figurative language, which, however, is 1 On the particle 117^*? and its significance see my dissertation : Some Final Cotistructions in Biblical Hebrew. 76 AMOS. easily understood. The tempest is not a commotion of the elements manifesting the wrath of Jehovah (Marck), but the tumultuous attack in which the capital of Ammon is to be stormed and captured. 15. their king: the king of the Ammonites.^ See their border, v. 13. — he and his princes: Jer. xlix. 3 reads his priests and his princes? The Ammonites were involved in the same fate that befell the rest of the peoples of Western Asia ; but it is impossible to give the details of their subjugation. We only know that, after the invasion of Tiglath-pileser they always appear as tributaries to the Assyrian mon- archy (Schrader, KAT 2^7 U 288 ff., 355 ff.). 6. MoAB, ii. 1-3. I. Moab : the people descended from the son of Lot by the older of the two daughters who fled with him to Zoar (Gen. xix. 37). The Hebrews, when they entered Palestine, found them in the mountainous region east of the Dead Sea, between the Arnon (Num. xxi. 13) and the so-called brook of the willows (Isa. xv. 7), Wadi el-Ahsi, whither they had been driven by the Amorites (Jud. xi. 25). Balak did not attempt to molest his new neighbors except by his incantations (Num. 1 This is without doubt the correct reading. It is required by the phrase his princes as well as by the analogy of ii. 3, and it is supported by the Targum and the Septuagint. The other Greek versions, however, ren- der DSbia as if it were the name of the god Molech, and so do the Peshita and the Vulgate. In fact, Jeremiah, according to the correct read- ing, in his prophecy concerning Ammon (xlix. 3), lends his authority to this interpretation. Perhaps Amos, when he wrote the word 037^, meant that it should suggest D37p to his readers. 2 The Septuagint adopts the rendering of Jeremiah. TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 77 xxii. 6), but a later king, Eglon, got possession of the country north of the Arnon, and, crossing the Jordan, occupied Jericho, whence he held the Hebrews in subjec- tion eighteen years (Jud. iii. 13). After his assassination and the retreat of the Moabites across the Jordan, the two nations seem to have lived at peace with each other until the time of Saul. During this period Naomi found a home among the Moabites (Ruth i. 4). Even after the election of Saul, although, or perhaps because, they had suffered at the hands of this king (i Sam. xiv. 47), their country furnished a refuge for the family of David (i Sam. xxii. 3 ; see xxvii. 3). When David himself became king, he very ungratefully, as it would seem without further knowledge of the circumstances, made them his servants (2 Sam. viii. 2), and they probably remained until after the division of the kingdom tribu- tary to his successors (i Kings xi. i). They then, per- haps, for a time became independent. At any rate, Omri of Israel, who claimed their territory, was obliged to make good his claim with the sword, which, however, he so thoroughly accomplished that Moab remained attached to his kingdom until the death of Ahab (2 Kings iii. 4). Then the Moabites, under Mesha, revolted (2 Kings iii. 5), and all the attempts of the kings of Israel, even with the assistance of Jehosha- phat, reinforced by the Edomites, proved unsuccessful (2 Kings iii. 6 ff.). It is probable that even Jeroboam II. was content to drive them within their own borders (vi. 14), and prevent the inroads to which his predeces- sors, while at war with Syria, had to submit (2 Kings xiii. 20). — he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime : by the bones is meant the body (vi. 10), and to 78 AMOS. lime is equivalent to the English expression to ashes. Tradition says that the deed here described was com- mitted by Mesha, the contemporary of Jehoshaphat, and certainly all that can be learned of him goes to confirm this opinion. The Moabite stone, on which he recounts his achievements, agrees with the Hebrew scriptures (2 Kings iii. 26 f.) in representing him as reckless and vengeful to the last degree. The latter fur- ther represents the king of Edom as among his bitter- est enemies. It is, therefore, more than possible that, after the war in which the Edomites, under Jehosh- aphat, took the part of Israel (perhaps not until Jehosh- aphat was dead and they, having revolted, could no longer resist him), Mesha invaded their country, and, rifling the tomb of his old adversary, who had also meanwhile died, burned his body and scattered the ashes to the winds. To be deprived of burial is, by the prophets, regarded as one of the sorest penalties with which men can be threatened (Jer. xxxvi. 30). It is not strange, therefore, that the violation of the graves of the dead should be reckoned among crimes the most heinous, and that without regard to the question against whom the offence is committed ; for there is no reason for supposing that Amos condemned Moab for the deed done merely because the king of Edom in the case was an ally of Jehoshaphat, and thus a crime against him was a crime against the chosen people (Keil). Our prophet does not descend to such sub- tleties.^ 1 The following is the inscription on the Moabite stone as translated by Driver in the introduction to his Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel^ Ixxxvii. ff. : — TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 79 2. Moab : here the country, hence v. 3, her midst, and princes, as well as with him, i.e. the people Moab. — Keriyyoth : not the cities (Septuagint), but a city of Moab (Jer. xlviii. 24), and evidently an important one, else it would not, here and Jer. xlviii. 41, be put for Moab, as in the preceding chapter Damascus is for 1 I am Mesha, son of Chemosh-melek, king of Moab, the Da- -ibonite. My father reigned over Moab for 30 years, and I reign- -ed after my father. And I made this high place for Chemosh in QRHH, a high place of sal- -vation, because he had saved me from all the kings (?), and because he had let me see my pleasure on all them that hated me. Omr- 5 -i was king over Israel, and he afflicted Moab for many days, because Chemosh was angry with his la- -nd. And his son succeeded him ; and he also said, I will afflict Moab. In my days said he th [us;] but I saw my pleasure on him, and on his house, and Israel perished with an everlasting destruction. And Omri took possession of the [la-] -nd of Mehedeba, and it {i.e. Israel) dwelt therein, during his days, and half his son's days, forty years ; but [resto-] -red it Chemosh in my days. And I built Ba'al-Me'on, and I made in it the reservoir (?) ; and I built 10 Qiryathen. And the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of 'Ataroth from of old ; and built for himself the king of I- srael "Ataroth. And I fought against the city, and took it. And I slew all the [people of] the city, a gazing-stock unto Chemosh, and unto Moab. And I brought back {or, took captive) thence the altar-hearth of Davdoh (?), and I drag- -ged it before Chemosh in Qeriyyoth. And I settled therein the men of SHRN, and the men of MHRTH. And Chemosh said unto me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. And I 15 went by night, and fought against it from the break of dawn until noon. And I too- -k it, and slew the whole of it, 7,000 men, and . . ,, and women,. and . . . 80 AMOS, Syria, etc. This fact, and the further circumstance that it and Ar are never mentioned in the same connection, has led to the conjecture that Ar and Keriyyoth are but different names for the capital of Moab, now Mahatet el-Haj. The Moabite stone (1. 13) confirms this conclu- sion. See Riehm, HBA ; compare Smith, BD. — amid -s, and maid-servants ; for I had devoted it to 'Ashtor-Chemosh. And I took thence the [ves-] -sels of YAHWEH, and I dragged them before Chemosh. And the king of Israel had built Yahaz, and abode in it, while he fought against me. But Chemosh drove him out before me ; and 20 I took of Moab 200 men, even all its chiefs; and I led them up against Yahaz, and took it to add it unto Daibon. I built QRHH, the wall of Ye'arim {or^ of the woods), and the wall of the Mound. And I built its gates, and I built its towers. And I built the king's palace, and I made the two reser[voirs (?) for wa]ter in the midst of the city. And there was no cistern in the midst of the city, in QRHH, and I said to all the people, Make 25 you every man a cistern in his house. And I cut out the cutting for QRHH with the help of prisoner- [-S of] Israel. I built 'Aro'er, and I made the highway by the Arnon. I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was pulled down. I built Bezer, for ruins [had it become, and the chie]fs of Daibon were fifty, for all Daibon was obedient (to me). And I reign- -ed [over] an hundred [chiefs] in the cities which I added to the land. And I buil- 30 -t Mehede[b]a, and Beth-Diblathen, and Beth-Ba'al-Me'on ; and I took there the sheep grazers (?), . . . sheep of the land, and as for Horonen, there dwelt therein . . . and . . . . . . Chemosh said unto me. Go down, fight against Horonen. And I went down . . . . . . [and] Chemosh [resto]red it in my days. And I went up thence to... ... And I TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 81 tumult : Jeremiah, evidently with this passage in mind, calls the Moabites sons of tinmilt (xlviii. 45). See also Num. xxiv. 17 (R.V.) and A. B. Davidson, Expositor, March, 1887. Here, however, the tumult is not that raised by the Moabites, but that, like the roar of the sea for loudness and awfulness (Ps. Ixv. 8), of attacking enemies (i. 14), more clearly defined in the succeeding words, — zvitJi clamor, with the soimd of the trumpet} 3. the judge : not a governor or viceroy appointed by the king of Israel (Hitzig), since, when Amos wrote, Moab was not subject to Jeroboam, but the king, the chief among the princes of the land, like the Cartha- ginian suffete (compare i. 15). The office of judge was the most important which an oriental monarch had to exercise. — all her princes : see note on Moab, v. 2. — with him : the judge or king. The details of the relations of the Moabites to the avenging power, whose advent was foreseen by Amos, are not known. It is, however, known that Salman the Moabite, willingly or unwillingly, paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser (Schrader, KAT 2^2 i.), Kamoshnadab to Sennacherib (id. 288 ff.), and Mussuri, who, by the way, is expressly called a king in the inscriptions, to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (id. 355 f.). 7. JUDAH, VV. 4-5. 4. Judah : including Benjamin, the southern kingdom in distinction from the other ten tribes, or Israel in the narrower sense (i Kings xii. 20 f.). The history of these two tribes presents an almost constant struggle 1 Hoffmann finds in pHU? an ancient name for perhaps the acropolis of Ar, here used as a synonym for Moab, like Zion for Jerusalem (i. 2). 82 AMOS. between the true and false religions. Under their very- first king they are said to have done " evil in the sight of Jehovah," and "■ provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done" (i Kings xiv. 21 ; 2 Chron. xii. i). Abijah (i Kings XV. 3 ; comp. 2 Chron. xiii. 10), Joram (2 Kings viii. 18 ; 2 Chron. xxi. 6), and Ahaziah (2 Kings ix. 27 ; 2 Chron. xxii. 13) favored this tendency, while AthaHah (2 Kings xi. 3 ; 2 Chron. xxii. 12) openly deserted the worship of Jehovah. Even the good kings, Asa (i Kings XV. II ; 2 Chron. xiv. 2), Jehoshaphat (i Kings xxii. 43 ; 2 Chron. xvii. 3), Joash (2 Kings xii. 2 f . ; 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, 18), and Amasiah(2 Kings xiv. 3 ; 2 Chron. xxv. 2), when they were best, fell far below their father David, and the historian has to qualify his commendation in each case with a confession that the high-places of the coun- try were not removed. Indeed, one gets the impression that there had been a growing estrangement between Jehovah and his people, and that, therefore, when Amos appeared to warn Israel, Judah had reached an advanced stage of apostasy. — the law of Jehovah : the word law in the Old Testament is used in the broad sense of instnictioUy and in this sense it is applied to the advice of elders (Prov. i. 8), to the oracles of priests (Jer. xviii. 18), and to the deliverances of prophets (Isa. i. 10). Such instruction is the law of Jehovah in so far as the one giving it is moved by the spirit of Jehovah. There is, however, no doubt that in many cases, particularly in the later books, the word implies a collection of precepts recognized as authoritative by the Hebrews (2 Kings xxii. 8). The latter is the most natural inter- pretation of its use in this passage, especially in view of TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 83 its connection with the parallel statutes, which is a fre- quent designation for the law of Moses (Jer. xliv. lo ; Eze. XX. 1 1 ; Mai. iii. 22). Compare Gunning. The Jews, then, be it observed, are not, like the heathen nations, and finally Israel, accused of violating, in some particular, the unwritten law of God, but of ignoring a distinct and comprehensive revelation of the will of Jehovah. On the genuineness of this passage see Introductory Studies III. — the lies, lit. their lies ; their worthless idols or images.^ For these the fathers deserted Jehovah while he was in the very act of reveal- ing himself to them (Ex. xxxii. i ; Deut. ix. 12), and for these the sons, after generations of Jehovah's guidance, rejected him like their fathers. 5. Jerusalem : the capital of Judah, and the pecul- iar abode of Jehovah (i. 2), situated on the border between Judah and Ephraim, about thirty-six miles from the Mediterranean Sea, and two-thirds as far from the river Jordan. It, like Damascus, was a very ancient city, for it also, according to tradition, was "before Abraham" (Gen. xiv. 6 ; Ps. Ixxvi. 2). It was temporarily occupied by the Hebrews when they entered Palestine (Jud. i. 8), but it remained for David to gain complete and lasting possession of it (2 Sam. v. 11 ff.). He strengthened its already strong fortifications and wisely made it his capital (2 Sam. v. 9). Solomon completed the defenses begun by his father (i Kings iii. i ; xi. 27) and adorned the city with magnificent buildings, the most famous of which was the temple, a masterpiece of 1 With this use of 3D compare that of pK, Isa. Ixvi. 3 ; T^K, Lev. xix, 4; 72.1, Jer. \'iii, 19, Ps. xxxi. 7; D*n7K"X7, Jer. v. 7. The Septuagint adds 6. iwolrjaav. 84 AMOS. Tyrian workmanship (i Kings vi. 37 f. ; vii. i f.). Since Solomon's death Jerusalem had lost much of its earlier magnificence. Three times it had been captured and plundered, first by the Egyptians under Shishak, in the reign of Rehoboam (i Kings xiv. 25 f. ; 2 Chron. xii. 1 f.), a second time by the Arabians and Philistines, in the reign of Joram (2 Chron. xxi. 16 f.), and a third time by Israel under Jehoash, in the reign of Amasiah (2 Kings xiv. 13 f.; 2 Chron. xxv. 23 f.). It must, however, still have been a beautiful city when Amos prophesied its overthrow, and the destruction of its palaces. The kingdom of Judah was not invaded by the victo- rious armies of Tiglath-pileser III., but it did not escape its share of the misfortunes predicted by Amos. Ahaz was obliged to rob the temple of Jehovah to purchase the doubtful aid of the Assyrian king (2 Kings xvi. 8 ; 2 Chron. xxviii. 20 f.), and thenceforward pay him a heavy tribute (Schrader, KAT 257 f.; 263 f.). Heze- kiah, his successor, also remained some time subject to Assyria (Schrader, KAT 188). When he finally rebelled he barely escaped subjugation by Sennacherib (2 Kings xix. 35 ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 21). He did not avoid a heavy fine (2 Kings xviii. 14 ; Schrader, KAT 2^^ ff.). Manasseh was a vassal of Esarhaddon, and for some time also of Assurbanipal. It was, perhaps, the latter against whom he rebelled when he was carried a pris- oner in chains to Babylon (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11). The Assyrian empire fell, but forty years later, at the hands of the Babylonians, Judah suffered the fate of the northern kingdom (2 Kings xxv. i ff. ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17 ff.). TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS, 85 8. Israel, vv. 6-i6. Having, by his condemnation, one after another, of the neighboring peoples, awakened in his hearers (or readers) a perhaps not altogether commendable interest in his message, Amos now turns upon Israel and arraigns them in even severer terms than he has hitherto used. First he rehearses some of their wicked practices, then recalls, by way of contrast, some of the gracious dealings of Jehovah, and finally pictures the dreadful result of sinning against such mercy. a. Isi'aeVs Wickedness, vv. 6-8. — 6. three, yea four, times : the meaning of this expression is the same here as in the preceding paragraphs, — repeatedly. ' The sins, therefore, which find mention in the following verses, do not make a complete catalogue. They are samples of the wickedness of Israel. More are cited than in previous cases, not merely because Amos wished to represent Israel as worse than their neighbors, although that impression is the natural result, but because, in this case, a moral effect is to be produced. As a matter of fact, four distinct offenses are detailed, — unprincipled avarice, unfeeling oppression, unblushing immorality, and unbridled voluptuousness. — they sell : ^ most , interpreters give the word sell in this passage a double V sense, making a figurative application of it to the right- \ eoiLS or guiltless, and a literal to the needy. They then \ further explain that the righteous was pronounced guilty and thus sold to his accuser by a corrupt judge for money received as a bribe, while the needy, because he could not pay a debt amounting to only so much as 1 D12p is for 2*^2^, as in Neh. xiii. 15. Compare n"l2tt, Ex. xxi. 8. Ges.25 61, I, R I. ' 86 AMOS. would buy a pair of shoes, was actually adjudged the slave (Ex. xxi. 2 ff . ; Lev. xxv. 39 ff.; Deut. xv. I2ff. ; 2 Kings iv. i) of his accuser (Baur, Keil). Some have insisted upon the literal signification of sell, but they have been forced to give to the word righteous the meaning upright (Gen. xviii. 23), rather than innocent , since, if the accused were not a debtor, and therefore guilty before the law, there would be no excuse for enslaving him. He must, therefore, have been "a harm- less debtor," whom, because he could not pay the money that he owed, even when it was not more than would buy a pair of shoes, the judge, who was therefore not necessarily corrupt, but was, perhaps, inhuman, sold as a slave to his creditor (Hitzig, Orelli). Both of these interpretations are unsatisfactory. Let us try the effect of giving to the word sell only the derived meaning above mentioned (Gunning). The sellers were, as all agree, the noble and powerful in Israel, acting as judges (vi. i), and those to whom they sold were plaintiffs in the proceedings over which these judges presided. What, then, is the meaning of for money? The persons who sold could not be said to have sold in any sense, unless there were a consideration. Hence it is natural and necessary to suppose that Amos meant to accuse these judges of betraying some one for money which they received in the shape of a bribe (v. 12). But, as above suggested, it would not be necessary to offer them a bribe if the accused were guilty in the eye of the law, hence the guiltless must be explained as a person who had been unjustly accused, and whom his judges could not justly condemn (Wellhausen, SV, V.). Let us now apply the same meaning of sell to the second clause. — TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS. 87 the needy, also, was sold, i.e. betrayed by his judges. But in this, as in the preceding case, there should be a consideration. Most commentators find it only implied. It is better, however, to see it in the words — a pair of shoes: if it is objected that a pair of shoes was not the equivalent of *' the poorest slave" (Hitzig), it must be remembered that the pair of shoes, or rather the trifling sum that would buy them, was not the price of the per- son of the accused, but of the integrity of his judges. They were so corrupt that, for the trifling sum that his persecutor could afford to pay for judgment against him, they pronounced the innocent guilty, or, to put it other- wise, they betrayed for money, however little, the guilt- less, even when he was at the same time needy. The hapless defendant might thus lose not merely his sub- stance, if he had any, or his freedom, but even his life. The second clause is thus made to strengthen the first and the whole to describe the extent to which the greed for money had mastered Israel.^ Such conduct was plainly contrary to God's law (Ex. xxiii, 6-Z\ but Amos does not appeal to any external revelation. Compare viii. 6. 7. This verse contains the second and third counts in the indictment. The first is — Nay, they pant for dust of the earth upon the heads of the lowly : i.e. they, the powerful, are eager to bring dust of the earth upon the 1 The verb 13^ is several times used in the sense here required, e.g.y Jud. ii. 14; Ps. xliv. 13. For ^^'^1-= guiltless, innocejtt, see Ex. xxiii. 7, Prov. xviii. 17; and for "113172 —for the sake of, 1 Sam. xii. 22, but espe- cially Am. viii. 6. Hoffmann takes "11217 in the sense of produce (Josh. v. II f.), and explains cbuj as a token (Ru. iv. 7), thus getting the render- ing, /cr the produce of [land of the debtor secured to the judge by] a pair of shoes. 88 AMOS. heads of the lowly ; or, without either figure, they are eager to bring the lowly into distress ; for dust or ashes on the head was, among the Hebrews, a sign of grief or misery (Josh. vii. 6; Lam. ii. lo). Slightly different from this is the interpretation according to which the dust is that which is brought upon the heads of the lowly by crushing them to, or dragging them upon, the ground (Ibn Ezra). Quite different is a third, according to which the powerful are so eager for landed possessions (Isa. v. 8) that they begrudge the lowly the little dust that these latter cast upon their heads in token of their misery (Hitzig). This last interpreta- tion seems growing in favor (see Duhm, TP iii).i The main thought, and that which especially arouses the indignation of the prophet,^ is the eagerness with which the lowly are oppressed. The next sentence gives an illustration of the waj/ in which dust is brought upon their heads. They, the powerful — turn aside the way of the humble : the way of the humble is not their course (Baur, Gunning). Amos used a different ^ Hoffmann translates TT in addition to, and thus gets the rendering : they pant for the head (person) of the lowly in addition to the dust of the