Amos

“Prepare to meet your God,” Amos proclaimed to those who worshiped idols (4:12). Let there be “a mighty flood of justice,” Amos admonished the rich who oppressed the poor (5:24). What brought this shepherd from Tekoa to Bethel to pronounce such powerful judgments? Amos did not make his living as a professional prophet (7:14); the “roar” of God (1:2; 3:8) had moved him to make the journey. His message calls for righteousness—right worship that yields right social ethics. God’s people still need the prophet’s help to make that connection.

Setting

In 931 BC, the kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah). The first king of the north, Jeroboam I, did not want his subjects to go to Jerusalem (in the south) to worship, so he established shrines at Dan and Bethel. Drawing on an earlier precedent (Exod 32), Jeroboam used images of young bulls to represent the Lord (1 Kgs 12:25-33). This move typified the northern kingdom’s rejection of God’s revelation in defining both their worship and their ethics. Paganized Israel became an abuser of the powerless.

The calf shrines that Jeroboam I established at Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:29), together with the presence of the baals (local representations of the Canaanite storm-god), reduced the worship of Yahweh (the Lord) in the northern kingdom to a pagan religion like that of Israel’s neighbors. Often, the worship of Yahweh did continue, but it did so alongside the worship of local deities. The Israelites thought they would receive some desired benefit (such as rain or fertility) from worshiping these deities. When Elijah challenged the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel, it was because the people wanted to worship both Yahweh and Baal. However, Elijah left them without that alternative (1 Kgs 18:21, 24). The message of Amos was similar.

When Amos arrived in Israel (shortly before 753 BC), the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. Around 801 BC, the Assyrians had captured Damascus but were forced to withdraw due to problems elsewhere. Egypt was also in decline during this time. In the resulting power vacuum, both Israel and Judah flourished, recovering some of the territory they had lost to Aram (2 Kgs 14:23-29; 15:1-7; 2 Chr 26:1-23). The two kingdoms increased in prosperity, but the greater prosperity merely increased the power of those who already had it. Those who had no power became even more oppressed.

In response to this situation, Amos traveled from Tekoa (in Judah) to the northern shrine at Bethel, where he called Israel to account for its apostasy and inhumanity.

Summary

Amos confronted Israel with the message that lip service is not enough in worship of the Lord. After a brief introduction (Amos 1:1-2), the first section of Amos (1:3–2:16) is a series of eight indictments. The prophet directs the first seven charges against surrounding nations, with the eighth against Israel itself. By first charging Israel’s enemies with war crimes and theological aberrations, Amos wins the sympathy and agreement of his hearers.

But then he says, “The people of Israel, too, have sinned.” What follows (3:1–5:17) is framed by three prophetic messages. The first (3:1-2) accuses Israel of abusing its privileged status as God’s chosen people. The second (4:1-3) is an indictment of Israel’s party crowd. The third (5:1-2) is a funeral song for the predicted death of the nation. Between the prophetic messages Amos includes rhetorical questions (3:3-6), metaphors from his life as a shepherd (3:8, 12), sarcastic irony (4:4-5), historical recitation (4:6-11), hymn fragments (4:13; 5:8-9), puns (5:5), pleas for repentance, and predictions of the doom that awaits the unrepentant.

The third section of Amos (5:18–6:14) contains two prophetic messages of woe: The first is a warning to those who proclaim the day of the Lord as a time when God will reestablish Israel as a leading nation (5:18-27); the second admonishes those who trust in their wealth, houses, or fortifications to save them (6:1-14).

The fourth section (7:1–9:10) contains five prophetic oracles based on visions. Amos first wins over his hearers with visions of two judgments that would be averted (7:1-6), but then drives home his message with two judgments that would not be turned aside (7:7-9; 8:1-3). These visions are interrupted by a brief biographical vignette (7:10-17). The final vision is of the complete destruction of Israel and its religious system (9:1-10).

Finally, in 9:11-15, Amos promises better days to come, a time of healing and restoration when Jerusalem would be rebuilt, the dynasty of David would be reestablished in the land, and people would live in the peace of God’s Kingdom.

Date and Location

Amos’s ministry was brief, perhaps limited to a single year. Its setting was the royal shrine at Bethel in the northern kingdom (7:13), a short time before the death of Jeroboam II in 753 BC (1:1).

Recipients

Amos directed his message to all the Israelite people, but especially to the rich, powerful, and self-indulgent (see especially 5:18–6:8). While Amos clearly considered Israel’s split from Judah and the Jerusalem sanctuary as the primary cause of its moral and spiritual decline, he was aware that Judah was also slipping away from a pure worship of the Lord (2:4-5). Thus, the book includes condemnation of those “who lounge in luxury in Jerusalem,” as well as indictment of the smugly secure in Samaria (see 6:1).

The Prophet Amos

All that is known about the life of Amos comes from the book bearing his name. According to the superscription, he was a shepherd (noqed) from Tekoa (modern Teku’a), a small, fortified town about five miles south of Bethlehem in Judah.

Earlier scholars often characterized the prophet Amos as a poor sheepherder who represented the marginalized classes in Judah and who was unjustly oppressed by wealthy landowners. More recent studies have taken a different direction, however. The Hebrew word commonly used for a shepherd is ro‘eh (as in Ps 23:1), not noqed. In its only occurrence as a noun outside the book of Amos, the word describes Mesha, king of Moab, as one who regularly delivered a substantial tribute of wool and sheep to Israel (2 Kgs 3:4). The term noqed therefore probably designates someone who owned sheep rather than a shepherd who worked for someone else. A second insight comes from 7:14. Here Amos uses a different word for shepherd (boqer; literally herder), perhaps indicating that he owned cattle, a sign of considerable wealth. Amos further describes himself as one who tends sycamore-fig trees (7:14), the fruit of which was used for animal fodder. The word that is used (boles) does not occur elsewhere, but in the context of a boqer, it may mean someone who raised sycamore-figs, rather than a worker who tended the orchards of others.

The emerging picture, then, is not one of a simple herder who tended the sheep and trees of others, but of an owner and manager of livestock and trees. This newer perspective on Amos harmonizes well with the contents of his prophecy. The book is written in excellent Judean Hebrew and shows a keen awareness of Israel’s heritage as well as its contemporary political and economic circumstances.

Meaning and Message

Moses had depicted God as ethical and as caring deeply for the powerless (see, e.g., Deut 24:10-22). But Israel’s apostasy and moral corruption permitted oppression of the poor and powerless. Material prosperity erroneously came to be seen as a sign of God’s favor, and the people prized appearances over substance. This violated God’s requirements for a holy people.

Proper worship of the true God leads to ethical behavior toward others. But corrupt worship and theology will corrupt human relationships. Theology yields morality, right worship yields good works, and faith yields practical change. Morality cannot be defined simply as personal purity or integrity; it also includes social obligations born of the conviction that all human life is God’s creation and bears his image (Gen 1:26-27). Service to God is expressed through service to his creatures.

Because this cry for humane treatment of the downtrodden applies to all people in every generation, Amos has inspired some great social reformers. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used these denunciations and exhortations in his own preaching as a stimulus for the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Prophecy of Amos

Though this prophet appeared a little before Isaiah, yet he was not, as some have mistaken, that Amos who was the father of Isaiah (Isa 1:1), for in the Hebrew their names are very different; their families too were of a different character, for Isaiah was a courtier, Amos a country-farmer. Amos signifies a burden, whence the Jews have a tradition that he was of a slow tongue and spoke with stammering lips; we may rather, in allusion to his name, say that his speech was weighty and his word the burden of the Lord. He was (as most think) of Judah, yet prophesied chiefly against Israel, and at Bethel, Amo 7:13. Some think his style savours of his extraction, and is more plain and rustic than that of some other of the prophets; I do not see it so; but it is plain that his matter agreed with that of his contemporary Hosea, that out of the mouth of these two witnesses the word might be established. It appears by his contest with Amaziah the priest of Bethel that he met with opposition in his work, but was a man of undaunted resolution in it, faithful and bold in reproving sin and denouncing the judgments of God for it, and pressing in his exhortations to repentance and reformation. He begins with threatenings against the neighbouring nations that were enemies to Israel, Amo 1:1-15 and 2. He then calls Israel to account, and judges them for their idolatry, their unworthy walking under the favours God had bestowed upon them, and their incorrigibleness under his judgments, Amo 3:1-15 and Amo 4:1-13. He calls them to repentance (ch. 5), rejecting their hypocritical sacrifices unless they did repent. He foretels the desolations that were coming upon them notwithstanding their security (Amo 6:1-14), some particular judgments (ch. 7), particularly on Amaziah; and, after other reproofs and threatenings (Amo 8:1-14 and Amo 9:1-15), concludes with a promise of the setting up of the Messiah's kingdom and the happiness of God's spiritual Israel therein, just as the prophecy of Joel concluded. These prophets, having opened the wound in their reproofs and threatenings, which show all wrong, in the promises of gospel-grace open the remedy, which alone will set all to rights.

AMOS (meaning in Hebrew "a burden") was (Amo 1:1) a shepherd of Tekoa, a small town of Judah, six miles southeast from Beth-lehem, and twelve from Jerusalem, on the borders of the great desert (Ch2 20:20; compare Ch2 11:6). The region being sandy was more fit for pastoral than for agricultural purposes. Amos therefore owned and tended flocks, and collected sycamore figs; not that the former was a menial office, kings themselves, as Mesha of Moab (Kg2 3:4), exercising it. Amos, however (from Amo 7:14-15), seems to have been of humble rank.

Though belonging to Judah, he was commissioned by God to exercise his prophetical function in Israel; as the latter kingdom abounded in impostors, and the prophets of God generally fled to Judah through fear of the kings of Israel, a true prophet from Judah was the more needed in it. His name is not to be confounded with that of Isaiah's father, Amoz.

The time of his prophesying was in the reigns of Uzziah king of Judea, and Jeroboam II, son of Joash, king of Israel (Amo 1:1), that is, in part of the time in which the two kings were contemporary; probably in Jeroboam's latter years, after that monarch had recovered from Syria "the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain" (Kg2 14:25-27); for Amos foretells that these same coasts, "from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness," should be the scene of Israel's being afflicted (Amo 6:14); also his references to the state of luxurious security then existing (Amo 6:1, Amo 6:4, Amo 6:13), and to the speedy termination of it by the Assyrian foe (Amo 1:5; Amo 3:12, Amo 3:15; Amo 5:27; Amo 8:2), point to the latter part of Jeroboam's reign, which terminated in 784 B.C., the twenty-seventh year of Uzziah's reign, which continued down to 759 B.C. He was contemporary with Hosea, only that the latter continued to prophesy in reigns subsequent to Uzziah (Hos 1:1); whereas Amos ceased to prophesy in the reign of that monarch. The scene of his ministry was Beth-el, where the idol calves were set up (Amo 7:10-13). There his prophecies roused Amaziah, the idol priest, to accuse him of conspiracy and to try to drive him back to Judah.

The first six chapters are without figure; the last three symbolical, but with the explanation subjoined. He first denounces the neighboring peoples, then the Jews, then Israel (from the third chapter to the end), closing with the promise or restoration under Messiah (Amo 9:11-15). His style is thought by JEROME to betray his humble origin; but though not sublime, it is regular, perspicuous, and energetic; his images are taken from the scenes in nature with which he was familiar; his rhythms are flowing, his parallelisms exact, and his descriptions minute and graphic. Some peculiar expressions occur: "cleanness of teeth," that is, want of bread (Amo 4:6); "the excellency of Jacob" (Amo 6:8; Amo 8:7); "the high places of Isaac" (Amo 7:9); "the house of Isaac" (Amo 7:16); "he that createth the wind" (Amo 4:13).

HENGSTENBERG draws an able argument for the genuineness of the Mosaic records from the evidence in Amos, that the existing institutions in Israel as well as Judah (excepting the calves of Jeroboam), were framed according to the Pentateuch rules.

Two quotations from Amos occur in the New Testament (compare Act 7:42-43, with Amo 5:25-26; and Act 15:16-17, with Amo 9:11).

PHILO, JOSEPHUS, MELITO'S catalogue, JEROME, JUSTIN MARTYR (Dialogue with Trypho, 22, quoting the fifth and six chapters of Amos as "one of the twelve minor prophets"), and the sixtieth canon of the Laodicean council support the canonicity of the book of Amos.

Next: Amos Chapter 1