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Introduction
to Amos
This summary of the book of Amos provides information about the
title, author(s), date of writing, chronology, theme, theology, outline, a
brief overview, and the chapters of the Book of Amos.
Amos was from Tekoa (1:1),
a small town in Judah about 6 miles south of Bethlehem and 11 miles from
Jerusalem. He was not a man of the court like Isaiah, or a member of a priestly
family like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. He earned his living from the flock and the
sycamore-fig grove (1:1; 7:14-15). Whether he owned the flocks and groves
or only worked as a hired hand is not known. His skill with words and the
strikingly broad range of his general knowledge of history and the world
preclude his being an ignorant peasant. Though his home was in Judah, he was
sent to announce God's judgment on the northern kingdom (Israel). He probably
ministered for the most part at Bethel (7:10-13; see 1Ki 12:28-30 and notes), Israel's main religious
sanctuary, where the upper echelons of the northern kingdom worshiped.
The book brings his prophecies together in a carefully organized
form intended to be read as a unit. It offers few, if any, clues as to the
chronological order of his spoken messages -- he may have repeated them on many
occasions to reach everyone who came to worship. The book is ultimately
addressed to all Israel (hence the references to Judah and Jerusalem).
According to the first verse, Amos prophesied during the reigns of
Uzziah over Judah (792-740 b.c.) and Jeroboam II over Israel (793-753). The
main part of his ministry was probably carried out c. 760-750. Both kingdoms
were enjoying great prosperity and had reached new political and military
heights (cf. 2Ki 14:23 -- 15:7; 2Ch 26). It was also a time of idolatry,
extravagant indulgence in luxurious living, immorality, corruption of judicial
procedures and oppression of the poor. As a consequence, God would soon bring
about the Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom (722-721).
Israel at the time was politically secure and spiritually smug.
About 40 years earlier, at the end of his ministry, Elisha had prophesied the
resurgence of Israel's power (2Ki 13:17-19), and more recently Jonah had
prophesied her restoration to a glory not known since the days of Solomon (2Ki 14:25). The nation felt sure, therefore,
that she was in God's good graces. But prosperity increased Israel's religious
and moral corruption. God's past punishments for unfaithfulness were forgotten,
and his patience was at an end -- which he sent Amos to announce.
With Amos, the messages of the prophets began to be preserved in
permanent form, being brought together in books that would accompany Israel
through the coming debacle and beyond. (Since Amos was a contemporary of Hosea
and Jonah, see Introductions to those books.)
The dominant theme is clearly stated in 5:24,
which calls for social justice as the indispensable expression of true piety.
Amos was a vigorous spokesman for God's justice and righteousness, whereas
Hosea emphasized God's love, grace, mercy and forgiveness. Amos declared that
God was going to judge his unfaithful, disobedient, covenant-breaking people.
Despite the Lord's special choice of Israel and his kindnesses to her during
the exodus and conquest and in the days of David and Solomon, his people
continually failed to honor and obey him. The shrines at Bethel and other
places of worship were often paganized, and Israel had a worldly view of even
the ritual that the Lord himself had prescribed. They thought performance of
the rites was all God required, and, with that done, they could do whatever
they pleased -- an essentially pagan notion. Without commitment to God's law,
they had no basis for standards of conduct. Amos condemns all who make
themselves powerful or rich at the expense of others. Those who had acquired
two splendid houses (3:15), expensive furniture and richly laden
tables by cheating, perverting justice and crushing the poor would lose
everything they had.
God's imminent judgment on Israel would not be a mere punitive
blow to warn (as often before; see 4:6-11 and note), but an almost total
destruction. The unthinkable was about to happen: Because they had not
faithfully consecrated themselves to his lordship, God would uproot his chosen
people by the hands of a pagan nation. Even so, if they would repent, there was
hope that "the Lord God Almighty (would) have mercy on the remnant" (5:15;
see 5:4-6,14). In fact, the Lord had a glorious
future for his people, beyond the impending judgment. The house of David would
again rule over Israel -- even extend its rule over many nations -- and Israel
would once more be secure in the promised land, feasting on wine and fruit (9:11-15). The God of Israel, the Lord of
history, would not abandon his chosen people or his chosen program of
redemption.
The God for whom Amos speaks is God of more than merely Israel. He
also uses one nation against another to carry out his purposes (6:14).
He is the Great King who rules the whole universe (4:13;
5:8;
9:5-6). Because he is all-sovereign, the God of
Israel holds the history and destiny of all peoples and of the world in his
hands. Israel must know not only that he is the Lord of her future, but also
that he is Lord over all, and that he has purposes and concerns that reach far
beyond her borders. Israel had a unique, but not an exclusive, claim on God.
She needed to remember not only his covenant commitments to her but also her
covenant obligations to him. (See further the prophecy of Jonah.)
I.
Superscription (1:1)
A.
Judgment on Aram (1:3-5)
IV. Oracles against
Israel (3:1;5:17)
V. Announcements
of Exile (5:18;6:14)
VI.
Visions of Divine Retribution (7:1;9:10)
a.
The vision (7:7-9)
.
The vision (8:1-3)
.
The vision (9:1-4)
VII.
. Restored Israel's Blessed Future (9:11-15)
──《New
International Version》
Introduction to Amos
Amos was a herdsman, and engaged in
agriculture. But the same Divine Spirit influenced Isaiah and Daniel in the
court, and Amos in the sheep-folds, giving to each the powers and eloquence
needful for them. He assures the twelve tribes of the destruction of the
neighbouring nations; and as they at that time gave themselves up to wickedness
and idolatry, he reproves the Jewish nation with severity; but describes the
restoration of the church by the Messiah, extending to the latter days.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Amos》
00 Overview
AMOS
INTRODUCTION
No better illustration of the perfect freeness with which the Holy
Ghost selected the men who spoke in old time to the fathers could be desired
than that which is furnished by the contrast between Joel and Amos. Not more
than half a century separated the periods of their prophetic activity; and
perhaps they had actually looked one another in the face. They were both men of
God, both natives of the same little land, both commissioned to preach to one
people--the people whom Jehovah had chosen for His own. Yet they were entirely
distinct in temperament and in personal surroundings. Joel was tender
and pitiful, and Amos rigorous and severe. Joel’s words were those of a
cultured citizen; Amos sprang from the poor of the people, and his language was
simpler and stronger and more keen and cutting, coming from the heart of a man
who had himself borne the yoke in his youth. Joel was a child of the busy town;
Amos was a child of the quiet country-side, summoned from the spade and the
goad to preach to the educated ranks of men. But the Holy Spirit shone through
both alike, and spoke with the lips of both. For there are seasons when His
light is the White light of the diamond, and other seasons when it is the ruddy
glow of the ruby. His voice may be compassionate to-day, and full of an awful
solemnity to-morrow.
I. What was the
history of amos?--They are but hints and glimpses of his
biography which he gives us; but, slight as they are, they tell us a good deal.
His home was in the kingdom of Judah, not in any of its great centres of life,
but in the little town of Tekoa, which lies some six miles south of Bethlehem.
Far away on the horizon he saw the summits of Olivet, which were so well known
to Joel; but the scenes among which he was nurtured were different altogether
from those familiar to one born and trained in the city. Though Tekoa was
itself a fruitful spot, well adapted for flocks and for the cultivation of the
sycamore-fig, it lay on the very edge of the wilderness. Immediately beyond it
fertility ceased. The eye looked out on rugged and desolate mountains, and
through the gorges between the barren hills glittered the waters of the Dead
Sea. In this last outpost which man had snatched from nature, Amos had his
birthplace; and most of his life was spent among these solitudes. He was one of
the herdsmen of the district, not himself the owner of large flocks, but
simply the guardian of the sheep and lambs that belonged to another. £ He was a
poor man, and his usual food, he tells us, was the sycamore fruit, one of the
coarsest and least desirable of all the fruits of Canaan. But the prophet’s
vision and faculty are not the prerogatives of the rich, and God’s grace can
exalt those of low degree to the chief seats in His kingdom. In the loneliness
of the desert Amos was prepared little by little for his life-task. If we study
his prophecy we shall find that he was taught wisdom by two great instructors.
He read much in the book of nature which lay open before him. The imagery of
his visions is drawn from his life in the country. The locusts in the meadow,
the basket of fruit, the shepherds fighting with the lions for their prey, the
sifting of corn, the foaming winter torrents that descend to the Dead Sea, the
midnight sky, in which the seven stars and Orion shine conspicuously--such are
his metaphors. It was the sublime and tragic in the outside world, rather than
the merely beautiful, which fascinated the mind of Amos. When the writer of
such a psalm as the nineteenth opened his eyes on nature he beheld it with a
gaze of childlike joy. The sun was like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
and rejoicing as a strong man to run his race. But the prophet looked on the
world with other eyes. He was impressed by the nakedness and changelessness of
the desert on the confines of which he had his home, by the overwhelming
grandeur of the heavens, which bent over him at night as he watched beside his
flocks, by the conflict and death which he saw around him. This proneness to
meditate on the more terrible aspects of the outer world was to colour his
words when God called him away from the sheepfolds. He loved to point his
teaching by wild and disquieting images taken from what he had himself seen,
telling his hearers how Jehovah would crush Israel “as a waggon full of sheaves
presses what is under
it,” how the remnant left of the people would be “as when the shepherd saves
from the mouth of the lion two feet or a piece of an ear,” how like some
devouring animal the Lord would roar out of Zion on the shuddering and doomed
nation. Thus from the great picture-book of nature Amos gleaned many profound
thoughts and many solemn truths. But during those years of preparation he read
deeply, too, in another book--the book of the law of the Lord. He brooded over
the revelation which before his time God had given to His people. He traced His
doings in history, in the vicissitudes which had befallen the nation of Israel,
and in those of other nations too. In this fashion he sought to gather for
himself some conception of the Divine character, and some understanding of the
principles which regulate the Divine government. That his endeavour was not in
vain his writings make very clear. In his solitude he learned much of the ways
of God to man; and when at last he came forth to speak on behalf of the Lord to
the mightiest in the land, he was able to enforce his declarations by many
references to God’s dealings in the past. The law of Moses was familiar to him,
and he recalled its commandments and threatenings to the minds of his
listeners. He knew of the forty years’ march through the wilderness, and of the
idolatry into which the people fell in former days. (Amos 2:10; Amos 5:25-26). He reiterated in some of
its very expressions the prophecy of Balaam against Moab. Compare his words,
“Moab shall die with tumult,” with those of Balaam in Numbers 24:17, where the Star of Jacob is
said to “smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of tumult.” He
hinted at the story of Jacob and Esau, when he denounced the sin of Edom. “His
brother” (Amos 1:11) is, of course, Jacob. He
repeated once and again the phrases of his predecessor Joel. Compare Amos 1:2 with Joel 3:16; Amos 5:18 with Joel 2:1 et seq. We cannot
but feel that the bleak and lonely desert was the best of all schools for Amos.
There he was moulded into fitness for a great and perilous enterprise. There,
like Moses and Elijah and John the Baptist, he was taught by God Himself. And
one day the wilderness life came suddenly to an end. He received the call of
Jehovah to special work. The glory and the burden of the prophet were laid upon
him. How the wish of heaven was indicated we cannot tell; but there was not a
doubt left on the mind of Amos that God had summoned him to unwonted scenes and
hazardous duties. He had no choice in the matter, and he desired none. “The
lion had roared,” he said in his own characteristic style--once for all he had
heard the thunder of Jehovah’s voice--and “who could but prophesy?” So he went
out from the desert to proclaim the message of judgment revealed to him. For
whither was the stern shepherd sent? Away from Judah altogether, northward into
the territory of the ten tribes; and not to some quiet Israelitish village like
the Tekoa which he knew, but to the court of the king, to the brilliant crowd
that thronged the royal sanctuary at Bethel. It was not indeed a long journey,
as we reckon distances in our day; for Palestine in its entirety is but a small
country. But it transported Amos into a new world. In his home he had heard of
the greatness and the sin of Israel; now he saw them with his own eyes.
Somewhere in the closing years of the ninth century before Christ this memorable
expedition took place. Jeroboam
II. was reigning at the time over the Northern Kingdom. Under his
rule it had reached its highest splendour. He “restored the coast of Israel,”
we are told in the historical books, “from the entering of Hamath unto the sea
of the plate.” He was a brave and vigorous man, though “he did evil in the
sight of the Lord”; and his arms had been successful everywhere. His subjects
were secure in the consciousness of their strength. They did not dream of
disaster or defeat. But the proud and careless kingdom was being undermined
from within. Its sins were sapping its vitality. These sins, we learn from the
denunciations of Amos, were of three kinds. The root evil, from which the
others sprang, was the corruption of the worship of Jehovah. Induced as much by
political as by religious reasons, the rulers of Israel had erected golden
calves at Bethel and Gilgal within their own territories, and at Beersheba in
the far south for such of their subjects as had settled there. Their design was
to prevent the ten tribes from repairing to God’s house in Jerusalem; for, had
they been permitted to join the people of Judea in the great annual feasts,
they might have been won back to their allegiance to the house of David, and
the separation between the kingdoms would have been brought to an end. To
secure their continued independence the sovereigns of the North established a
special ritual and founded sanctuaries of their own; and at these sanctuaries
they commanded their people to serve God. The character of the religion
practised at the shrines of Israel must not be misapprehended. It was far from
the pure worship of Jehovah, but just as certainly it was not rank and utter
idolatry, like the service of Baal. It was the adoration of the true Lord under
visible forms and images. Doubtless many genuine lovers of Jehovah bent the
knee before the golden image at Bethel, even as in corrupt churches of our own
day there may be much simple and earnest piety. And it was not otherwise in the
ancient kingdom of Israel. In spite of its erroneous worship, numbers of its
citizens may have been the children and servants of Him who is not like unto
gold or silver or stone graven by art and man’s device. The fact that God still
spoke with them through His prophets is proof in itself that He had not quite
cast them off, and that, while their religion was sadly mixed with evil, it was
not entirely false in His sight. But notwithstanding all this, they sinned
grievously when they tried to frame an outward likeness of the Lord who
transcends thought and sense; and He told them, by the mouth of Amos, that the
altar of Bethel was an abomination to Him. And this initial sin was speedily
followed by other offences; for when once the worship of God is corrupted, it
is hard to keep contamination out of any department of human life. The little
leaven very soon leaveneth the whole lump. Luxuriousness and effeminacy, with
the sensual lusts which generally accompany them, were but too common in
Samaria. The prophet describes its inhabitants as lying on beds of ivory and
stretching themselves on couches, as chanting to the sound of the viol and
inventing to themselves instruments of music, as drinking in bowls of wine and
anointing themselves with the finest ointments. And he found them willing to
stain their lives with even darker crimes, of which an apostle says that it is
a shame so much as to speak. Many of these proud Israelites were sunk in the
grossest impurity, as the clear-sighted shepherd from the desert quickly discovered.
There was much social oppression, much greed of gain, much injustice done the
destitute and helpless. The nobles turned judgment into wormwood, Amos
declared. The judges sold the righteous to obtain money, and the poor for a
pair of sandals. The princes put the day of calamity far off, and brought the
seat of violence near. These were the influences which were working toward the
downfall of the state. Fearless as Amos was, it must have tested his courage to
put into execution God’s command and to repair to Bethel. But he obeyed. His
tragic words rang soon through all the wayward northern country. They were
sharp as arrows in the hearts of the King’s enemies. The people were bowed down
before the prophet, as the trees are bowed before the storm. Perhaps Jeroboam
himself, like another ruler of a later day, trembled for a little as he
listened to the preacher of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come.
But Amos made one relentless enemy in Israel. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel,
began to fear for the reputation and the gains of his sanctuary. He determined
to silence the daring speaker. “Get thee hence, O seer,” he said, “flee into
the land of Judah, and there earn thy bread, and prophesy there.” Judging Amos
by himself, he regarded him as a man whose prophesying was a financial
speculation, and who “had made a bold stroke for notoriety.” The Judean visitor
returned him a prompt and pitiless answer. “I am no prophet,” he declared, “nor
a prophet’s son, but a simple herdsman, whom Jehovah took of His good will from
following the flocks, and sent to this sinful place to cry against it a heavy
and bitter woe. And thou, who callest thyself His servant, and seekest,
nevertheless, to close the lips of His chosen messenger, thou wilt yet know His
special chastizement, His fiercest and hottest indignation.” There is a
tradition that Amaziah, angry at so dauntless a witness-bearer, sought to put
him to death, and that Amos, wounded by the attendants of the priest, crossed
the border of his native Judah only to yield up his spirit to God. But that
cannot have been the case. For when he had reached his home again he set
himself to write the story of his mission and the record of the words he had
spoken while he was away. This book of his prophecy is most carefully arranged.
Its sections are linked artistically each to each. That is the life-story of
Amos of Tekoa, So far as we can gather it from the book he has written. It
tells us--does it not?--how condescending God’s grace is. This humble shepherd
was His minister. He chose the weak things of the world to confound the things
that were mighty. It tells us, too, how devoid of feverish haste, and how free
from foolish pomp and display, God’s movements are. He spent a long time in
educating Amos for a task which was probably accomplished in a few weeks
II. The prophecy
which Amos spoke.--Its great theme is the sinfulness and the doom of the
kingdom of Israel. But, first, the preacher describes the judgments of God as
about to fall on the nations which surrounded the guilty people. He glances
rapidly from one to another, and, because all have sinned, he proclaims against
all the Divine wrath. Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab,
Judah--there is not one of them which is not ready for punishment. Yet Israel
is the offender whose crimes are of the deepest dye. Its inhabitants were under
peculiar obligations to be loyal to Jehovah. He had brought them up from the
land of Egypt. Very unsparingly Amos exposes their transgressions. He pleads
with them, though their evil was aggravated and the hour was late to seek the
Lord; but, should they continue impenitent, he would have them know what awaits
them. Even as he spoke a terrible danger was beginning to loom on the horizon.
The hosts of Assyria, soon to be the ruling power of the world, were already
advancing toward Israel. These hosts were in God’s hand, and by means of them
He would afflict His foolish and prodigal children. He would cause them to go
into captivity “beyond Damascus,” to the far country of Babylon away on the
Euphrates. Then Amos passes to relate some visions which he had been permitted
to see. They are all ominous of impending woe. The grasshoppers which devoured
the harvest; the fire which was so fierce that it seemed to lick up the very
depths of the sea; the plumbline employed to mark out the nation for
destruction; the basket of summer fruit which typified Israel’s ripeness for
judgment; the altar beside which the Lord Himself stood, ordaining a punishment
from which none should be able to escape--how awe-inspiring and weighted with
sorrow and distress each one of them is! A short section of this latter
division of the prophecy is devoted to the recital of the episode at Bethel;
and at the close, as the manner of the prophets is, there is a lightening of
the gloom which has prevailed all through. The style of Amos corresponds well
with his own temperament and with the character of his message. It is simple,
stern, impressive. His words are pointed and powerful, and very often fervid
and glowing. They are words that fall like a hammer, words that scorch like a
flame. Not so finished or beautiful as that of Joel, his diction has a rugged
grandeur of its own. One thing strikes us as we read his book. He likes to get
hold of a telling phrase, and to repeat it over and over again. What a force
there is in the reiterated formula of the opening verses, “For three
transgressions and for four!” What a deep pathos underlies the ever-recurring
refrain of the fourth chapter, “Yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the
Lord!” He was unacquainted with the learning of the schools; but he was not
ignorant of the orator’s art.
III. Lessons which
Amos is so well able to teach.--
1. He turns our attention, we cannot but remark, to the severity
rather than to the goodness of Cod His prophecy closes, indeed, with an
attractive delineation of the Divine loving kindness. But before the still
small voice there have been the wind and the earthquake and the fire. No doubt,
the life of Amos in the desert helped to imprint deep on his conscience and
heart thoughts of the Lord’s inflexible righteousness and awful purity and
unbending justice. Joel, whose home was in the city, had another and a gentler
conception of God’s character. Dwelling in the midst of men and women and
children, and loving them tenderly, and knowing how ready He was to make large
allowance for their weaknesses and faults, he clothed the Maker of his heart
with the same sympathies which he found within himself. Joel’s testimony
concerning Him is true. Yes, but that of Amos is true also--a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptation.
2. This prophet, too, insists upon the universality of God’s
government. The Divine rule, he tells us, is as wide as the world. It is
sometimes said that the Old Testament writers are exclusive in their
sympathies; that they speak as though Palestine alone enjoyed the favour of the
Lord; that they regard all born outside the land of promise as heathen men and
publicans for whom the God of heaven could feel no care. But these are false notions.
The Jehovah of the psalmists and prophets is God of the whole earth. His
kingdom ruleth over all. Amos was convinced of this truth, and asserted it
strongly. Israel must not imagine, he said, that God was mindful of its people
alone; for had He not brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from
Kir? Though He had a special interest in Israel, His providence was present and
powerful everywhere. It was of the judgments of this universal Sovereign that
Amos chiefly thought. But there is comfort, too, in the remembrance that the
Lord reigneth with a limitless and omnipotent sceptre. He sitteth King upon the
floods. He will bring good out of all the evils which mar His creation, and
will turn wars into peace, and will make the kingdoms of this world the
kingdoms of His Christ.
3. Once more Amos feels strongly the necessity of uprightness and
integrity in the outward life--of justice and mercy and truth in the conduct
from day to day. He is the great moralist among the prophets. He occupies in the
Old Testament the position which the Apostle James fills in the New. Perverted
though the worship of the Northern Kingdom was, the people were very zealous in
observing it. They loved to bring their sacrifices in the early morning to
Bethel and Gilgal. They offered tithes every three days. But there were other duties
which the prophet would fain have seen them perform. “Hate the evil and love
the good, and establish judgment in the gate,”--these were his commandments. It
is the most certain of all certainties that God can have no delight in
worshippers who call themselves by His name and yet refuse to fulfil His law. (Original
Secession Magazine.)
The date of Amos
We shall assign reasons for showing that the prophetic career of
Amos was probably subsequent to 780 b.c. The fact that the prophet never makes
mention of the name of Assyria, though he refers expressly to the destinies of
surrounding nations, seems to imply that Assyria was at that period not so
disturbing a force in Syro-Palestinian politics as it had been in a former
generation, and as it was destined to become during the ministry of the prophet
Hosea, when the terrible invasions of Tiglath-pileser made the names of Asshur
and King Combat (Jared)
to be names of dread. Accordingly we prefer to regard the prophetic ministry of
Amos as exercised when Syria had begun to recover from the disastrous invasion
of Vulnirari III.
For the social, moral, and religious condition of the Northern Kingdom during
the period we fortunately possess varied sources of information. Apart from the
accounts contained in the historical books, we have the numerous allusions
scattered throughout the prophet Hosea, whose discourses belong to a somewhat
similar period, and are extremely valuable as illustrating those of Amos. We
thus obtain a tolerably vivid conception of this momentous and tragic
century--the last days of Israel’s history. The energetic rule and successful
wars of Jeroboam II.
had extended the bounds of the kingdom. Syria had been compelled to yield up to
him a large tract of country extending from Hamath to the Dead Sea. Ammon and
Moab had become tributary. But the ease with which these conquests were
obtained was due to the dangers which threatened the very existence of the
Syrian states from the Assyrian power which had for many centuries been
formidable, but was now extending itself westward under the energetic sway of
Vulnirari III.
Under that monarch Syria received a terrible blow; and it is extremely probable
that the recovery of the Trans-Jordanic district by Jeroboam from Syrian
domination is to be closely connected with this temporary overthrow of Syria
and the neighbouring kingdoms . . . The conception of universal Divine
sovereignty was certainly not a new one in Israel. But it was made especially prominent
by Amos, and is the keynote of his prophecies. It is from this standpoint that
his oracles are delivered. While to Hosea, Ephraim’s sin, whether in morals or
worship, appeared as an outrage to the relationship of loyalty and love to the
Divine Lord, it was regarded by Amos as a violation of a supreme rule and a
supreme justice. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)
The Book of Amos
The subject is “Words concerning Israel.”
I. The material.
1. His first address, chapters 1; 2.
(1)
Threats
against Damascus (Amos 1:3-5), Gaza (Amos 1:6-8), Tyre (Amos 1:9-10).
(a) Her sins enumerated (Amos 2:6-12).
(b) Complete subjugation announced (Amos 2:13-16).
2. The second address, chapters 3., 4. Destruction.
3. The third address, chapters 5., 6.: Lamentation.
4. The series of visions, Amos 7:1-9 : Punishment.
5. Promise of restoration (Amos 9:11-15).
II. The essential
ideas.
1. The prophecy and its fulfilment--three views.
2. Teachings of the Book concerning prophecy.
3. More important, ideas.
The ethics of Amos
It is obvious that Amos only takes for granted the laws of
righteousness which he enforces:
he takes for granted also the people’s conscience of them. Now, indeed, is the
doom which sinful Israel deserves, and original to himself is the proclamation
of it; but Amos appeals to the moral principles which justify the doom, as if
they were not new, and as in Israel ought always to have known them. This
attitude of the prophet to his principles has, in our time, suffered a curious
judgment. It has been called an anachronism. So absolute a morality, men say,
had never before been taught in Israel; nor had righteousness been so
exclusively emphasised as the purpose of Jehovah . . . How far is this
criticism supported by the facts? To no sane observer can the religious history
of Israel appear as anything but a course of gradual development. Even in the
moral standards, in respect to which it is confessedly often most difficult to
prove growth, the signs of the nation’s progress are very manifest. Practices
came to be forbidden in Israel, and tempers to be mitigated, which in earlier
ages were sanctioned to their extreme by the explicit decrees of religion. In
the nation’s attitude to the outer world sympathies arise, along with ideals of
spiritual service, where previously only war and extermination had been
enforced in the name of the Deity. Now, in such an evolution it is equally
indubitable that the longest and most rapid stage was the prophecy of the
eighth century. The prophets of that time condemn acts which had been inspired
by their immediate predecessors. (Geo. Adam Smith, D. D.)
The order of prophets after Samuel
There was one very remarkable change effected by this new order of
prophets, probably the very greatest relief which prophecy experienced in the
course of its evolution. This was separation from the ritual and from the
implements of soothsaying. Samuel had been both priest and prophet. But after
him the names and the duties were specialised, though the specialising was
incomplete. While the new Nebi’im remained in connection with the ancient
centres of religion, they do not appear to have exercised any part of the
ritual. The priests, on the other hand, did not confine themselves to sacrifice
and other forms of public worship, but exercised many of the so-called
prophetic functions. They also, as Hosea tells us, were expected to give
Toroth--revelations of the Divine will on points of conduct and order. There
remained with them the ancient forms of oracle--the Ephod, or plated image, the
Teraphim, the lot, and the Urim and Thummim, all of these apparently still
regarded as indispensable elements of religion. From such rude forms of
ascertaining the Divine will, prophecy in its new order was absolutely free.
And it was free of the ritual of the sanctuaries. As has been justly remarked,
the ritual of Israel always remained a peril to the people, the peril of
relapsing into paganism. Not only did it materialise faith, and engross
affections in the worshipper which were meant for moral objects, but very many
of its forms were actually the same as those of the other Semitic religions,
and it tempted its devotees to the confusion of their God with the gods of the
heathen. Prophecy was now wholly independent of it, and we may see in such
independence the possibility of all the subsequent career of prophecy along
moral and spiritual lines. (Geo. Adam Smith, D. D.)
The Old Testament Prophet
He is a speaker for God. The sharer of God’s counsels, as Amos
calls him, he becomes the bearer and preacher of God’s Word. Prediction of the
future is only a part, and often a subordinate and accidental part, of an
office whose full function is to declare the character and will of God. But the
prophet does this in no systematic or abstract form. He brings his revelation
point by point, and in connection with some occasion in the history of his
people, or some phase of their character. He is not a philosopher nor a
theologian with a system of doctrine (at least before Ezekiel)
, but the messenger and herald of God at some crisis in the life and conduct of
his people. His message is never out of touch with events. These form either
the subject-matter or the proof, or the execution of every oracle he uttered.
It is therefore God, not merely as Truth, but far more as Providence, whom the
prophet reveals. And although that providence includes the full destiny of
Israel and mankind, the prophet brings the news of it, for the most part, piece
by piece, with reference to some present sin or duty, or some impending crisis
or calamity. Yet he does all this, not merely because the word needed for the
day has been committed to him by itself, and as if he were only its mechanical
vehicle, but because he has come under the overwhelming conviction of God’s
presence and of His character, a conviction often so strong that God’s Word
breaks through him, and God speaks in the first person to the people. (Geo.
Adam Smith, D. D.)
prayer, that we may be baptized with the Holy Ghost. (Caleb
Morris.)
.
AMOS
INTRODUCTION
No better illustration of the perfect freeness with which the Holy
Ghost selected the men who spoke in old time to the fathers could be desired
than that which is furnished by the contrast between Joel and Amos. Not more
than half a century separated the periods of their prophetic activity; and perhaps
they had actually looked one another in the face. They were both men of God,
both natives of the same little land, both commissioned to preach to one
people--the people whom Jehovah had chosen for His own. Yet they were entirely
distinct in temperament and in personal surroundings. Joel was tender
and pitiful, and Amos rigorous and severe. Joel’s words were those of a
cultured citizen; Amos sprang from the poor of the people, and his language was
simpler and stronger and more keen and cutting, coming from the heart of a man
who had himself borne the yoke in his youth. Joel was a child of the busy town;
Amos was a child of the quiet country-side, summoned from the spade and the
goad to preach to the educated ranks of men. But the Holy Spirit shone through
both alike, and spoke with the lips of both. For there are seasons when His
light is the White light of the diamond, and other seasons when it is the ruddy
glow of the ruby. His voice may be compassionate to-day, and full of an awful
solemnity to-morrow.
I. What was the
history of amos?--They are but hints and glimpses of his
biography which he gives us; but, slight as they are, they tell us a good deal.
His home was in the kingdom of Judah, not in any of its great centres of life,
but in the little town of Tekoa, which lies some six miles south of Bethlehem.
Far away on the horizon he saw the summits of Olivet, which were so well known
to Joel; but the scenes among which he was nurtured were different altogether
from those familiar to one born and trained in the city. Though Tekoa was
itself a fruitful spot, well adapted for flocks and for the cultivation of the
sycamore-fig, it lay on the very edge of the wilderness. Immediately beyond it
fertility ceased. The eye looked out on rugged and desolate mountains, and
through the gorges between the barren hills glittered the waters of the Dead
Sea. In this last outpost which man had snatched from nature, Amos had his
birthplace; and most of his life was spent among these solitudes. He was one of
the herdsmen of the district, not himself the owner of large flocks, but
simply the guardian of the sheep and lambs that belonged to another. £ He was a
poor man, and his usual food, he tells us, was the sycamore fruit, one of the
coarsest and least desirable of all the fruits of Canaan. But the prophet’s
vision and faculty are not the prerogatives of the rich, and God’s grace can
exalt those of low degree to the chief seats in His kingdom. In the loneliness
of the desert Amos was prepared little by little for his life-task. If we study
his prophecy we shall find that he was taught wisdom by two great instructors.
He read much in the book of nature which lay open before him. The imagery of
his visions is drawn from his life in the country. The locusts in the meadow,
the basket of fruit, the shepherds fighting with the lions for their prey, the
sifting of corn, the foaming winter torrents that descend to the Dead Sea, the
midnight sky, in which the seven stars and Orion shine conspicuously--such are
his metaphors. It was the sublime and tragic in the outside world, rather than
the merely beautiful, which fascinated the mind of Amos. When the writer of
such a psalm as the nineteenth opened his eyes on nature he beheld it with a
gaze of childlike joy. The sun was like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
and rejoicing as a strong man to run his race. But the prophet looked on the
world with other eyes. He was impressed by the nakedness and changelessness of
the desert on the confines of which he had his home, by the overwhelming
grandeur of the heavens, which bent over him at night as he watched beside his
flocks, by the conflict and death which he saw around him. This proneness to
meditate on the more terrible aspects of the outer world was to colour his
words when God called him away from the sheepfolds. He loved to point his
teaching by wild and disquieting images taken from what he had himself seen,
telling his hearers how Jehovah would crush Israel “as a waggon full of sheaves
presses what is under
it,” how the remnant left of the people would be “as when the shepherd saves
from the mouth of the lion two feet or a piece of an ear,” how like some
devouring animal the Lord would roar out of Zion on the shuddering and doomed
nation. Thus from the great picture-book of nature Amos gleaned many profound
thoughts and many solemn truths. But during those years of preparation he read
deeply, too, in another book--the book of the law of the Lord. He brooded over
the revelation which before his time God had given to His people. He traced His
doings in history, in the vicissitudes which had befallen the nation of Israel,
and in those of other nations too. In this fashion he sought to gather for
himself some conception of the Divine character, and some understanding of the
principles which regulate the Divine government. That his endeavour was not in
vain his writings make very clear. In his solitude he learned much of the ways
of God to man; and when at last he came forth to speak on behalf of the Lord to
the mightiest in the land, he was able to enforce his declarations by many
references to God’s dealings in the past. The law of Moses was familiar to him,
and he recalled its commandments and threatenings to the minds of his
listeners. He knew of the forty years’ march through the wilderness, and of the
idolatry into which the people fell in former days. (Amos 2:10; Amos 5:25-26). He reiterated in some of
its very expressions the prophecy of Balaam against Moab. Compare his words,
“Moab shall die with tumult,” with those of Balaam in Numbers 24:17, where the Star of Jacob is
said to “smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of tumult.” He
hinted at the story of Jacob and Esau, when he denounced the sin of Edom. “His
brother” (Amos 1:11) is, of course, Jacob. He
repeated once and again the phrases of his predecessor Joel. Compare Amos 1:2 with Joel 3:16; Amos 5:18 with Joel 2:1 et seq. We cannot
but feel that the bleak and lonely desert was the best of all schools for Amos.
There he was moulded into fitness for a great and perilous enterprise. There,
like Moses and Elijah and John the Baptist, he was taught by God Himself. And
one day the wilderness life came suddenly to an end. He received the call of
Jehovah to special work. The glory and the burden of the prophet were laid upon
him. How the wish of heaven was indicated we cannot tell; but there was not a
doubt left on the mind of Amos that God had summoned him to unwonted scenes and
hazardous duties. He had no choice in the matter, and he desired none. “The
lion had roared,” he said in his own characteristic style--once for all he had
heard the thunder of Jehovah’s voice--and “who could but prophesy?” So he went
out from the desert to proclaim the message of judgment revealed to him. For
whither was the stern shepherd sent? Away from Judah altogether, northward into
the territory of the ten tribes; and not to some quiet Israelitish village like
the Tekoa which he knew, but to the court of the king, to the brilliant crowd
that thronged the royal sanctuary at Bethel. It was not indeed a long journey,
as we reckon distances in our day; for Palestine in its entirety is but a small
country. But it transported Amos into a new world. In his home he had heard of
the greatness and the sin of Israel; now he saw them with his own eyes.
Somewhere in the closing years of the ninth century before Christ this
memorable expedition took place. Jeroboam II. was reigning at the time over the
Northern Kingdom. Under his rule it had reached its highest splendour. He
“restored the coast of Israel,” we are told in the historical books, “from the
entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plate.” He was a brave and vigorous man,
though “he did evil in the sight of the Lord”; and his arms had been successful
everywhere. His subjects were secure in the consciousness of their strength.
They did not dream of disaster or defeat. But the proud and careless kingdom
was being undermined from within. Its sins were sapping its vitality. These
sins, we learn from the denunciations of Amos, were of three kinds. The root
evil, from which the others sprang, was the corruption of the worship of
Jehovah. Induced as much by political as by religious reasons, the rulers of
Israel had erected golden calves at Bethel and Gilgal within their own
territories, and at Beersheba in the far south for such of their subjects as
had settled there. Their design was to prevent the ten tribes from repairing to
God’s house in Jerusalem; for, had they been permitted to join the people of
Judea in the great annual feasts, they might have been won back to their
allegiance to the house of David, and the separation between the kingdoms would
have been brought to an end. To secure their continued independence the
sovereigns of the North established a special ritual and founded sanctuaries of
their own; and at these sanctuaries they commanded their people to serve God.
The character of the religion practised at the shrines of Israel must not be
misapprehended. It was far from the pure worship of Jehovah, but just as
certainly it was not rank and utter idolatry, like the service of Baal. It was
the adoration of the true Lord under visible forms and images. Doubtless many
genuine lovers of Jehovah bent the knee before the golden image at Bethel, even
as in corrupt churches of our own day there may be much simple and earnest
piety. And it was not otherwise in the ancient kingdom of Israel. In spite of
its erroneous worship, numbers of its citizens may have been the children and
servants of Him who is not like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art and
man’s device. The fact that God still spoke with them through His prophets is
proof in itself that He had not quite cast them off, and that, while their
religion was sadly mixed with evil, it was not entirely false in His sight. But
notwithstanding all this, they sinned grievously when they tried to frame an
outward likeness of the Lord who transcends thought and sense; and He told
them, by the mouth of Amos, that the altar of Bethel was an abomination to Him.
And this initial sin was speedily followed by other offences; for when once the
worship of God is corrupted, it is hard to keep contamination out of any
department of human life. The little leaven very soon leaveneth the whole lump.
Luxuriousness and effeminacy, with the sensual lusts which generally accompany
them, were but too common in Samaria. The prophet describes its inhabitants as
lying on beds of ivory and stretching themselves on couches, as chanting to the
sound of the viol and inventing to themselves instruments of music, as drinking
in bowls of wine and anointing themselves with the finest ointments. And he
found them willing to stain their lives with even darker crimes, of which an
apostle says that it is a shame so much as to speak. Many of these proud
Israelites were sunk in the grossest impurity, as the clear-sighted shepherd
from the desert quickly discovered. There was much social oppression, much
greed of gain, much injustice done the destitute and helpless. The nobles turned
judgment into wormwood, Amos declared. The judges sold the righteous to obtain
money, and the poor for a pair of sandals. The princes put the day of calamity
far off, and brought the seat of violence near. These were the influences which
were working toward the downfall of the state. Fearless as Amos was, it must
have tested his courage to put into execution God’s command and to repair to
Bethel. But he obeyed. His tragic words rang soon through all the wayward
northern country. They were sharp as arrows in the hearts of the King’s
enemies. The people were bowed down before the prophet, as the trees are bowed
before the storm. Perhaps Jeroboam himself, like another ruler of a later day,
trembled for a little as he listened to the preacher of righteousness and
temperance and judgment to come. But Amos made one relentless enemy in Israel.
Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, began to fear for the reputation and the gains
of his sanctuary. He determined to silence the daring speaker. “Get thee hence,
O seer,” he said, “flee into the land of Judah, and there earn thy bread, and
prophesy there.” Judging Amos by himself, he regarded him as a man whose
prophesying was a financial speculation, and who “had made a bold stroke for
notoriety.” The Judean visitor returned him a prompt and pitiless answer. “I am
no prophet,” he declared, “nor a prophet’s son, but a simple herdsman, whom
Jehovah took of His good will from following the flocks, and sent to this
sinful place to cry against it a heavy and bitter woe. And thou, who callest
thyself His servant, and seekest, nevertheless, to close the lips of His chosen
messenger, thou wilt yet know His special chastizement, His fiercest and
hottest indignation.” There is a tradition that Amaziah, angry at so dauntless
a witness-bearer, sought to put him to death, and that Amos, wounded by the
attendants of the priest, crossed the border of his native Judah only to yield
up his spirit to God. But that cannot have been the case. For when he had
reached his home again he set himself to write the story of his mission and the
record of the words he had spoken while he was away. This book of his prophecy
is most carefully arranged. Its sections are linked artistically each to each.
That is the life-story of Amos of Tekoa, So far as we can gather it from the
book he has written. It tells us--does it not?--how condescending God’s grace
is. This humble shepherd was His minister. He chose the weak things of the
world to confound the things that were mighty. It tells us, too, how devoid of
feverish haste, and how free from foolish pomp and display, God’s movements
are. He spent a long time in educating Amos for a task which was probably
accomplished in a few weeks
II. The prophecy
which Amos spoke.--Its great theme is the sinfulness and the doom of the
kingdom of Israel. But, first, the preacher describes the judgments of God as
about to fall on the nations which surrounded the guilty people. He glances
rapidly from one to another, and, because all have sinned, he proclaims against
all the Divine wrath. Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab,
Judah--there is not one of them which is not ready for punishment. Yet Israel
is the offender whose crimes are of the deepest dye. Its inhabitants were under
peculiar obligations to be loyal to Jehovah. He had brought them up from the
land of Egypt. Very unsparingly Amos exposes their transgressions. He pleads
with them, though their evil was aggravated and the hour was late to seek the
Lord; but, should they continue impenitent, he would have them know what awaits
them. Even as he spoke a terrible danger was beginning to loom on the horizon.
The hosts of Assyria, soon to be the ruling power of the world, were already
advancing toward Israel. These hosts were in God’s hand, and by means of them
He would afflict His foolish and prodigal children. He would cause them to go
into captivity “beyond Damascus,” to the far country of Babylon away on the
Euphrates. Then Amos passes to relate some visions which he had been permitted
to see. They are all ominous of impending woe. The grasshoppers which devoured
the harvest; the fire which was so fierce that it seemed to lick up the very
depths of the sea; the plumbline employed to mark out the nation for
destruction; the basket of summer fruit which typified Israel’s ripeness for
judgment; the altar beside which the Lord Himself stood, ordaining a punishment
from which none should be able to escape--how awe-inspiring and weighted with
sorrow and distress each one of them is! A short section of this latter
division of the prophecy is devoted to the recital of the episode at Bethel;
and at the close, as the manner of the prophets is, there is a lightening of
the gloom which has prevailed all through. The style of Amos corresponds well
with his own temperament and with the character of his message. It is simple,
stern, impressive. His words are pointed and powerful, and very often fervid
and glowing. They are words that fall like a hammer, words that scorch like a
flame. Not so finished or beautiful as that of Joel, his diction has a rugged
grandeur of its own. One thing strikes us as we read his book. He likes to get
hold of a telling phrase, and to repeat it over and over again. What a force
there is in the reiterated formula of the opening verses, “For three
transgressions and for four!” What a deep pathos underlies the ever-recurring
refrain of the fourth chapter, “Yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the
Lord!” He was unacquainted with the learning of the schools; but he was not
ignorant of the orator’s art.
III. Lessons which
Amos is so well able to teach.--
1. He turns our attention, we cannot but remark, to the severity
rather than to the goodness of Cod His prophecy closes, indeed, with an
attractive delineation of the Divine loving kindness. But before the still small
voice there have been the wind and the earthquake and the fire. No doubt, the
life of Amos in the desert helped to imprint deep on his conscience and heart
thoughts of the Lord’s inflexible righteousness and awful purity and unbending
justice. Joel, whose home was in the city, had another and a gentler conception
of God’s character. Dwelling in the midst of men and women and children, and
loving them tenderly, and knowing how ready He was to make large allowance for
their weaknesses and faults, he clothed the Maker of his heart with the same
sympathies which he found within himself. Joel’s testimony concerning Him is
true. Yes, but that of Amos is true also--a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation.
2. This prophet, too, insists upon the universality of God’s
government. The Divine rule, he tells us, is as wide as the world. It is
sometimes said that the Old Testament writers are exclusive in their
sympathies; that they speak as though Palestine alone enjoyed the favour of the
Lord; that they regard all born outside the land of promise as heathen men and
publicans for whom the God of heaven could feel no care. But these are false
notions. The Jehovah of the psalmists and prophets is God of the whole earth.
His kingdom ruleth over all. Amos was convinced of this truth, and asserted it
strongly. Israel must not imagine, he said, that God was mindful of its people
alone; for had He not brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from
Kir? Though He had a special interest in Israel, His providence was present and
powerful everywhere. It was of the judgments of this universal Sovereign that
Amos chiefly thought. But there is comfort, too, in the remembrance that the
Lord reigneth with a limitless and omnipotent sceptre. He sitteth King upon the
floods. He will bring good out of all the evils which mar His creation, and
will turn wars into peace, and will make the kingdoms of this world the
kingdoms of His Christ.
3. Once more Amos feels strongly the necessity of uprightness and
integrity in the outward life--of justice and mercy and truth in the conduct
from day to day. He is the great moralist among the prophets. He occupies in
the Old Testament the position which the Apostle James fills in the New.
Perverted though the worship of the Northern Kingdom was, the people were very
zealous in observing it. They loved to bring their sacrifices in the early
morning to Bethel and Gilgal. They offered tithes every three days. But there were other duties
which the prophet would fain have seen them perform. “Hate the evil and love
the good, and establish judgment in the gate,”--these were his commandments. It
is the most certain of all certainties that God can have no delight in
worshippers who call themselves by His name and yet refuse to fulfil His law. (Original
Secession Magazine.)
The date of Amos
We shall assign reasons for showing that the prophetic career of
Amos was probably subsequent to 780 b.c. The fact that the prophet never makes
mention of the name of Assyria, though he refers expressly to the destinies of
surrounding nations, seems to imply that Assyria was at that period not so
disturbing a force in Syro-Palestinian politics as it had been in a former
generation, and as it was destined to become during the ministry of the prophet
Hosea, when the terrible invasions of Tiglath-pileser made the names of Asshur
and King Combat (Jared)
to be names of dread. Accordingly we prefer to regard the prophetic ministry of
Amos as exercised when Syria had begun to recover from the disastrous invasion
of Vulnirari III.
For the social, moral, and religious condition of the Northern Kingdom during
the period we fortunately possess varied sources of information. Apart from the
accounts contained in the historical books, we have the numerous allusions
scattered throughout the prophet Hosea, whose discourses belong to a somewhat
similar period, and are extremely valuable as illustrating those of Amos. We
thus obtain a tolerably vivid conception of this momentous and tragic
century--the last days of Israel’s history. The energetic rule and successful
wars of Jeroboam II.
had extended the bounds of the kingdom. Syria had been compelled to yield up to
him a large tract of country extending from Hamath to the Dead Sea. Ammon and
Moab had become tributary. But the ease with which these conquests were
obtained was due to the dangers which threatened the very existence of the
Syrian states from the Assyrian power which had for many centuries been
formidable, but was now extending itself westward under the energetic sway of Vulnirari III. Under that
monarch Syria received a terrible blow; and it is extremely probable that the
recovery of the Trans-Jordanic district by Jeroboam from Syrian domination is
to be closely connected with this temporary overthrow of Syria and the neighbouring
kingdoms . . . The conception of universal Divine sovereignty was certainly not
a new one in Israel. But it was made especially prominent by Amos, and is the
keynote of his prophecies. It is from this standpoint that his oracles are
delivered. While to Hosea, Ephraim’s sin, whether in morals or worship,
appeared as an outrage to the relationship of loyalty and love to the Divine
Lord, it was regarded by Amos as a violation of a supreme rule and a supreme
justice. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)
The Book of Amos
The subject is “Words concerning Israel.”
I. The material.
1. His first address, chapters 1; 2.
(1)
Threats
against Damascus (Amos 1:3-5), Gaza (Amos 1:6-8), Tyre (Amos 1:9-10).
(a) Her sins enumerated (Amos 2:6-12).
(b) Complete subjugation announced (Amos 2:13-16).
2. The second address, chapters 3., 4. Destruction.
3. The third address, chapters 5., 6.: Lamentation.
4. The series of visions, Amos 7:1-9 : Punishment.
5. Promise of restoration (Amos 9:11-15).
II. The essential
ideas.
1. The prophecy and its fulfilment--three views.
2. Teachings of the Book concerning prophecy.
3. More important, ideas.
The ethics of Amos
It is obvious that Amos only takes for granted the laws of
righteousness which he enforces:
he takes for granted also the people’s conscience of them. Now, indeed, is the
doom which sinful Israel deserves, and original to himself is the proclamation
of it; but Amos appeals to the moral principles which justify the doom, as if
they were not new, and as in Israel ought always to have known them. This
attitude of the prophet to his principles has, in our time, suffered a curious
judgment. It has been called an anachronism. So absolute a morality, men say,
had never before been taught in Israel; nor had righteousness been so exclusively
emphasised as the purpose of Jehovah . . . How far is this criticism supported
by the facts? To no sane observer can the religious history of Israel appear as
anything but a course of gradual development. Even in the moral standards, in
respect to which it is confessedly often most difficult to prove growth, the
signs of the nation’s progress are very manifest. Practices came to be
forbidden in Israel, and tempers to be mitigated, which in earlier ages were
sanctioned to their extreme by the explicit decrees of religion. In the
nation’s attitude to the outer world sympathies arise, along with ideals of
spiritual service, where previously only war and extermination had been
enforced in the name of the Deity. Now, in such an evolution it is equally
indubitable that the longest and most rapid stage was the prophecy of the
eighth century. The prophets of that time condemn acts which had been inspired
by their immediate predecessors. (Geo. Adam Smith, D. D.)
The order of prophets after Samuel
There was one very remarkable change effected by this new order of
prophets, probably the very greatest relief which prophecy experienced in the
course of its evolution. This was separation from the ritual and from the
implements of soothsaying. Samuel had been both priest and prophet. But after
him the names and the duties were specialised, though the specialising was
incomplete. While the new Nebi’im remained in connection with the ancient
centres of religion, they do not appear to have exercised any part of the
ritual. The priests, on the other hand, did not confine themselves to sacrifice
and other forms of public worship, but exercised many of the so-called
prophetic functions. They also, as Hosea tells us, were expected to give
Toroth--revelations of the Divine will on points of conduct and order. There
remained with them the ancient forms of oracle--the Ephod, or plated image, the
Teraphim, the lot, and the Urim and Thummim, all of these apparently still
regarded as indispensable elements of religion. From such rude forms of
ascertaining the Divine will, prophecy in its new order was absolutely free.
And it was free of the ritual of the sanctuaries. As has been justly remarked,
the ritual of Israel always remained a peril to the people, the peril of
relapsing into paganism. Not only did it materialise faith, and engross
affections in the worshipper which were meant for moral objects, but very many
of its forms were actually the same as those of the other Semitic religions,
and it tempted its devotees to the confusion of their God with the gods of the
heathen. Prophecy was now wholly independent of it, and we may see in such
independence the possibility of all the subsequent career of prophecy along
moral and spiritual lines. (Geo. Adam Smith, D. D.)
The Old Testament Prophet
He is a speaker for God. The sharer of God’s counsels, as Amos
calls him, he becomes the bearer and preacher of God’s Word. Prediction of the
future is only a part, and often a subordinate and accidental part, of an
office whose full function is to declare the character and will of God. But the
prophet does this in no systematic or abstract form. He brings his revelation
point by point, and in connection with some occasion in the history of his
people, or some phase of their character. He is not a philosopher nor a
theologian with a system of doctrine (at least before Ezekiel)
, but the messenger and herald of God at some crisis in the life and conduct of
his people. His message is never out of touch with events. These form either
the subject-matter or the proof, or the execution of every oracle he uttered.
It is therefore God, not merely as Truth, but far more as Providence, whom the
prophet reveals. And although that providence includes the full destiny of
Israel and mankind, the prophet brings the news of it, for the most part, piece
by piece, with reference to some present sin or duty, or some impending crisis
or calamity. Yet he does all this, not merely because the word needed for the
day has been committed to him by itself, and as if he were only its mechanical
vehicle, but because he has come under the overwhelming conviction of God’s
presence and of His character, a conviction often so strong that God’s Word
breaks through him, and God speaks in the first person to the people. (Geo.
Adam Smith, D. D.)
prayer, that we may be baptized with the Holy Ghost. (Caleb
Morris.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》