Introduction
Overview
In general, Amos delivers the same basic three-part message of a call to repentance, a statement of judgment, and the hope for restoration that the rest of the preexilic prophets proclaim. Yet Amos focuses primarily on the first and second points—the sins that have shattered the covenant and the consequential coming judgment. Amos also directs his message almost exclusively toward the northern kingdom, Israel. Another difference between Amos and some of the other prophets (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea) is that the others tend to sprinkle passages of hope and restoration throughout their message, mixing these encouraging passages of hope in with the passages of doom and gloom. In Amos, however, one looks in vain for any hope: none in Am 1, 2, and 3; still none in Am 4, 5, and 6, only sin and judgment; and the same in Am 7 and 8, and the first half of 9. Finally, at last! At the very end of Amos, the rustic prophet gives his audience a few verses of hope regarding the coming Davidic Messiah (9:11–15). The theme that does occur repeatedly throughout Amos is God’s concern for social justice. When Israel ignores the law of God and breaks away from an obedient relationship with him, it soon loses all sense of ethical concern and falls into a situation where exploitation by the rich and powerful runs unabated (the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer). Amos is unrelenting in his criticism of these people and the situation they have created.
Amos the Prophet
The first verse of the book of Amos informs the reader that this book contains the “words of Amos,” indicating that he was the one who originally spoke the prophetic oracles collected together on this scroll. Amos is never mentioned elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, so there is very limited information about his life and ministry. Amos grew up in Judah in the small village of Tekoa, which was approximately twelve miles south of Jerusalem. Tekoa was located high in the mountains along the ridge road that went from Hebron to Jerusalem. To the west of Tekoa were rocky hills where shepherds could tend their sheep, and to the east was a rugged, dry wasteland that sloped down toward the Dead Sea. This small village had a military outpost (2 Ch 11:5–12) that was constructed to protect Judah’s southern cities from invading armies. Since Amos lived relatively close to Jerusalem, one can assume that he periodically worshiped at the temple, heard stories about past military conflicts from soldiers at the fort in Tekoa, and was well acquainted with the sheep business.
Before Amos became a prophet, he worked as a shepherd (7:14). The unusual Hebrew word for “sheep breeder” in 1:1 indicates that he was a “manager of shepherds,” a middle-class position that implies Amos must have had some education and good managerial abilities. Amos also cared for a grove of sycamore fig trees (7:14), but he never provides any explanation of what he did with these figs. His rural background comes through in the imagery he uses to describe the behavior of lions (3:4) and the requirements of shepherds when a lion kills one of their sheep (3:12). He knows about traps used to catch birds (3:5), the plagues that occasionally ruin crops (4:9), the lamenting of farmers (5:16), the foolishness of running horses over rocks (6:12), the damage swarms of locusts can afflict on crops (7:1–2), and how to use a sieve to separate out good grain from the straw and chaff at harvesttime (9:9).
Historical Context
Amos 1:1 indicates that the prophet spoke these words during the reigns of Jeroboam II king of Israel (793–753 BC) and Uzziah king of Judah (791–740 BC). Amos lived in Judah during the long, prosperous, righteous, and strong military reign of King Uzziah (2 Ch 26:1–5). Uzziah equipped a large, elite army with the finest weapons, defeated the Philistines, and rebuilt the fortifications of Jerusalem; but later in his reign he proudly insisted on offering for himself a sacrifice in the temple, so the Lord punished him with leprosy (2 Ch 26:6–23). Even though Amos lived in Judah, God called him to declare the word of God in the northern nation of Israel, where Jeroboam II ruled (7:15). Second Kings 14:23–26 says little about the forty-one-year reign of Jeroboam II, except that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord and that he expanded the borders of Israel just as God had promised through the prophet Jonah. When Amos prophesied his message, the powerful army of Jeroboam II had already conquered the territory from Hamath in the north to the brook of the Arabah in the south (6:14); thus Amos’s ministry should be dated in the second half of Jeroboam’s reign, possibly around 760 BC. Uzziah and Jeroboam II expanded these kingdoms to equal the size of the large kingdom ruled by David and Solomon. All this military success made it difficult for the people in Israel to believe Amos’s warnings of God’s coming judgment, for everything was going well and they had a strong army. Israel had a strong economy based on tribute from defeated nations, trade, and the agricultural produce of the land, so Amos’s talk about the defeat of the army, the destruction of cities, and exile seemed more like the ravings of a mad prophet. During Amos’s ministry in Israel he got into a controversy with Amaziah, the priest at the temple in Bethel (7:10–17). After hearing Amos’s prophecy, the priest sent King Jeroboam II a letter concerning the treasonous words of Amos (7:10), for Amos claimed that God would raise up a sword against the dynasty of Jeroboam (7:9).
Amos spends a fair bit of time talking about the deplorable social situation in Israel. Because of its strong economy, Israel had a wealthy upper class who lived like kings in large palatial homes (6:8, 11). According to Amos, some have winter homes in the Jordan Valley for the warmer climates and summer homes around Samaria in the cooler mountain elevations (3:15). These people enjoy lavish parties with the best music, wine, oils, and food (6:4–6), but they are totally unconcerned about the rampant oppression of the lower class (6:6–7). Amos condemns the wealthy people who are crushing the needy (4:1), the businessmen who are cheating the poor by using false weights (8:4–6), the landowners who charge exorbitant rents (5:11), and those who bribe judges to win court cases (5:10, 12). The wealthy drive poor people into bankruptcy or slavery, sexually mistreat servant workers, and do not return pledged garments in the evening as the law stipulates (2:6–8).
Amos does not say a whole lot about the religious situation in Israel. He indicates that God has rejected their worship and hates their music because their hearts and actions do not demonstrate a transformed life guided by justice (5:21–24). Some of these people sacrifice often in order to impress God and brag about their generosity to impress their friends (4:4–5), but God can see what is really in their hearts. Amos condemns the worship going on at the temples in Bethel (including a golden calf), at Gilgal, and at Beer-sheba, and then he challenges his audience to truly seek the Lord if they want to live (5:4–6). There was some pagan worship in Israel (5:26; 8:14), but the prophet Hosea addresses this issue in much more detail. The people do know about God’s election of Israel as his own special people (3:1–2), God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt (2:10; 9:7), his conquest of the Amorites and giving of the land to his people in the days of Joshua (2:10), and God’s promise to save his people on the final day of the Lord (5:18–20); but these great acts of divine salvation only bring on a false impression of security instead of a deep commitment to fear God. The wealthy people enjoy God’s blessings, but they fail to love and serve God with all their heart (Dt 10:12).
Amos was called from his secular work of managing shepherds in Tekoa to speak God’s message persuasively to the people of Israel (7:15). Before this divine call to action he was not a prophet, and his father was not among the professional prophets who worked at temples for money (7:12–14; Mc 3:5). His short ministry in Israel probably did not last even a year, but he did preach powerful messages both in the capital city of Samaria (3:9; 4:1; 6:1) and at the temple in the city of Bethel (7:1–17). Although no one organized the messages of Nathan, Gad, Elijah, and Elisha into separate books in the Hebrew Bible, the oracles of Amos were gathered together to form one of the first prophetic writings. When the earthquake hit Israel about two years after Amos preached his messages (1:1), people seemed to realize that this was a fulfillment of the earthquake prophecies in 2:13; 8:8; 9:1, 5. This may be one of the key reasons why Amos’s prophecies were widely accepted as divinely inspired and worthy of reproduction in written form.
Authorship
Some critical commentaries imagine a long writing process involving as many as four different stages of redactors or editors who gradually added verses and paragraphs to the original writings of Amos over the next three hundred years. They suggest that the superscription in 1:1; the oracles against Tyre and Edom in 1:9–12 and against Judah in 2:1–4; the hymns in 4:13; 5:8–9; and 9:5–6; and the final salvation oracle in 9:11–15 were not written by Amos. But other commentators have pointed out that most of the messages in Amos contain a similar style, common rhetorical and persuasive techniques, a balanced structure, and thematic continuity that point to the compilation of these oracles by one individual. These characteristics would probably not be present if multiple people over several generations added verses here and there to reflect the theological issues in later periods of history. It is better to view the book as a unit that portrays the conflicting tensions Amos faced in his ministry.
Literary Features
The style of most of Amos’s oracles is poetry, though there are a few verses of narrative (e.g., 1:1; 5:1; 7:10–15). Amos uses rhetorical questions to get his audience to think about what they believe (3:3–6; 5:18, 20, 25; 6:2, 12; 7:8; 8:2; 9:7), employs numbered phrases (“for three crimes, even four” in 1:3–2:6), pairs oracles against the nations (1:3–2:16), and experiences visions (7:1–8:3). Five times in 4:6–11 he repeats, “you did not return to me,” there are five visions in 7:1–9:4, and there are five parallel conditional clauses in 9:2–4. Amos likes to prove his point by quoting his audience’s own perspective on a topic (2:12; 4:1; 5:14; 6:13; 7:10, 11, 16; 8:5–6, 14; 9:10) and by quoting authoritative Hebrew traditions to back up a point (2:9–10; 3:1; 5:6, 14; 9:7). He persuades people by quoting from hymns (4:13; 5:8–9; 9:5–6), referring to legal and religious requirements (2:6–8; 3:12; 4:4–5; 5:21–24; 8:5–6), and using wisdom sayings (3:3–6; 6:12). By skillfully working these factors into his arguments, Amos presents a powerfully logical case that should bring to repentance those who are humble enough to listen to what God is saying.
Theological Themes
The theological message embedded in Amos’s oracles gives them authority as well as power. Foundational to everything else is Amos’s belief that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the sovereign power who rules the world. He is the “God of Armies” (3:13), the ruler of the armies of heaven and earth, who testifies against his people and will come and destroy the wicked (5:9). He is the creator of the world (4:13) and controller of the stars (5:8), who lives in his magnificent heavenly palace (9:6). He can touch the earth and cause it to melt or call forth fire (7:4), plagues (7:1–2), and water (5:8; 9:6) to bring destruction on the earth. He is a holy God (2:7; 4:2), who will come in great power to establish his justice on the earth. He uses armies (3:11), nature (4:6–9), and his spoken word as his instruments to accomplish his will. He offers life, hope, and the possibility of his grace to those who will seek him (5:4, 6, 14–15). But not every Hebrew person will enter into God’s blessed kingdom on the day of the Lord (5:18–20), for God will separate the righteous from the wicked (9:10) and then pour out his blessings on his faithful people as well as on the Gentiles who are called by the name of the Lord (9:12).
At the end of Joel is a reference to God’s “roaring” like a lion (Jl 3:16). This connects Joel to Amos, for Amos presents God as a dangerous, roaring lion.
It is this God who speaks through Amos to reveal his will for Israel; he is the lion that roars to warn his people of grave impending danger (1:2; 3:8). God reminds them of his past grace in miraculously delivering them from the power of Egypt, his loving care while they were in the wilderness, his powerful grace that enabled them to defeat the Amorites in Canaan and take control of the land, and his grace that called some to be prophets and Nazirites (2:9–11; 3:1). He has chosen Israel out of all the families of the earth to be his people (3:2), but his grace does not give his people an absolute guarantee of divine blessings. Their election carries with it a great responsibility to love the Lord with all their hearts and to follow the stipulations of their covenant relationship. If they fail to walk in God’s ways as defined in the covenant (2:6–8), if they do not stop acting unjustly toward others (8:4–6), and if they continue in their pride (6:8), God will punish them for their iniquities (3:2).
Outline
1. God’s War Oracles against the Nations (1:1–2:16)
A. The Superscription (1:1–2)
B. God’s Judgment of the Foreign Nations (1:3–2:3)
C. God’s Judgment of His People (2:4–16)
2. The Reasons for God’s Judgment of Israel (3:1–6:14)
A. For Every Effect There Is a Cause (3:1–8)
B. God Will Bring Judgment on Israel (3:9–4:3)
C. Israel Did Not Return to God When They Worshiped (4:4–13)
D. Lamenting the Death of the Nation (5:1–17)
E. Don’t Be Deceived by False Hopes (5:18–27)
F. Don’t Be Deceived by Size, Affluence, or Power (6:1–14)
3. Visions and Exhortations about the End (7:1–9:15)
A. Two Visions of Destruction Bring Compassion (7:1–6)
B. Vision of Destruction of King and Temple (7:7–17)
C. Vision and Exhortation about the End (8:1–14)
D. No One Can Escape from God’s Hand (9:1–10)
E. The Hope of Final Restoration (9:11–15)