The Book of Amos falls naturally into three parts-chaps. 1-2, 3-6, 7-9:10, with an epilogue, Amo_9:11-15. The first two chapters are an introduction to the story of the retribution which is to be consummated in the many disasters that are to overtake Judah and Israel for their idolatrous and immoral practices. These are set forth in chaps. 3-6 with the solemn preface: “Hear ye the word.” In Amo_7:1-17 - Amo_9:10 the words of prophecy are strengthened and driven home by a series of visions that sum up in symbolic form the indictments and injunctions that precede. Amo_9:11-15 forms an epilogue, containing the promise of a brighter future.
1. The series of prophecies against the nations which forms the prologue to the book is noteworthy alike for the view of the universal sovereignty of Jehovah which it presents and for the doctrine of the moral responsibility of the heathen which it assumes. Here, in the earliest of the prophets whose date is universally acknowledged, Jehovah is already presented to view as the supreme Ruler of the world. That God will punish the wicked was a commonplace held by every Israelite. But Amos took an immense step forward when he asserted the universal character of this judgment. The judgment is upon all the nations of the world as it lay under the eye of the prophet; and each nation is judged for its particular sin. The cloud laden with disaster trails round the whole horizon, discharging itself upon the nations in succession-Syria, Edom, Ammon, Moab, the Philistines, and Phœnicia, Judah included-till it settles at last over Israel. The judgment comes from Jehovah, who dwells in Zion; it falls on all the nations, and it falls on them for their sin. That sin is regarded as inhumanity or injustice-the breach of those natural laws of piety written in the heart and conscience of man, by which the relation of man to man and nation to nation ought to be governed. The condemnation of these nations implies that even the heathen possessed some knowledge of right, which carried with it a corresponding degree of moral responsibility.
2. Then, swift as lightning, Amos hurls his blow at Israel herself. It was to Israel that Amos was specially sent, and upon her the full force of his moral indignation is let loose. The sins which were rife among the Israelites-covetousness and dishonesty, cruel treatment of the poor and defenceless, open violation of humane laws, perversion of justice, selfish and idle luxury, immorality and profanity-are all in succession dragged to the light and unsparingly denounced. Repeated chastisements have had no effect; the people are ripe for judgment; let them prepare to meet their God; to seek Him is the one condition of life; and if they do not seek Him, He will break forth as a consuming fire that none can quench. It must have been a rude shock to the easy-going security of the Israelites to learn that just because they were Jehovah's people He intended to punish them. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.” It was a startling message, so exactly contrary to theory, so completely overturning established notions.
3. But Amos goes still further. Israel had another ground of assurance-her assiduity in religious performances, in the offering of sacrifices, so as to guarantee the continued goodwill of Heaven. Amos does not denounce the worship of Israel because it is a degraded form of religion, not (like his successor Hosea) because it is calf-worship, not because it is schismatical, not this mainly or primarily, but because it is offered by unrighteous and immoral worshippers, because it gives positive encouragement to the injustice, the sensuality, the barbarous treatment of the poor, which are the crying sins of Israel. The keynote of Amos is righteousness. He has nothing to say against this religion as such, but it is useless, because it is mere ritual. He laughs, and says: “Bring all your offerings; keep your solemn fasts; and what good will come of it? None whatever; the Lord hates them all. What He demands is that justice shall flow down like a river, and unless righteousness is there, your worship shall be counted as a sin!”-the most astonishingly original message at that time.
When men strive about the decorations of the altar, and the lights, and the rood screen, and the credence, and the piscina, and the sedilia, and the postures here and the postures there, and the people are not first diligently instructed in the holy mysteries, or brought to realize the Presence and the Sacrifice, no less than the commemorative Sacrament, what is it all but puerility, raised into the wretched dignity of profaneness by the awfulness of the subject-matter? Is there not already very visible mischief in the architectural pedantry displayed here and there, and the grotesque earnestness-about petty trivialities, and the stupid reverence for the formal past? Altars are the playthings of nineteenth century societies, and we are taught that the Church cannot change, modify, or amplify her worship; she is, so we learn, a thing of a past century, not a life of all centuries; and there is abusive wrangling and peevish sarcasm, while men are striving to force some favourite antiquated clothing of their own over the majestic figure of true, solid, abiding Catholicism. It is downright wickedness to be going thus a-mumming (a buffoonery doubtless correct enough out of some mediæval costume-book), when we should be doing plain work for our age and our neighbours. To see grownup children, book in hand, playing at mass, putting ornament before truth, suffocating the inward by the outward, bewildering the poor instead of leading them, revelling in Catholic sentiment instead of offering the acceptable sacrifice of hardship and austerity-this is a fearful, indeed a sickening, development of the peculiar iniquity of the times, a masterpiece of Satan's craft.1 [Note: F. W. Faber, Life of St. Wilfrid, 205.]
4. The last three chapters contain the same idea of the destruction of the nation, but conveyed in a variety of symbols seen in a series of five visions, interrupted in Amo_7:10-17 by an account of the altercation which took place between Amos and Amaziah at Bethel. The visions are followed, in each case, by longer or shorter explanatory comments; and their aim is to reinforce, under an effective symbolism, the truth which Amos desired to impress, viz., that the judgment which he had announced as impending upon Israel could now no longer be averted, and that though Jehovah had once and again “repented” of His purpose, He could do so no more; the time for mercy had now passed by.
The last vision presents a most graphic picture: the false worshippers are represented as gathered together in the temple at Bethel, and Jehovah commands to smite the pillars, that the fabric may fall upon the heads of all of them-they are buried in the ruins of their false religion. And, if any escape, the sword of the Lord shall pursue them, that not one shall save himself, and all the sinners of the people shall be cut off.
Then follows the bright picture of the restitution: the tabernacle of David that is fallen down shall be raised up; the kingdom shall assume its old boundaries from the sea unto the river; nature shall be transfigured; and the people shall dwell for ever in the land given them by their God. If we could be sure that this was genuine, we should have seriously to modify our conception of Amos as the stern herald of doom. But since grave doubts have been raised as to whether this glowing picture really comes from Amos, it is not safe to bring it into our materials for a portrait of the prophet's character. It seems to refer especially to the Southern Kingdom in speaking of the tabernacle of David, and that after its overthrow; moreover, we miss here the strong ethical vein that runs through the whole book up to this point. Without a word about repentance and a change of heart and conduct, even without promising forgiveness of the wicked past, this oracle serenely predicts a delightful future. The hiatus is too great to be lightly passed over.
5. Amos's message could hardly by the largest charity be described as a gospel of grace. It is the gospel of law-for that, too, is a gospel: to understand and obey the laws by which God governs His world is the way of peace, to ignore or defy them is the way to destruction. True child of the desolate pasture-land as he was, he had learned from its phenomena the relentlessness of law; its occasional grim sights and eerie sounds had invested his imagination with a sort of sombre majesty. With Amos, God is the God of righteousness; he himself is the apostle of righteousness; he is the preacher, whose moral nature is moved by the spectacle of outraged right, but who does not unbend in affection or sympathy; on the contrary, he announces Israel's doom with the austere severity of the judge.
God is righteousness-that is the thunder of Amos; God is love-that is the sweet song of Hosea. Amos and Hosea thus supplement each other, and a comparison of their writings furnishes an instructive illustration of the manner in which widely different natural temperaments may be made the organs of the same Divine Spirit, and how each, just in virtue of its difference from the other, may be thereby the better adapted to set forth a different aspect of the truth.
The fundamental thought of Hosea, that the relation between Jehovah and Israel is a relation of love and of such duties as flow from love, gives his whole teaching a very different colour from that of Amos. Amos begins by looking on Jehovah as the Creator and God of the universe, who dispenses the lot of all nations and vindicates the laws of universal righteousness over the whole earth; and, when he proceeds to concentrate attention on his own people, the prophet still keeps the larger point of view before the mind of his hearers, and treats the sin and judgment of Israel as a particular case under the general laws of Divine government, complicated by the circumstance that Jehovah knows Israel and has personal communications with it in which no other nation shares. Hosea has no such universal starting-point; he deals with the subject not from the outside inwards but from the heart outwards. Jehovah's love to His own is the deepest thing in religion, and every problem of faith centres in it. To both prophets the distinction which we are wont to draw between religious and moral duties is unknown; yet it would not be unfair to say in modern language that Amos bases religion on morality, while Hosea deduces morality from religion. The two men are types of a contrast which runs through the whole history of religious thought and life down to our own days. The religious world has always been divided into men who look at the questions of faith from the standpoint of universal ethics, and men by whom moral truths are habitually approached from a personal sense of the grace of God. Too frequently this diversity of standpoint has led to an antagonism of parties in the Church. Men of the type of Amos are condemned as rationalists and cold moderates; or, on the other hand, the school of Hosea are looked upon as enthusiasts and unpractical mystics. But Jehovah chose His prophets from men of both types, and preached the same lesson to Israel through both.1 [Note: W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, 163.]
6. Amos was the prophet of wrath; therefore he writes with severe, never-hesitating pen. Yet he is always so grandly clear in his meaning that this eldest of the Prophetic authors is the easiest to understand among them all. Some have said his style is that of a peasant; and certainly he is a representative of the fashion of life that was common among the rough shepherds and peasants, and he speaks with unpolished plainness. He never spares even the coarsest word as he attacks the great ladies of Samaria, or the distinguished priest at the temple of the king. He can handle his language with a master's skill; every sentence is full of meaning, and every word strikes the mark. But his prophecy is no fiery scroll written over with lamentation and wailing. The prophet points out the terrible diseases from which the community is suffering, and he declares in no uncertain tones what the end must be, but he does not suggest that the case is incurable. He is no pessimist, but a trenchant satirist and exposer of abuses in “an evil time.” Although he has the deepest sympathy with the oppressed and the strongest antipathy to their oppressors, the social aspect of the prophecy is secondary, while the spiritual aspect is primary, if not predominant. For in the spiritual world alone lies the remedy for the inequalities and injustices of this. The eternal principle of righteousness, “Seek ye Me, and ye shall live,” to which, as the Rabbis said, Amos has reduced the 613 commands of the Mosaic law, is after all the only true solution of all social problems.
The business of government, according to a certain school of politicians, is concerned only with the material interests of the Nation. “Laws,” it is said, “cannot make the people moral, and the Nation being an end to itself its relation to other Nations is not subject to moral criteria.” “We are legislators, not moralists,” was the position taken by a statesman in a recent parliamentary debate. Those who engage in the business of governing the Nation are, according to this view, concerned only to secure comfort, wealth and power. They have no need to ask whether a law will raise or lower the moral standard, or whether a policy is likely to increase peace and goodwill in the world. Their one object is material advantage, and their best guide is the business instinct which foresees the gain and loss of different courses. They have to do with profit and not with morals. “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind” is their motto.
Professor Sir Henry Jones, representing another school of politicians, has in a recent book set himself to show that of the two factors, material wealth and moral character, which make a Nation, the latter is that which is important. Moral character is more powerful than silver and gold in increasing happiness at home and in fixing the rank which a Nation holds in the estimation of foreigners. Righteousness exalteth a Nation. Avarice, craft and fear never yet built a State, and the builders of Nations which impress mankind like the builders of our cathedrals have built better than they knew. A light of morality has shined in the darkness when the darkness comprehended it not. Moral character is the greatest national asset.1 [Note: S. A. Barnett, Religion and Politics, 11.]
