reclaim it, if only it were possible; every line, almost, testifies to the reluctance with which he sadly owns the truth that the prospect of amendment is hopeless. Hosea's own nature is one of love; and Jehovah is to him pre-eminently the God of love, i-X who has cherished his 'son' with tenderness and affection, who is grieved by the coldness with which His love has been requited, but who still loves His nation even at the time when He finds Himself obliged to cast it from Him1. Hosea has as clear a sense as Amos has both of Israel's shortcomings (e.g. iv. 1—2), and of Jehovah's claims; but his recognition of both is tinged throughout by a deep vein of sympathy and emotion. With Amos all this is different. 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. Partly this may have been due to the circumstances of Amos' life: for he visited Israel as an outsider, and could not therefore feel the ties of kindred as Hosea felt them; he had, moreover, all his life been breathing the clear air of the moor, in which he had learnt to appreciate the rough honesty of the shepherd, but had discovered no excuse for the vices of the wealthy. But chiefly, no doubt, the strain in which Amos spoke was due to a difference of disposition. Amos' nature was not a sensitive or emotional one; it was not one in which the currents of feeling ran deep: it was one which was instinct simply with a severe sense of right. And so, though he sings his elegy over Israel's fall (v. 2), and twice intercedes on its behalf, when he becomes conscious that the failing nation is unable to cope effectually with calamity (vii. 2, 5; comp. also v. 15), as a rule he delivers unmoved his message of doom. 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

1 See W. R. Smith, Prophets, Lect. iv.; or Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets, pp. 117–138.

in virtue of its difference from the other, may be thereby the better adapted to set forth a different aspect of the truth1.

Amos is a spiritual prophet. It is true, he does not polemize against the material representations of Jehovah, the calves of Beth-el, with the vehemence of Hosea (viii. 4—6, x. 5, xiii. 2); but he clearly apprehends the true essence of a spiritual religion. The question of the day was, not whether Baal or Jehovah was to be Israel's God, but what was the true conception to be formed of Jehovah and His requirements? Was He to be conceived as a God who delighted in the service which Israel rendered Him, an unspiritual worship, the essence of which lay in a routine of ritual observances, in which the morality of the worshipper was a matter of indifference, and which was infused, certainly to some extent, perhaps largely, with heathen elements? Or was He to be conceived as "a purely spiritual Being, to. whom sacrifices of flesh were inappreciable, and whose sole desire was righteousness, being Himself, as might be said, the very ethical conception impersonated"? The antagonism between these two conceptions is unambiguously felt and expressed by Amos. Jehovah distinguishes between the true worship of Himself and that offered to Him at Israel's sanctuaries: "Seek ye me, and ye shall live: but seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and cross not over to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Beth-el shall come to trouble” (v. 4—5). If Jehovah be 'sought' rightly, life is the reward: if he be sought as too many of the Israelites sought him, the ultimate issue can be but disaster. The prophet's reprobation of the worship carried on at the sanctuaries is also apparent from the complacency with which he views their approaching ruin (iii. 14, iv. 4, vii. 9, viii. 14, ix. 1): the spirit of the worship, the temper of the worshippers, the conception of Deity which they had in worshipping, and to which they offered their worship, all were equally at fault. How Jehovah may be 'sought' in the way that He approves may be sufficiently inferred from the practices

1 In a later generation Jeremiah differs in temperament from Isaiah very much as Hosea differs from Amos.

2 Comp. further Paton, Journ. of Bibl. Lit., 1894, p. 87 ff.

which Amos represents Him as disapproving; but it is also indicated explicitly. "Seek good and not evil, that ye may live; and so Jehovah, the God of hosts, will be with you, as ye say. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgement in the gate: it may be that Jehovah, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (v. 14-15). A just and humane life was the sum of Jehovah's requirements (cf. Mic. vi. 8); but few and simple as those requirements seemed to be, they remained for Israel an unattainable ideal.

It remains only to summarize briefly the permanent lessons of the Book. The Book of Amos teaches, with singular clearness, eloquence, and force, truths which can never become superfluous or obsolete. "The truths that justice between man and man is one of the divine foundations of society; that privilege implies responsibility, and that failure to recognise responsibility will surely bring punishment; that nations, and by analogy individuals, are bound to live up to that measure of light and knowledge which has been granted to them; that the most elaborate worship is but an insult to God when offered to God by those who have no mind to conform their wills and conduct to His requirements :—these are elementary but eternal truths1."

§ 5. Some literary aspects of Amos' book.

In view of the early date of Amos, it is worth noticing that his book implies the existence of a recognized theological terminology, and of familiar ideas to which he could appeal. The prophetic style, which in his hands appears already fully matured, had no doubt been formed gradually: among the prophets to whom he alludes (ii. 11, iii. 7) may well have been some who were his literary predecessors. As regards the earlier history of Israel, Amos knows of the traditions which described Edom as Israel's "brother" (i. 11), and told of the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah (iv. 11); he mentions the Exodus (ii. 10, ix. 7), the

1 Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets, p. 104 f. On the influence of Assyria in widening the outlook of the prophets, and in developing and strengthening their theological convictions, see G. A. Smith, The Twelve Prophets, pp. 50-58, 92; and comp. Wellh., Hist., p. 472.

J. A.

8

traditional 'forty years' in the wilderness (ii. 10, v. 25), the gigantic stature of the Amorites (ii. 9, 10: cf. Nu. xiii. 28, 32, 33), whom Jehovah destroyed from before the Israelites; he alludes to the prophets and Nazirites who had been raised up in former years, to provide Israel with moral and spiritual instruction, and to be examples of abstemious and godly living (ii. 11); he knows of the fame of David as a musician (vi. 5), and alludes to his conquests of the nations bordering on Israel (ix. 11 f.; cf. 2 Sam. viii. 1-14)1. He is moreover acquainted with various established religious usages and institutions. Thus he alludes to the "direction" (Tôrāh) and "statutes" of Jehovah, which he charges Judah with rejecting; to (sacred) "slaughterings” (iv. 4, v. 25), or as they are termed in v. 22,.“peace-offerings"; to tithes (iv. 4), thanksgiving- and freewill-offerings (iv. 5); to a law prohibiting the offering of leaven upon the altar (ibid.; cf. Ex. xxiii. 18); to pilgrimages, solemn religious gatherings, burnt-offerings, meal-offerings, songs and lyres, heard in the services of the sanctuaries (v. 21, 22, 23, 25, cf. ix. 1); to the distinction between "clean" and "unclean" (vii. 17; cf. Hos. ix. 3); to new moons and sabbaths, as days marked by abstinence from secular labour (viii. 5)2. The general tenor of Amos'

1 Whether Amos drew his information on the facts mentioned in the Pentateuch from a written source, or from oral tradition, cannot be definitely determined: the expression in iv. 11, for example, is a stereotyped one (see the note), and we do not know who first coined it; there is however a verbal coincidence between ii. 9 and Josh. xxiv. 8 ("E"), which deserves to be noted. But (upon independent grounds) it is not questioned that certainly J, and probably E as well, was in existence before Amos' time. The collection of laws included in the "Book of the Covenant" (Ex. xx. 22-xxiii. 33) is also certainly older than the age of Amos.

2 The bearing of some of these allusions on the date of the priestly parts of the Hexateuch ("P") is a subject which cannot be properly considered by itself, but forms part of a larger question, the consideration of which does not belong to a commentary upon Amos. The writer must be content therefore to refer to what he has said upon it (in connexion with similar allusions elsewhere) in his Introduction to the Literature of the O.T. p. 136 (ed. 6, p. 143). There can be no doubt that many of the institutions and usages codified in P were established in Amos' time; but it is a question whether all were, and whether such as were then established were observed with the particular formalities which they exhibit as codified in P.

teaching (see the note on ii. 4, and p. 231) makes it probable that by Jehovah's "direction" (Tôrāh, law) he means, at least principally, spiritual and moral teaching, uttered whether by priests or prophets, in Jehovah's name1; the "statutes" will have been, no doubt, ordinances of elementary morality, and of civil righteousness, such as those embodied in the Decalogue, and the "Book of the Covenant" (Ex. xx. I—17, xx. 22—xxiii. 33; cf. xxxiv. 10-26), the neglect of which by Israel he himself so bitterly deplores, and which, hardly a generation later, Isaiah shews to have been scarcely less neglected in Judah (Is. i. 16—23).

A law in the "Book of the Covenant," which is presupposed with tolerable distinctness by Amos, is Ex. xxii. 26 f. (the garment of a poor debtor, taken in pledge, to be restored at nightfall); cf. Am. ii. 8, where the heartless creditors are described as stretching themselves on garments taken in pledge beside every altar. Amos' denunciations of the cruelty of the upper classes towards the poor, of bribery and the perversion of justice, in passages such as ii. 6, 7, iv. 1, v. 7, 10ff., vi. 12, viii. 14 are also thoroughly in the spirit of Ex. xxii. 21—24, xxiii. 6—8, 9; but the terms in which he speaks are not special enough to establish a definite allusion; and he might have adopted similar language, from his own natural sense of right, even had no such laws been known to him. In ii. 7 the use of the expression 'to profane my holy name' perhaps shews an acquaintance with the collection of moral precepts which now forms part of the "Law of Holiness" (Lev. xvii.—xxvi.; see Lev. xviii. 21, xix. 12, xx. 3, xxi. 6, xxii. 2, 33); but possibly this coincidence is due to accident. Commercial dishonesty is condemned alike in Lev. xix. 35 f. and in Am. viii. 5 f.: there is no law on this subject in the Book of the Covenant.

The style of Amos possesses high literary merit. His language -with a few insignificant exceptions, due probably to copyistsis pure, his syntax is idiomatic, his sentences are smoothly constructed and clear. The even flow of his discourse contrasts

1 It is, of course, clear from allusions in Deut. (xxiv. 8), and elsewhere, that some traditional lore relating to ceremonial usages was possessed by the priests: the only point that is here doubtful is whether it is alluded to by Amos in ii. 4.