Famous Amos

Famous Amos

True prophets are often the ones we least suspect of greatness. In the case of ancient Israel they often lacked social standing and possessed no special pedigree. Their authority derived solely from the power of their message. So it was with a remarkable man of righteous indignation, who arrived on the scene in the middle of the eighth century before the Common Era. His name was Amos, from a small city in Judah called Tekoa about 6 miles south of Bethlehem and eleven from Jerusalem. By this time in the history of Israel the once united kingdom of David and Solomon had irrevocably split in two. Ten northern tribes had created their own kingdom, while only Benjamin and Judah, from which Amos hailed, remained in the south. Little did anyone realize that this man Amos would be at the vanguard of Israel‘s ancient social justice movement. Oddly, we don’t know a lot about him.



A most unusual suspect, this Amos! In the very first line of his book he’s said to be “among the sheep breeders of Tekoa.” Elsewhere he calls himself a “tender of sycamore fruit.” The Hebrew word he uses to describe himself is boker, which, while translated as “herdsman,” also means “cowboy.” Certainly Amos was involved in agriculture. Presumably he switched professions, having started out as a ... Jewish cowboy? Oy vey!

In any case his message was quite radical. It's true that the idea of social justice goes back to Mount Sinai and the story of the exodus from Egypt. God is depicted as working on behalf of the oppressed and the powerless, namely, the enslaved Israelites. But now, centuries later, it is the Israelites themselves who are the oppressors of those who are weak among them. To have the audacity to point that out, and for a culture to embrace such criticism and be able to point a finger at itself - that’s one of the most revolutionary developments, not just for Israel, but for human civilization. In modern times we might think of Ghandi, who confronted Britain, a "Christian" nation, about the egregious sins and injustices it was committing against the Indian people. Arguably, it was Amos who started the social justice ball in motion. And that was when Amos became Famous Amos!

From his own narrative we learn that he travels north during the reign of the powerful king Jeroboam the second. And he suddenly appears in the cultic shrine of the city of Bethel, to confront the local priest. He feels compelled to make the journey, but he’s anything but thrilled about it. What kind of spirituality is this? As in Buddhism, Amos is very much aware of the suffering around him. But this isn’t like eastern religion, where the general goal is being in harmony with all things. It’s not like Buddhism. There’s no Nirvana (with its annihilation of self) to strive toward. The prophet Amos is literally wrenched out of his comfort zone by divine power. Israel's deity is roaring like a lion from Mount Zion and Jerusalem, and what choice does he have? His commission is one of confrontation, not harmony. He is to declare not an age of peace, but judgment upon the nations. On Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab. Some might've said, no worries, those are our enemies! Remarkably, Amos castigates the pagans, not for what they’ve done to the Israelites, but for what they’ve done to one another... But the judgment doesn't stop there. Next, we hear of the transgressions of Judah, then of Israel:

“Because they sell the righteous for silver, And the poor for a pair of sandals. They pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor, And pervert the way of the humble.” (Amos 2:6-7)
.עַל-מִכְרָם בַּכֶּסֶף צַדִּיק, וְאֶבְיוֹן בַּעֲבוּר נַעֲלָיִם הַשֹּׁאֲפִים עַל-עֲפַר-אֶרֶץ בְּרֹאשׁ דַּלִּים, וְדֶרְֶ עֲנָוִים יַטּוּ

There you have it. The Israelites were no better than the uncircumcised pagan nations – the goyim. You can't get farther away from the religion of personal peace and tranquility than this. He had been forced to open his mouth, like it or not. Amos declares:

“A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?” (Amos 2:8)
אַרְיֵה שָׁאָג, מִי לֹא יִירָא; אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה דִּבֶּר, מִי לֹא יִנָּבֵא

He goes on:

“That in the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel; And the horns of the altar shall be cut off And fall to the ground. I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house; The houses of ivory shall perish, And the great houses shall have an end.” (Amos 2:14-15)
כִּי, בְּיוֹם פָּקְדִי פִשְׁעֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל--עָלָיו: וּפָקַדְתִּי, עַל-מִזְבְּחוֹת בֵּית-אֵל, וְנִגְדְּעוּ קַרְנוֹת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ, וְנָפְלוּ לָאָרֶץ וְהִכֵּיתִי בֵית-הַחֹרֶף, עַל-בֵּית הַקָּיִץ; וְאָבְדוּ בָּתֵּי הַשֵּׁן, וְסָפוּ בָּתִּים רַבִּים

That must have gone down well! On and on the prophet thunders his denunciations, declaring himself to be God's mouthpiece, ending each terrifying stanza with "says the Lord.” This is a radically monotheistic God, who isn't to be equated with any part of the natural world. This is the God who formed the mountains, who creates the wind and makes the morning darkness. Who treads the high places of the earth and who sits above it all. Only a God who is truly "other" can judge of the world in righteousness. Here we have the two great pillars of Israelite monotheism. This deity is all powerful and all just.

But this is hardly a God one would wish on anybody. For he is as terrible as he is great. And what an odd message to inspire? Whoever heard of a prophet castigating his own people? But that’s why Amos was a true revolutionary. When he barges in on the local priest at Bethel (Amaziah is his name) he pronounces his series of woes. It’s an ancient case of speaking truth to power. He’s the ancient Lone Ranger. He’s a rhetorical Robin Hood, straight in from Sherwood Forest. It was after all the very nature of a prophet to be a solitary man.

The arrogant priest imagines Amos to be one of the earlier breed of ecstatic soothsayers. Amaziah curtly demands that he leave:

“Go, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah. There eat bread, And there prophesy. But never again prophesy at Bethel, For it is the king’s sanctuary, And it is the royal resi- dence.” (Amos 7:12-13)
.חֹזֶה, לְֵ בְּרַח-לְָ אֶל-אֶרֶץ יְהוּדָה; וֶאֱכָל-שָׁם לֶחֶם, וְשָׁם תִּנָּבֵא
.וּבֵית-אֵל, לֹא-תוֹסִיף עוֹד לְהִנָּבֵא: כִּי מִקְדַּשׁ-מֶלְֶ הוּא, וּבֵית מַמְלָכָה הוּא

The Hebrew word, khozei in fact reminds us of the earlier kind of soothsayer. That’s
when Amos makes an interesting declaration.

“I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet.“ (Amos 7:14)לֹא-נָבִיא אָנֹכִי, וְלֹא בֶן-נָבִיא אָנֹכִי

Immediately people are confused. Don’t we call him a prophet, and a great one at that? Ah, but he was a very different breed from any who came before. He distinguishes himself from the schools of wandering, ecstatic oracular prophets, from Samuel to Elijah. And he distinguishes himself all the more by doing something the earlier prophets never did. He writes down his messages in powerful poetic Hebrew. He is the first of the great writing prophets, recording in detail his confrontation with the priest. Moreover, if the people of this northern region were unprepared to heed his admonitions, another fate would await them:

“Your wife shall be a harlot in the city; Your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword; Your land shall be divided by survey line; You shall die in a defiled land; And Israel shall surely be led away captive From his own land.” (Amos 7:17)
אִשְׁתְָּ בָּעִיר תִּזְנֶה וּבָנֶיָ וּבְנֹתֶיָ בַּחֶרֶב יִפֹּלוּ, וְאַדְמָתְָ, בַּחֶבֶל תְּחֻלָּק; וְאַתָּה, עַל-אֲדָמָה טְמֵאָה תָּמוּת,וְיִשְׂרָאֵל, גָּלֹה יִגְלֶה מֵעַל אַדְמָתוֹ

Now there's something even modern social justice warriors don't usually have the chutzpah to do – pronounce doom on their own nation:

"Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt.” (Amos 3:1)
שִׁמְעוּ אֶת-הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה, אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה עֲלֵיכֶם--בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל: עַל כָּל-הַמִּשְׁפָּחָה, אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלֵיתִי מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם

By this time in Israelite tradition there was a firm notion of a coming "day of the Lord,” in which God's people would be redeemed from all their trials. But in an enormous rhetorical twist, the prophet Amos turns this notion on its head:

“For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness, and not light.” (Amos )5:18
.לָמָּה-זֶּה לָכֶם יוֹם יְהוָה, הוּא-חֹשְֶׁ וְלֹא-אוֹר

It's been said that the most important word in all of the Hebrew Bible is the word "covenant." That is, a contract between God and Israel. Israel keeps the Commandments; God provides protection. But now even covenant takes on a different meaning. Israel hasn't been chosen in the sense of being ethnocentric or better than anybody else. The covenant is about burden, not privilege:

“You only have I known of all the families of the earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey?” (Amos 3:2-4)
רַק אֶתְכֶם יָדַעְתִּי, מִכֹּל מִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאֲדָמָה; עַל-כֵּן אֶפְקֹד עֲלֵיכֶם, אֵת כָּל-עֲונֹתֵיכֶם הֲיֵלְכוּ שְׁנַיִם יַחְדָּו בִּלְתִּי אִם-נוֹעָדוּ הֲיִשְׁאַג אַרְיֵה בַּיַּעַר וְטֶרֶף אֵין לוֹ

The Israelites are responsible to make their own world better; and that's as much a part of the social justice message as anything. In other words, don't curse the darkness unless you're ready to light a candle. Otherwise Israel’s deity, who is the Lord of history, will intervene, even sending an invading army – the Assyrians – upon the land. The pagan nations roundabout were content to say that the blows of history are random. Ethical monotheism says exactly the reverse. History’s blows are not random. They are the result of the people’s own indifference. In the age of Amos, most people preferred the cultic rituals of temple worship (or even Canaanite fertility cults) to the ethical demands of a righteous deity. It's been argued that even in modern times few are interested in the religion of compassion, preferring the relatively effortless religion of institutionalized worship. Amos, where are you?

Modern scholars, not surprisingly, weigh in on the issue of whether Amos was against all sacrifice taking place outside of Jerusalem’s Temple. Was that why he appeared at the sanctuary in Bethel? Or was the location of the sacrifice unimportant in comparison to the enormous ethical issues involved? A kindred issue is: what sort of religion was being practiced at Bethel? Israelite monotheism, or a kind of “monolatry,” in which Israel had its singular God, but did not deny the existence of the gods of the surrounding nations, such as Baal and Ashera.

And that brings to mind a large debate over the very nature of monotheism. Did it come about, as the Bible indicates, as a sudden revelation to Abraham, basically out of the blue? Or, as many if not most modern scholars theorize, slowly and in stages, evolving from primitive Canaanite paganism, to monolatry, to full-blown ethical monotheism. Renowned Israeli philosopher and Biblical scholar, Yehezkel Kaufmann, wasn’t buying it. He insisted that Israelite monotheism didn’t evolve from paganism, but amounted to a whole new beginning, rooted in Moses. After all, the structure of Israelite monotheism lacked any hint of pagan folklore, and the Bible contains not a trace of what we think of as mythology. We don’t find battles among the gods or tales of their birth, perhaps because the war with myth had been fought and won well before the Bible took shape.

So in a nutshell, was Amos upset because the Israelites were practicing monolatry? Was his harsh harangue part of a larger war against idolatry? Or were the northern Israelites indeed monotheistic, but worshipping in the wrong place - outside of the Jerusalem temple? Furthermore, in Amos’ view, is morality and social justice inseparable from ritual? Does it stem from religious observance, and the right kind of religious observance? Kaufmann argued that Amos did NOT reject Israel’s traditional religion, the so-called “temple cult.” But he did place a revolutionary new stress on morality that went hand in glove with a new attitude toward the temple cult. That of course was his view, which of course is arguable.

How, then, should we think of history’s first great voice of social justice? Was he, as some see him, a “dissident intellectual,” not particularly concerned with empty religious ritual? Or was he a “conservative radical,” who saw true morality as stemming from faith, which was intimately linked to “kosher” religious observance? Where do you suppose the Rev. doctor Martin Luther King came down? Is religious faith a necessary ingredient for social justice? That’s one to chew on...

There’s one last issue regarding the prophet Amos. The last section of the book seems to address some age in the far distant future. We read:

“On that day I will raise up The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, And repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, And rebuild it as in the days of old... Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “When the plowman shall overtake the reaper... I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; They shall build the waste cities and in- habit them... And no longer shall they be pulled up From the land I have given them,” Says the Lord your God.
(Amos 9: 11-15)בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא, אָקִים אֶת-סֻכַּת דָּוִיד הַנֹּפֶלֶת; וְגָדַרְתִּי אֶת-פִּרְצֵיהֶן, וַהֲרִסֹתָיו אָקִים,
וּבְנִיתִיהָ, כִּימֵי עוֹלָם הִנֵּה יָמִים בָּאִים, נְאֻם-יְהוָה, וְנִגַּשׁ חוֹרֵשׁ בַּקֹּצֵר וְשַׁבְתִּי, אֶת-שְׁבוּת עַמִּי יִשְׂרָאֵל,וּבָנוּ עָרִים נְשַׁמּוֹת וְיָשָׁבוּ וְלֹא יִנָּתְשׁוּ עוֹד, מֵעַל אַדְמָתָם אֲשֶׁר נָתַתִּי לָהֶם--אָמַר, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיָ

Not a few modern commentators conclude that this must have been added centuries later, long after Jerusalem had been conquered by the Babylonians, after the people had gone into exile for seventy years, and returned to rebuild their cities. Someone, a later scribe perhaps, appended this final passage to make it look as though these things had been prophesied by the original Amos, in the 8th century BCE. Because if Amos really had been so precise about what would happen to the Israelites over the next two centuries, he would have been the greatest soothsayer ever to have put quill to parchment. Moreover, if the prophet had announced the return from captivity before the people were even threatened with exile, his words would have made no sense to his audience, and he would probably been dismissed as mad. So, should we politely rip out the last 5 verses of the book of Amos? As with so much else, it’s up to you, the ultimate jury, to deliver the verdict.

And the rest is history...