Volume III
The Book of the Prophet Amos
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. III, p. 1434
Amos was a native of Judea, ch. i.; vii. 14: and began to prophesy along with Hosea, about 800 years before Christ. After denouncing ruin to the neighbouring heathens, who had been bitter enemies to the Hebrews, he calls the Israelites, and sometimes the Jews, to account for their idolatry, ingratitude, violence, treachery, oppression, incorrigibleness, uncleanness, contempt of the Sabbath, worldliness, &c., ch. i.-viii.; and concludes, predicting the establishment of the gospel church in the apostolic and millennial periods. [Amos was one among the herdmen of Tekoa, a town of Judah, four leagues south of Jerusalem; but Beth-el seems to have been his native city, and his removal to Tekoa the consequence of the anger of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, and of Amaziah the priest (ch. 7. 10-13), because of his faithful denunciation of their idolatry. He began to prophesy along with Hosea, about 800 years before Christ; and after proclaiming the judgments of God against the neighbouring heathens, who had cruelly persecuted the Jews, he proceeds to upbraid them with their ingratitude, idolatry, violence, oppression, treachery, Sabbath-breaking, licentiousness, and worldliness; and concludes with predicting the blessed restoration of Israel, and establishment of the universal kingdom of Christ. C. Amos was of humble parentage, born in a remote and obscure village, and employed from youth apparently in an humble though honourable calling. He was a shepherd, and his circumstances were such that his chief food consisted of the coarse fruit of the sycamore. He had received no special training; he was not educated at any of those schools of the prophets then common in Palestine. His language and idiom are such as might be expected from one in his position, writing under divine inspiration. Noble thoughts and sublime imagery are couched in simple words, and intermixed with figures and similes drawn from the features of nature and from the ordinary events of village life. Tekoa was a mountain village, situated about half-way between Jerusalem and Hebron, on the borders, and commanding a wide view of, the wilderness of Judah. Its ruins now cover a bleak and dreary mountain side, and when wandering among and around them one can understand the simple words of Amos, 'I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit: and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.' He did not seek, he did not expect, such a noble mission. It was wholly the Lord's doing; and in meek submission he did the Lord's work. P.]