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THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PRIVILEGE

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messages. At all events we have no record of them. The unnamed executors of the judgement are the Assyrians.

§ 4. The ruin to come.-The next section of the Book of Amos includes chapters iii, iv, v and vi of his book. The general indictment of Israel is now justified and developed. The section is separable into three smaller divisions.

Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.

Do two walk together, except they have made an appointment? Doth a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? doth a young lion growl from out of his lair, if he have taken nothing? Doth a bird fall into a trap upon the earth, where no bait is laid for it? doth a trap spring up from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? Is the trumpet blown in the city, and the people is not afraid? doth calamity happen in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his counsel unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?

The great and famous utterance, 'You only have I known. of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities,' has been already quoted and explained in Part I. The greater the privilege, the greater the sin of betrayal. The greater the trust, the grosser the sin of faithlessness. The greater the knowledge, the graver the sin which misused it. The greater the opportunity, the more inexcusable the sin which missed it.

The purport of the questions is to show that as ordinary events. have their causes, so too has the abnormal event of Amos' prophesying its cause. And the cause is God and his revealed purpose. The prophet's coming is no chance. It means that something is going to happen, the Author of which is God.

Proclaim it over the palaces at Ashdod, and over the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountain of Samaria, and behold the great tumults and the oppression in the midst thereof. For they know not

to do right, saith the Lord, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: An adversary shall compass the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled.

Thus saith the Lord: As the shepherd rescueth out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be rescued-they that sit in Samaria in the corner of the sofa and on the cushions of the couch!

Hear ye, and testify against the house of Jacob, saith the Lord God, the God of hosts, that in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Beth-el: and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground. And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, yea, many houses shall have an end, saith the Lord.

Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mount of Samaria, who oppress the poor and crush the needy, saying to your lords, Bring, and let us drink. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days are coming upon you, that ye shall be taken away with hooks, and the last of you with fish-hooks. And ye shall go out by the breaches, every one straight before her, and ye shall be cast. . . saith the Lord.

The oration is directed against the rich and ruling classes, both men and women. Amos has as much sympathy with the poor as any modern worker or reformer. Hence the prophets have often been claimed as 'socialists.' Such an appellation is erroneous and anachronistic, but it is true that much of our modern civilization as well as very many rich men's lives would fall under the prophetic lash. We too have great houses built and inhabited without righteousness; and are there not, alas, kine of London or New York as thoughtless, if not as directly cruel, as the kine of Bashan at whom the prophet girds?

'Proclaim over the palaces,' 'i. e. on their flat roofs, whence all can hear.'

'As the shepherd.' The ruin will be sudden, the remnant that escape will be few.

The summer house.' 'Separate buildings, such as the wealthy might be able to indulge in, appear to be intended. Both terms are to be understood collectively, and not confined to the royal palaces alone.'

INEFFECTUAL CHASTISEMENTS

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§ 5. Warnings unheeded. In this section Amos 'points ironically to the zeal with which the Israelites perform their religious rites, as though a mere external ceremonial could guarantee their safety; again and again Jehovah has shown signs of his displeasure; but again and again the warning has passed unheeded: now at last his patience is exhausted, and Israel must prepare to meet its doom.' 'Five unheeded chastisements' were sent by God upon Israel, but one and all failed to produce any moral or religious improvement. Famine, drought, blasting and mildew, pestilence and the sword, and lastly an earthquake-all these have befallen Israel, but Israel is still unrepentant. As Amos spoke during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II, we must assume that he mainly refers here to the events of previous reigns, as, for instance, to the calamities of the earlier Syrian wars. But there may have been occasional droughts and famines and seasons of pestilence in the course of a long reign which was prosperous as a whole.

Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices in the morning, and your tithes on the third day! And offer leavened bread as a thanksgiving, and proclaim and publish the free-will offerings: for so ye love to do, O children of Israel, saith the Lord God!

So I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

I withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one plot was rained upon, and the plot whereupon it rained not withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

I smote you with blasting and mildew, I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards, and your fig trees and your olive trees the palmerworm devoured: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

I sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, your horses I gave as spoil, and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

I made an overthrowing among you, as God overthrew

Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

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Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: [and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth what his thought is, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, the Lord, the God of Hosts, is his name!]

Thus the nearer the people think to come to God through their sacrifices and ritualism, the further they are removed from him. The only approach to God is by rectitude. Amos shows an absolute and utter indifference to the ritual. He seems unacquainted with any supposed 'Mosaic' legislation about sacrifices and burnt offerings. God's covenant with Israel rests wholly and solely on a basis of social righteousness.

The close of the section is difficult. There seems to be a gap after the words: 'Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel,' for what he will do is not stated. The judgement is omitted, and instead we have a grand description of him from whom the judgement will proceed. But this description, striking as it is, does not seem, to the minds of many great scholars, to be from the pen of the prophet. We shall meet with two other passages closely resembling it, and each case seems more or less to break or interfere with the natural sequence or connexion of the sections in which it occurs.

§ 6. The fall of Israel and its causes. This section of the prophecy falls naturally into three parts, each drawing out, in different terms, the moral grounds of Israel's impending ruin, and ending with a similar outlook of invasion, or exile.' In the first part it is declared how 'Israel continuing to show no signs of amendment, there remains nothing but inevitable ruin; and the prophet accordingly begins to sing his elegy over the impending fall of the kingdom, which in spirit he beholds already as consummated. Israel deserves this fate, for it has done the very opposite of what God demands: God demanded obedience, judgement and mercy; Israel has persistently practised the reverse, and has acted so as to call down upon itself a just retribution. Its state is desperate; certainly, even now it is not too late to amend, and the prophet entreats it earnestly to do so; but he sees only too well that his words will not be listened to; and again therefore he draws in outline a dark picture of the calamities impending upon the nation' (Driver).

THE FALL OF ISRAEL

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Hear ye this word which I take up against you-a dirge, O house of Israel:

Fallen, no more to rise,

Is the virgin of Israel!

She lieth low on her own land;

There is none to raise her up!

For thus saith the Lord God: The city that went out with a thousand shall be left with a hundred, and the city that went out with a hundred shall be left with ten, to the house of Israel.

For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel: Seek ye me, and live. But seek not Beth-el, and come not to Gilgal, and pass not over to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Beth-el shall come to ruin. Seek ye the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire upon the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench at Beth-el. [He that made the seven stars and Orion, that turneth deep darkness into morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is his name. He flasheth forth ruin upon the strong, and bringeth down destruction on the fortress. ()]

They turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth. They hate him that reproveth in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. Forasmuch therefore as ye trample upon the poor, and take from him exactions of corn: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know how many are your transgressions, and how mighty are your sins-ye who afflict the just, and take bribes, and turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent in such a time is silent; for it is an evil time.

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live, and the Lord, the God of hosts, may be with you, as ye say. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish justice in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the

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