Professor Christine
Hayes: Let me just briefly
recap as we are moving into the
literary prophets,
or the classical prophets,
they are sometimes called.
It is easiest to think of them
as being associated with
particular crises in the
nation's history.
We are not going to be looking
at them all, and I have picked
out some of the main ones that
we will be looking at.
Really, they are exemplary in a
number of different ways.
So you have prophets of the
Assyrian crisis.
This is when the two kingdoms
still exist.
In the north prophesying in
Israel, you have Amos and Hosea.
And in the south you have
Isaiah and Micah.
So think of those four books
together.
It will be easier to note the
differences among them if you
group them together.
 
And we will be doing that.
 
Then the prophets of the
Babylonian crisis.
By this time the northern
kingdom has fallen.
We are moving towards the end
of the seventh century.
The Assyrian Empire has fallen
in 612.
The prophet Nahum talks about
the fall of Assyria.
And we move then into the very
end of the century and down to
the beginning of the sixth
century, with the destruction of
Judah.
So prophets associated with
that time: particularly
Jeremiah, and also Habakkuk.
Then we have the prophet of the
exile, who is Ezekiel.
And then the post-exilic
period, or the Restoration,
when the Israelites are allowed
to return to their land and we
have several prophets at that
time: Haggai,
Zechariah, Joel and Malachi
will be the prophets we'll be
looking at briefly.
 
There are three long prophetic
works, and I have circled those
: Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel,
one associated with each of the
three crises.
So again another mnemonic for
you is to think of them each
associated with each of those
major crises.
And the rest are all much
shorter works,
I think Obadiah being the
shortest, really just a very,
very short work.
There has been a long debate
over the degree to which these
classical or literary prophets
were harking back to long
standing Israelite traditions or
constructing norms that would
later come to be viewed as long
standing Israelite traditions.
Kaufman describes these
classical prophets as the
standard bearers of the
covenant.
This is his term.
 
And in his view they could be
seen as conservatives,
but by the same token he says
the new prophecy conceived of
ideas that Israelite thought of
the earlier time had not
conceived.
And in this sense,
Kaufman argues they are also
radical.
He describes them as radical
conservatives or conservative
radicals.
As a result of the radical
nature of some of their message,
the prophets had to speak with
great exaggeration.
 
And you will notice this when
you read their writing.
Great exaggeration,
a lot of dramatic imagery,
dramatic features.
 
They denounce the people.
 
They chastise the people.
 
And as a result they were often
scoffed at or even persecuted in
return.
But eventually the nation would
come to enshrine their words in
its ancient sacred heritage,
which is testimony to the fact
that their message must have
served a crucial role at some
time in the changing political
and religious reality.
 
Now, we have already talked
about the Deuteronomistic
historiosophy,
and how it developed as an
interpretation of the historical
catastrophes of 722 and 586,
and this interpretation made it
possible for Israelites to
accept the reality of the defeat
of the nation,
the defeat of Israel,
without at the same time losing
faith in God.
The defeat of Israel,
the exile of the nation,
was not to be taken as evidence
that God was not the one supreme
Lord of history,
or that God was a faithless
God, who would abandon his
covenant and his people.
 
The defeat and the exile were
interpreted to affirm precisely
the opposite.
God, as the universal God,
could use other nations as his
tool.
He could use these nations to
execute judgment on his people,
and he did this in an act of
faithfulness ultimately,
faithful to his covenant,
which promised punishment and
chastisement for the sins of the
people, the sins of idolatry.
The classical literary
prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the 12
minor prophets,
follow the basic thrust of this
interpretation of events.
They agree that the defeat and
the exile are evidence rather
than disproof of God's universal
sovereignty,
and they agree that they are
God's just punishment for sin.
But they are going to differ
from the Deuteronomist in two
significant ways.
 
First they are going to differ
in their identification of that
sin.
For the prophets,
it is not just idolatry for
which Israel is punished,
although that is important,
too.
And second of all,
they are going to differ in
their emphasis on a future
restoration and glory,
a message that we do not find
in the Deuteronomistic
historian.
The individual books of the
prophets are really arranged
according to two interacting
principles: size and chronology.
 
So you have the first three
books, are the very large,
prophetic books:
Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel in
chronological order of the three
crises we have outlined here.
 
And then you have the minor
prophets, and the minor
prophets, again,
are roughly chronological
order,
although book size also plays a
bit of a role in arranging these
materials.
That was very common in the
ancient world--for size to
determine the order of books in
a corpus.
We are not going to be
following the order of the
canon, because it does jump
around chronologically;
first with the three large
books and then going back and
having some of the smaller books
of earlier prophets.
We are going to be looking at
them in chronological order.
We are going to be looking at
them against the backdrop of the
historical crisis to which they
are responding.
So we are going to begin with
the first of the literary
prophets, even though it is not
the first in the order of the
Bible, and that is Amos.
 
Amos preached during a
relatively stable period of
time.
This was in the northern
kingdom.
It was around 750 under the
reign of Jeroboam the Second,
not the first.
And this is at a time before
the Assyrian threat is becoming
very apparent,
and Assyria's empire building
ambitions--before those are
becoming very apparent.
There are many passages that
suggest that Amos was an
ordinary shepherd.
 
He came from a small town about
10 miles south of Jerusalem;
so he came from the southern
kingdom to prophesy in the
northern kingdom.
 
He was called to Bethel,
which was one of the royal
sanctuaries in the northern
kingdom, to deliver his
prophecies.
But despite the suggestion that
he was an ordinary shepherd it
seems more likely that he was
probably a fairly wealthy owner
of land and flocks.
He was probably educated and
literate.
The northerners are said to be
very surprised by his eloquence
and his intelligence.
 
But they did not like his
message, and ultimately he is
going to be forced to go back to
the southern kingdom.
The Book of Amos can be divided
structurally into four sections,
which I have listed on the
board over here.
You first have a set of brief
oracles of doom.
These are in the first two
chapters, Amos 1 and 2.
And then you have a series of
three short oracles,
oracles to the women of
Samaria,
an oracle to the wealthy of
Samaria and Jerusalem,
and then an oracle to Israel as
a whole.
These are in chapters 3-6.
 
This is followed then by five
symbolic visions which receive
interpretation.
These are visions of judgment,
first locusts,
then a fire,
then a plumb line that one uses
in building a building,
a basket of fruit,
and then a vision of God
standing by the altar at Bethel.
 
This happens chapters 7-9,
about verse 8 and 9 .
This section,
besides the five visions,
also has a little narrative
account of Amos' conflict with a
priest at Bethel,
the priest Amaziah who accuses
Amos of treason.
And then there is a concluding
epilogue in the ninth chapter
that runs for about seven or
eight verses to the end of the
book.
The Book of Amos is a wonderful
place to start for us because it
contains many features that are
going to be typical of all of
the classical prophets,
all of the literary prophets by
and large.
And also this book introduces
certain major themes.
 
These will become standard
themes of prophecy with some
variation here and there.
 
So by setting them out in the
Book of Amos then we can really
go forward and just look at the
variations on some of those
themes that are sounded by some
of the other prophets.
So first some literary
features, and then we will talk
about the themes of the book.
 
In terms of literary features,
I have jotted down a few here.
You see in the book what we
would call editorial notes.
That is to say,
you have notes in the Book of
Amos which are in the third
person.
These will very often occur at
the beginning of a book.
They sort of introduce or set
the stage.
So we have in Amos.
 
"The words of Amos,
a sheep breeder from Tekoa,
who prophesied concerning
Israel in the reigns of kings
Uzziah of Judah and Jeroboam,
the son of Joash of Israel,
two years before the
earthquake."
So almost all of the prophetic
books are going to contain an
introduction of this type.
 
Some third-person phrase which
will identify the place and the
prophet and his time.
 
There is another kind of
writing in some of these works,
as well, which is in the first
person.
It is not always in the third
person, but you sometimes have
first person passages in which
the prophet himself will speak
about and describe something
about himself.
It's a stepping aside from the
oracular moment and speaking in
some way about some experience
that he has had.
So we have these first person
and these third person passages
that give us information about
the prophet.
The third-person passages,
we surmise, may have been
written by the prophet,
but they were probably written
by disciples or others who were
responsible for collecting the
prophets' oracles,
inditing the prophet's oracles.
Amos 7 is an example of this.
 
In Amos 7, we find an example
of this kind of writing,
again, where you have a
description of Amos in debate
with a priest,
Priest Amaziah,
at the Shrine of Bethel.
 
So you have the oracular
statements, but you also have
these other identifying passages
as well, and descriptive
passages.
This brings us then to a second
point, which is that the
prophetic books are a
compilation of a variety of
materials.
They consist of varied
materials that have been
collected.
They have been revised.
They have been supplemented.
 
The prophets' oracles,
which were delivered in various
situations over a period of
time,
were apparently saved and then
compiled, again perhaps by the
prophet himself,
perhaps by his disciples.
We know that prophetic oracles
were written down and
transmitted in other ancient
Near Eastern societies.
We know this about Assyria,
for example.
These were literary
compositions and the literary
nature of these compositions
will account sometimes for their
ordering.
Sometimes it appears that there
is not chronological ordering.
 
This is one of the things that
can make it so hard to read some
of the prophetic writings,
because the oracles are not
necessarily in chronological
order.
They are literary works,
and sometimes the prophet or
the disciple or the editor would
combine principles--I'm sorry,
combine oracles or juxtapose
oracles according to principles
other than chronology--literary
principles.
So for example,
you very often find the
principle of a catch word:
a prophecy or oracle that might
end with a particular word in
its last line or last verse,
and so next to it will be a
second prophecy or oracle which
echoes that word in its opening
line,
and so the two have been
brought together for literary
reasons.
So Amos 3:2,
reads: "You alone have I known
of all the families of the
earth."
And that is the concluding line
of that particular oracle,
and that verb "to know" is
probably the catchword for the
oracle that follows,
because the next one opens,
"Do two people walk together
unless they know each other?"
 
So that may have suggested the
juxtaposition of those two.
So we need to understand that
the prophetic books are really
little anthologies,
anthologies of oracles.
They can be connected for
literary rather than substantive
or chronological reasons.
 
You can't assume chronological
sequence.
It is not like reading the
historical books of Joshua
through 2 Kings.
It is very, very different.
An interesting question
concerns the degree to which the
prophetic books preserve the
actual oracles of the prophets.
Certainly there is no doubt
that there has been revision and
supplementation of the prophetic
books.
Not everything in the Book of
Amos is from Amos,
himself.
Additions have been made to
most of the prophetic books.
 
It was believed that the words
of the prophets had enduring
significance.
Those who received these words
believed that they had enduring
significance.
And so they were supplemented
because of the conviction that
they had enduring relevance,
not despite of it,
because of it.
And some scholars believe that
this accounts for the oracle in
Amos 2 that prophesies the fall
of Judah.
Amos is living in 750,
the latter half of the eighth
century, not in the sixth
century.
He is living in the eighth
century.
But he prophesies the fall of
Judah, and most people would
assume that this is an addition
which is made to the Book of
Amos after Judah's fall.
These supplementations and
additions and revisions that we
will see in some of the
prophetic books,
and some of them are quite
obvious, were not completely
promiscuous.
I don't want to give you the
idea that they were,
because there are many
instances in which a prophet's
words are not updated,
are not modified,
even though the failure to do
this leaves the prophecy
woefully out of step with what
actually came to be later.
 
So those kinds of
inconsistencies between a
prophet's words and later fact
would suggest that there was a
strong tendency to preserve the
words of the prophet faithfully.
So we will see both tendencies
within the literature,
a tendency to leave words
intact,
and at the same place,
a tendency to supplement or to
add sections to the prophet,
the prophetic writing.
A third feature that we will
see in many of the prophetic
books is what we call "the
call."
And this is common to most of
the prophets.
It is the claim to authority as
a result of having been called
by God to deliver his word.
 
We talked before about
apostolic prophecy,
this notion of the prophet as
someone who is sent by God with
a message,
not someone who is consulted by
a client to find out what God
thinks.
The irresistibility of the call
is a feature of these passages,
and we find it illustrated in
Amos 3:7-8,
after citing a series of
proverbs that illustrate
inexorable cause and effect.
 
For example,
he says, "Does a trap spring up
from the ground/Unless it has
caught something?"
And then the oracle continues,
"A lion has roared,/Who can but
fear?/My Lord God has
spoken,/Who can but prophesy?"
There is this irresistible call.
 
We find metaphors used
liberally throughout the
prophetic writings.
 
And Amos describes his prophecy
by means of two types of
metaphors, word and vision.
 
So many of the prophetic
oracles will be introduced by
the phrase "the word of Yahweh
came unto prophet X."
The word of Yahweh came--sort
of an image of God speaking
directly to these prophets in
human language,
which is then repeated or
passed on to the audience,
to the listener.
This could be understood in a
literal sense.
We could take this as a
metaphor.
Behind it, however,
is the simple idea that it is
God who is communicating to the
prophet and the prophet then
communicates the message to the
people.
But in addition to hearing,
Amos and many of the other
prophets also see.
So the word of the Lord comes,
but in other moments the
prophetic oracle will be
introduced by verbs or words
connected with seeing and
vision.
Hence the word "seer" as a
designation for a prophet also.
Amos is shown visions of
various kinds,
particularly those five visions
clumped in chapters 7,8 and 9.
And this is true of the
prophets generally.
These visions might be visions
of God speaking,
or visions of God performing
some kind of action.
They might also be visions of
perfectly ordinary objects or
events that carry some sort of
symbolic significance.
So we have five visions in Amos
in chapters 7-9,
and some of them are visions of
ordinary objects,
but those objects have some
special coded meaning or
symbolic significance for
Israel.
And then we have visions of
extraordinary things,
as well.
So we have a locust plague.
It is about to consume the crop
right after the king has taken
his share, his taxes of the
crop.
Not such an extraordinary
vision, but then there is a
vision of a fire that consumes
the lower waters that are
pressed down below the earth,
and which threatens to consume
even the soil of the earth
itself.
So it is an extraordinary
vision.
We have a vision of a plumb
line-- the tool that is used by
builders.
There is a vision of God
destroying worshipers in the
temple.
The vision in chapter 8 is an
ordinary vision.
It is a vision of a basket of
summer fruit.
The Hebrew word for summer or
summer fruit is kayits
and this is a pun because the
word kets means end.
So the vision of kayits
is indicating or symbolizing the
kets, the end of Israel.
 
And these kinds of symbolic
visions will very often
typically include puns of this
type.
So another point to make about
just the literary features of
prophetic writings is that they
do contain or employ a variety
of literary forms.
 
One commonplace form that you
will see over and over again in
these writings is a form that we
call the oracle,
an oracle against the nations.
 
This is found in Amos.
 
It's found also in the three
large prophetic writings:
Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
 
Amos 1 and 2 contains seven of
these oracles that inveigh
against the nations.
 
But Amos gives the form a new
twist.
And this is what's interesting.
 
Six of the seven oracles are
directed against surrounding
nations, and they are excoriated
for their inhumane treatment of
others,
Israelites and non-Israelites
during wars and conflicts,
as punishment for their
terrible war atrocities.
 
A divine fire is going to break
out and destroy all of their
palaces and fortified places.
 
But then the twist comes,
because after these six
horrific oracles,
which condemn the nations for
these brutal acts of atrocity in
war,
Amos then turns to address his
own people.
And he says the same divine
power will consume the people of
Yahweh because of the atrocities
and inhumanities that they
commit even in times of peace!
 
So the seventh,
the climactic oracle,
announces that God's wrath will
be directed at Israel,
and this is a very unwelcome,
unexpected statement.
And you can see how he perhaps
would almost draw his audience
in, you know,
with these images of their
enemies getting what they
deserve,
only to then turn it around
(having drawn them in,
seduced them if you will with
his words)--to turn around and
then charge them with
something even worse.
The term "Israel" that he uses
is, of course,
ambiguous.
That is one of the problems
with some of the prophetic
writings.
You are never completely sure
whether they're prophesying
against the northern kingdom,
Israel, or the House of
Israel--both kingdoms together,
the whole tribal confederation.
Some passages in Amos would
suggest one.
Some passages suggest the other.
 
The other thing that we find in
Amos is an oracle against Judah,
against the southern kingdom.
 
This is in chapter 2.
 
It is just two lines,
verses 4 and 5,
and it is in chapter 2.
 
And many people identify that
as a later addition by an
editor.
First of all,
it's written in very standard,
sort of Deuteronomistic
language.
And also, if we leave it out,
then we have a nice literary
pattern.
We have six oracles plus one.
 
We have six oracles against
foreign nations,
and then we have one against
Israel.
And that pattern is a very
standard, literary pattern,
particularly in poetic sections
of the Bible and the prophets
are written in an elevated
poetic style.
We very often have a six plus
one pattern.
That's related to another
pattern that we also see in
Amos, which is the three plus
one pattern.
This is just a doubling of it,
six plus one.
The three plus one pattern you
will recognize.
It is quite explicit at times.
 
Amos will say,
"for three transgressions of
Damascus, for four,
I will not revoke it"--the
decree, the punishment.
 
A similar kind of language is
used in verse 6 for Gaza,
in verse 9 for Tyre,
in verse 11 for Edom,
and verse 13 for the Ammonites,
and so on.
So we often have this pattern.
 
And so the suggestion by
scholars is that without that
prophecy concerning the fall of
Judah,
which post-dates Amos,
you would have a nice complete
six plus one pattern.
 
And this might be the sign of a
later editor updating Amos'
prophecy, so that it would look
as though he had,
in fact, prophesied the fall of
Judah.
You have other sorts of
literary patterns and forms used
in the prophetic works.
 
Some of the literary forms we
see are hymns.
We see songs.
We see laments,
particularly laments or
mourning for Israel as if her
destruction is already a fait
accompli.
You find proverbs.
 
Very often when the prophets
cite a proverb,
they will turn its accepted
meaning on its head.
They'll take an old proverb and
they'll apply it to some new
situation and give it a
radically new kind of meaning,
to sort of shock and surprise
their audience.
And Amos 3-8 contains a lot of
proverbs.
Another literary form that we
will see, and this is an
important one,
is a literary form that is
called the riv,
r-i -v.
I have it up there:
a riv,
which basically means a
lawsuit, specifically a covenant
lawsuit.
Many of the prophetic books
feature passages in which God
basically brings a lawsuit
against the people,
charging them with breach of
covenant, breach of contract,
if you will.
And in these passages,
you have legal metaphors being
used throughout:
people testifying or witnessing
against Israel--can she speak in
her defense?--and so on.
So the riv,
or the covenant lawsuit is a
form we will see here.
 
We will also see it again when
we get to the Book of Job.
So the prophetic corpus draws
on the entire range of literary
forms that were available in
Israelite literary tradition,
and very often gives them a
rich--and that is what give the
books a very rich and varied
texture.
So Amos is a model for us in
terms of its literary features,
but it's also a model for us in
terms of some of the themes or
the content of the book--because
Amos will articulate certain
themes that we will see
resounding throughout the
prophetic literature.
 
There will be some variations
on these themes,
but some standard themes appear
here.
So we will review those now.
 
Many scholars,
Kaufman among them,
have noted that the literature
of the classical prophets is
most clearly and strongly
characterized by a vehement
denunciation of the moral decay
and social injustice of the
period.
It really does not matter what
period.
"Vehement denunciation" of
moral decay and social
injustice, is the way the
Kaufman phrases it .
 
Amos criticizes the sins of the
nation.
He is critical of everyone,
the middle class,
the government,
the king, the establishment,
the priesthood--they're all
plagued by a superficial kind of
piety.
For Amos, as for all the
prophets we will be looking at,
the idea of covenant prescribes
a particular relationship with
Yahweh,
but not only with Yahweh:
also with one's fellow human
beings.
The two are interlinked.
It is a sign of closeness to
Yahweh that one is concerned for
Israel's poor and needy.
 
The two are completely
intertwined and interlinked.
And so Amos denounces the
wealthy.
He denounces the powerful and
the way they treat the poor.
I am going to be reading some
passages from Amos to illustrate
some of these themes.
 
So Amos 4:1-3--and listen to
the dramatic rhetoric that is
used: "Hear this word,
you cows of Bashan/On the hill
of Samaria"--that is the capital
of the northern kingdom,
Israel:
Who defraud the poor,
Who rob the needy;
Who say to your husbands,
"Bring, and let's carouse!"
 
My Lord God swears by His
holiness:
Behold, days are coming upon you
When you will be carried off in
baskets,
And, to the last one,
in fish baskets,
And taken out [of the city]--
Each one through a breach
straight ahead--
And flung on the refuse
heap.
It's a wonderful pun here,
because the wealthy women of
Samaria are referred to as cows
of Bashan.
Now Bashan is an area that is
very rich pastureland in the
transJordan.
And also it is very common in
Canaanite literature to refer to
the nobility,
and even to gods,
with terms like bull or ram or
cow.
These were not insulting terms,
as they might be in our
culture.
These were, in fact,
terms that did not offend.
These were very complimentary
terms.
So when he refers to the cows
of Bashan (he speaks to the
women of Samaria as the cows of
Bashan) he is flattering them to
begin with.
But the pun is quite wonderful
because these women are going to
end up like fat cows,
as slabs of meat in the
butcher's basket or in the fish
basket which,
you know,
is flung out on the refuse heap
once it is spoiled.
So he takes that term "cows of
Bashan," and leads it to this
horrendous end.
Amos 6:1 and 4-7.
This is another scathing attack
on the idle life of the carefree
rich who ignore the plight of
the poor: woe to those "at ease
in Zion."
Of course, that is the capital
of the southern kingdom,
Jerusalem, and those "confident
on the hill of Samaria," the
northern kingdom:
You notables of the
leading nation
On whom the House of Israel pin
their hopes;
[…]
They lie on ivory beds,
Lolling on their couches,
Feasting on lambs from the flock
And on calves from the stalls.
 
They hum snatches of song to
the tune of the lute--
They account themselves
musicians like David.
They drink [straight]
from the wine bowls
And anoint themselves with the
choicest oils--
But they are not concerned
about the ruin of Joseph.
Assuredly, right soon
They shall head the column of
exiles;
They shall lull no more at
festive meals.
It is a great image of them
lying about as the head of the
nation.
They will be at the head of the
nation as it moves into exile!
And on an archaeological note,
I understand that in Samaria
they have, in fact,
uncovered all kinds of ivory
furniture and ivory coverings
that would then be attached to
furniture.
So the image of them lolling on
ivory couches in Samaria
apparently makes a lot of sense.
So the moral decay,
the greed, the indulgence of
the upper classes,
this is directly responsible
for the social injustice that
according to the prophets
outrages God.
Amos 8:4-6:
Listen to this,
you who devour the needy,
annihilating the poor of the
land,
saying, "If only the new moon
were over, so that we could sell
grain;
the sabbath,
so that we could offer wheat
for sale, using [a measure]
that is too small and a shekel
[weight]
that is too big,
tilting a dishonest scale,
and selling grain refuse as
grain!
We will buy the poor for
silver, the needy for a pair of
sandals.
The Lord swears by the pride of
Jacob: I will never forget any
of [their]
doings.
[See note 1]
Again, notice that they are
prone to extreme formulations
and high-flown rhetoric,
and sometimes when you strip
away the rhetoric,
you see that the crimes that
are being denounced are not
murder,
and rape, or horrendous
physical violence.
These are obvious and grievous
violations of social morality.
Rather many scholars have
pointed out, I think Kaufman
chief among them,
that the crimes that are
denounced here are crimes that
are prevalent in any society in
any era.
The crimes that are denounced
as being utterly unacceptable to
God, infuriating God to the
point of destruction of the
nation,
are the kinds of crimes we see
around us everyday,
taking bribes,
improper weights and balances,
lack of charity to the poor,
indifference to the plight of
the debtor.
A second theme that is pointed
out again by many scholars,
is what Kaufman calls the idea
of the primacy of morality.
 
That is to say the idea or the
doctrine that morality is not
just an obligation equal in
importance to the cultic or
religious obligations,
but that morality is perhaps
superior to the cult.
 
What God requires of Israel is
morality and not cultic service.
Now, the prophets are all going
to have--we are going to see
many different attitudes towards
the cult among the prophets.
So allow that to become a more
nuanced statement as we go
through.
Some are going to reject the
cult of the entire nation.
 
Others will not.
So there is going to be some
variation, but certainly
morality is primary.
And their words could,
at times, be very harsh and
very astonishing.
 
Amos 5:21-24.
"I loathe"--he is speaking now
as God, right?
So God is speaking--God says:
"I loathe,
I spurn your festivals,
I am not appeased by your
solemn assemblies.
If you offer Me burnt
[sacrifices]
or your meal [sacrifices]
I will not accept them;
I will pay no heed
To your gifts of fatlings.
Spare me the sound of your
hymns,
And let Me not hear the music
of your lutes.
But let justice well up like
water,
Righteousness like an unfailing
stream." [See note 2]
This is an attack on empty
piety, on the performance of
rituals without any meaning,
perhaps, behind that
performance, or in accompaniment
to social injustice--the two
can't happen at the same time.
 
And that's a theme that is
sounded repeatedly throughout
prophetic literature.
 
So for Amos,
and for all the prophets,
injustice is sacrilege.
 
The ideals of the covenant are
of utmost importance.
That is why they are called the
standard bearers of the
covenant, harking back to the
covenant obligations.
And without these,
without the ideals of the
covenant, the fulfillment of
cultic and ritual obligations in
and of itself is a farce.
 
That is not to say that they
would be rejected were Israel to
be upholding the covenant.
 
So this rejection of the cult
depends, of course,
on a caricature of cultic and
ritual performance.
The prophets caricature it as
meaningless.
They caricature it as
unconcerned with ethics or with
the ideals of justice and
righteousness.
But internal cultural conflicts
often do involve the
caricaturing or the ridiculing
of an opponent's beliefs or
practices.
But for some of the prophets
rejection of the cult was quite
radical.
That is an idea that is not yet
really fully formed in Amos.
We are going to see,
again, that some of the
prophets will reject the cult of
the nation, not just the cult of
the wicked, but everyone.
 
Even if performed properly and
by righteous persons,
there will be one or two
prophets who believe the cult
has no inherent value or no
absolute value for God.
In some sense,
this is a view that we have
already encountered in sources
devoted to the cult even in a
source like P,
the Priestly material.
The Priestly material is
already moving towards the idea,
or establishing the idea,
that the cult is an expression
of divine favor rather than
divine need.
It doesn't really have an
actual value necessarily for
God.
It doesn't really affect his
vitality.
It is given to humans as a
ritual conduit,
as a way to attract and
maintain God's presence within
the community,
or to procure atonement for
deeds or impurities that might
temporarily separate one from
God.
So already in the Priestly
source, we have a very
complicated notion of the
function of the for society and
humanity.
So the prophetic doctrine of
the primacy of morality seems to
be a reaction against other
views of cultic practice;
perhaps there were popular
assumptions about the automatic
efficacy of the cult and its
rites.
But Kaufman has been joined by
many other scholars who argue
that the prophets raised
morality to the level of an
absolute religious value,
and they did so because they
saw morality as essentially
divine .
The essence of God is his moral
nature.
Moral attributes are the
essence of God himself.
 
So Kaufman notes that he who
requires justice and
righteousness and compassion
from human beings is himself
just and righteous and
compassionate.
This is the prophetic view.
 
The moral person can
metaphorically be said to share
in divinity.
This is the kind of apotheosis
that you find then in the
prophetic writings,
not the idea of a
transformation into a divine
being in life or even after
death,
but the idea that one strives
to be god-like by imitating his
moral actions,
the idea again of imitatio
dei.
A third feature of the
prophetic writings,
this is again underscored by
Kaufman,
but also many other scholars,
and that is the prophets' view
of history, their particular
view of history,
their interpretation of the
catastrophic events of 722 and
586.
It is an interpretation that
centers on their elevation of
morality, because the prophets
insisted that morality was a
decisive,
if not the decisive factor,
in the nation's history.
 
Israel's acceptance of God's
covenant placed certain
religious and moral demands on
her.
Now in the Deuteronomistic view
that we have talked about,
one sin is singled out as being
historically decisive for the
nation.
Other sins are punished,
absolutely.
But only one is singled out as
being historically decisive for
the nation, and that is the sin
of idolatry,
particularly the idolatry of
the royal house.
So the Deuteronomistic
historian presents the tragic
history of the two kingdoms as
essentially a sequence of
idolatrous aberrations,
which were followed by
punishment.
And this cycle continued until
finally there had to be complete
destruction.
While it is certainly true that
moral sins and other religious
sins in Israel were punishable
in the Deuteronomist's view,
it is really only the worship
of other gods that brings about
national collapse,
national exile.
And that view is exemplified in
2 Kings 17, which I have read to
you.
It does not mention moral sins
as leading to the collapse of
the state.
It harps on idolatry.
Idolatry was what provoked God
to drive the nation into exile.
The view of the classical
prophets is a little different.
Israel's history is determined
by moral factors,
not just religious factors.
 
So the nation is punished not
only for idolatry,
but for moral failings.
 
And, of course,
the two are to a large degree
intertwined.
But the emphasis on the moral
is striking in the prophets.
 
And it may not be so startling
to hear that God would doom a
generation or doom a nation for
grave moral sins,
like murder and violence.
 
This is something we have
already seen in the generation
of the flood.
The cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah--they were destroyed
for grievous violations of
morality: murder,
violence and so on.
The prophets,
however, are claiming that the
nation is doomed because of
commonplace wrongs,
because of bribe-taking,
because of false scales and
false weights that are being
used in the marketplace.
These are the crimes for which
destruction of the nation and
exile will take place.
 
Amos 2:6 through 8:
Thus said the Lord:
For three transgressions of
Israel,
For four, I will not revoke it
[the decree of destruction]:
Because they have sold for
silver
Those whose cause was just
[taking bribes in a courtroom
setting],
And the needy for a pair of
sandals.
You who trample the heads of
the poor
Into the dust of the ground,
And make the humble walk a
twisted course!
So this is the first difference
really between the
Deuteronomistic interpretation
of the nation's history--the
destruction of Israel--and the
prophetic interpretation.
For the prophets,
the national catastrophes are
just punishment for sin,
but not just the sin of
idolatry,
for all sins no matter how
petty, now matter how venial,
because all sins violate the
terms of the covenant code,
which is given specially to
Israel.
And the terms of the
covenant--being vassals to the
sovereign Yahweh means treating
co-vassals in a particular way,
and it is breach of covenant
not to do that.
And, again, how much the
prophets were harking back to an
older tradition,
to ancient traditions about
Israel and its covenant
relationship,
traditions according to which
Israel's redemption and election
entailed moral obligations;
how much they were the ones to
actually generate and argue for
this idea again is hotly debated
by scholars.
It is not an issue that we need
to decide.
But I would note that the
primacy of morality in Israelite
religion certainly dates back at
least to the times of the
earliest prophets,
Amos in the eighth century for
example, and may indeed have had
antecedents.
It certainly didn't just arise
in the exile as some scholars
would have us believe.
 
It certainly was not the
invention of the Deuteronomistic
historian.
It's alive and well in some of
these very early prophets.
 
I am going to turn now to the
second difference between the
Deuteronomistic and the
prophetic interpretation of
Israel's history.
 
And that is that the prophets
coupled their message of tragedy
and doom with a message of hope
and consolation.
And this is something that just
simply doesn't come within the
purview of the Deuteronomistic
historian's writing.
First let me say a little bit
about the message of doom and
then the message of hope and
consolation.
One of the things that's so
interesting in the classical
prophets is that they give a new
content to older Israelite ideas
about the end of days,
or what we call eschatology.
Eschatology = an account
of the eschaton,
eschaton meaning the
end.
So eschatology is an account of
the end.
The prophets warned that unless
they changed,
the people were going to suffer
the punishment that was due
them.
And, in fact,
the people were very foolish to
be eagerly awaiting or eagerly
expecting what was popularly
known as the Day of Yahweh,
or the Day of the Lord.
 
 
 
And so the prophets refer to
the Day of Yahweh as if it were
a popular conception out there
in the general culture.
It was a popular idea at the
time that on some future
occasion God would dramatically
intervene in world affairs and
he would do so on Israel's
behalf.
He would lead Israel in victory
over her enemies.
They would be punished.
 
Israel would be restored to her
full and former glory.
And that day,
the Day of the Lord or the Day
of Yahweh, in the popular mind,
was going to be a marvelous
day, a day of victory for
Israel, triumph for Israel and a
day of vengeance on her enemies.
 
Amos 5:18 and 29,
talks about the people as
desirous of the Day of Yahweh.
 
They are very confident that
this is going to be a day of
light, a day of blessing,
a day of victory,
he says.
But the prophets,
Amos among them,
tell a different story.
According to them,
if there is no change then this
Day of Yahweh is not going to be
some glorious thing that the
people should be eagerly
awaiting.
It's not going to be a day of
triumph for Israel.
It will not be a day of
vengeance on her enemies.
It's going to be a dark day of
destruction.
It is going to be a day of doom
when God will finally call his
own people to account.
 
So this is another instance of
the way in which the prophets
try to radically surprise their
audience by taking an older
concept and reversing its
meaning, changing its meaning.
And here they have transformed
the popular image of the Day of
Yahweh from one of national
triumph to one of national
judgment.
Amos 5:18 through 20:
Ah, you who wish
For the day of the Lord!
Why should you want
The day of the Lord?
It shall be darkness, not light!
 
--As if a man should run from a
lion
And be attacked by a bear;
Or if he got indoors,
Should lean his hand on the wall
And be bitten by a snake![there
is going to be no place to hide,
in other words}
Surely the day of the Lord
shall be
Not light, but darkness,
Blackest night without a
glimmer.
Or chapter 8:9 through 12:
And in that day--declares
my Lord God--
I will make the sun set at noon,
I will darken the earth on a
sunny day.
I will turn your festivals into
mourning
And all your songs into dirges;
I will put sackcloth on all
loins
And tonsures on every head.
 
[mourning rites]
I will make it mourn as for an
only child,
All of it as on a bitter
day.
So again at the heart of this
idea that the Day of Yahweh is
being transformed into this day
of judgment,
is the old idea that God is the
God of history.
Right?
God can control the destiny of
nations.
He can control the actions of
nations.
That is not a new idea.
 
But in the past,
or not so much in the past,
I suppose--it would have been
present to the prophets--the
prophets were reacting against a
notion that God's involvement
with other nations was always
undertaken on Israel's behalf.
This is the idea they seem to
be battling.
In other words,
they are battling the idea or
the assumption that God
controlled other nations by
exercising judgment on them and
punishing them and subjecting
them to Israel.
And the prophets are
challenging this idea.
 
And they are making what would
have been heard as a shocking
and extraordinary claim.
 
God is, of course,
yes, a God of history,
of all history.
He is concerned with all
nations, not only Israel.
 
But his involvement with other
nations doesn't extend merely to
their subjugation.
 
If need be, or rather if Israel
deserves, then God will raise up
another nation against her.
 
So the final chapter in Amos
begins by proclaiming this idea
of utter destruction.
 
I will slay them all,
God says, and "not one of them
shall survive."
Wherever they hide,
under the earth,
in the heavens,
at the bottom of the sea,
God is going to haul them out
and He is going to slay them.
 
And what about the covenant?
 
Isn't it a guarantee of
privilege or safety?
Again, for Amos,
its primary function is to bind
the nation in a code of conduct,
and violations of that code are
going to be severely punished.
 
So in chapter 9 verses 7 to 8,
Amos makes the startling claim
that in God's eyes Israel is
really no different from the
rest of the nations.
 
He elevated her.
He can also lower her.
To Me,
O Israelites,
you are
Just like the Ethiopians
True, I brought Israel up
From the land of Egypt,
But also the Philistines from
Caphtor
And the Aramaeans from Kir.
 
Behold, the Lord God has His eye
Upon the sinful kingdom:
I will wipe it off
The face of the earth!
These are harsh, harsh words.
 
And you also have to remember
that Amos was living in a time
of relative peace and
prosperity, about 750.
National confidence is riding
high.
The people of Israel were
pretty convinced that God was
with them.
They weren't in any real
imminent or obvious danger.
 
And Amos was convinced that
despite this external appearance
of health, the nation was
diseased.
They were guilty of social
crimes and unfaithfulness to
their covenantal obligations.
 
And so he says they are headed
down this path of destruction.
Perhaps because of the optimism
of the time, Amos had to
emphasize this message of doom,
because his book is a pretty
depressing book.
Later prophets who were
speaking in a different
historical setting,
in a more desperate historical
setting,
would often speak words of much
more comfort and hope.
But Amos doesn't do this.
 
He does indicate that his
purpose is the reformation or
the reorientation of the nation.
 
He wants to awaken Israel to
the fact that change is needed.
Amos 5:14 and 15,
"Seek good and not evil,/That
you may live,/And that the Lord,
the God of Hosts,/May truly be
with you,/As you think."
 
Right now you think he is with
you.
He's not.
Change, so that he will
truly be with you.
 
"Hate evil and love good,/And
establish justice in the
gate;/Perhaps the Lord,
the God of Hosts,/Will be
gracious to the remnant of
Joseph."
The "perhaps" is important,
and it is very indicative of
Amos' fatalism.
This is very much a fatalistic
book.
The overriding theme of Amos'
message is that punishment is
inevitable.
It is pretty much inevitable.
 
And this is one of the reasons
that most scholars believe that
the final verses of the book,
verses halfway through 8 down
to 15, are a later addition by
an editor.
It is an epilogue,
and it was likely added in
order to relieve the gloom and
the pessimism and the fatalism
of the prophet's message,
because in these verses,
Amos does an almost complete
about-face.
We have just finished the first
half of verse 8 in Chapter 9.
So 9:8a--you have this oracle
of complete and devastating
judgment: "Behold,
the Lord God has His eye/Upon
the sinful kingdom:/I will wipe
it off/The face of the earth."
But then, the second half of
the verse, and the beginning of
this epilogue that has been
added,
immediately dilutes this:
"But, I will not wholly wipe
out/The House of Jacob
--declares the Lord."
It seems that an editor has
qualified this last oracle of
doom, has desired to qualify
this last oracle of doom.
And the editor continues,
For I will give the order
And shake the House of Israel--
Through all the nations--
As one shakes [sand] in a sieve,
And not a pebble falls to the
ground.
All the sinners of My people
Shall perish by the sword,
Who boast,
"Never shall the evil
Overtake us or come near us."
In that day,
I will set up again the fallen
booth of David;
I will mend its breaches and
set up its ruins anew.
 
I will build it firm as in the
days of old,
[...]
A time is coming--declares the
Lord --
[...]
When the mountains shall drip
wine
And all the hills shall wave
[with grain].
I will restore my people Israel.
 
They shall rebuild ruined
cities and inhabit them;
[...]
They shall till gardens and eat
their fruits.
And I will plant them upon
their soil,
Nevermore to be uprooted
From the soil I have given
them--said the Lord your
God.
In other words,
according to this epilogue,
God's punishment of Israel
isn't the end of the story.
 
It is one step in a process,
and the affliction and the
punishment serve a purpose.
 
It is to purge the dross,
to chasten Israel.
They are going to be put
through a sieve.
Only the sinners will really
perish.
A remnant, presumably a
righteous remnant,
will be permitted to survive
and in due time that remnant
will be restored.
 
To summarize Amos,
and hopefully this will give us
then some foothold as we move
into other prophetic books,
we need to understand that the
Book of Amos is a set of oracles
by a prophet addressing a
concrete situation in the
northern kingdom.
 
It's been subject to some
additions that reflect the
perspective of a later editor.
 
Amos' message was that sin
would be punished by God and it
would be punished on a national
level--the nation would fall.
When the northern kingdom fell,
it was understood to be a
fulfillment of Amos' words.
 
The Assyrians were the
instruments of God's just
punishment.
So his words were preserved in
Judah.
After Judah fell,
presumably a later editor added
a few key passages to reflect
this later reality,
most significantly the oracle
against Judah in chapter 2,
verses 4-5, and the epilogue in
chapter 9,
verse 8b through 15,
which explicitly seem to refer
to the fall of the southern
kingdom.
It refers to a future day when
the fallen booth of David will
be raised.
That reflects a knowledge of
the end of Judah,
the end of the Davidic
kingship.
And the phrase "on that day"
which is used,
is a phrase that often signals
what we feel is an editorial
insertion in a prophetic book.
 
It is pointing forward to some
vague future time of
restoration.
Okay.
On Monday, we are going to be
moving on to Hosea and Isaiah.
