was still so remote that Amos himself did not give its specific name, but warned the people that Jehovah would cause them "to go into captivity beyond Damascus" (v, 27).

His sudden appearance, apparently on a festal occasion, in Bethel, the royal sanctuary town of Israel, was rather sensational, and must have seemed rude and uncouth to the gay crowds, as the appearance of Elijah had been a century before. But when, after predicting that the sanctuaries would be laid waste (vii, 9), he went on to say that Jehovah would rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword," he was reported to the king by Amaziah the priest of Bethel as a conspirator, and with rude words sent back to his own land (vii, 10-13). Thus the prophecy which as oral preaching was interrupted and scorned had to be preserved by writing; and we have it as a literary production, written several years afterward.

In thus coming over from the sister kingdom and warning Israel, Amos disclaims connection with any organization His Prophetic which can either support or modify his word Credentials (vii, 14). He is not of the order of the prophets, either as leader or disciple. He is not, as his hearers intimate, prophesying for hire or for a living (vii, 12). He is not beholden to king or government or man. His call and message are immediately from Jehovah. As a herdsman and fruit cultivator he has gathered his convictions on the rugged hills of Tekoa, in immediate communion with nature (cf. v, 7, 8), and in meditation on the history of his and surrounding peoples (cf. i, ii, ix, 7) and on the movements of empire. His prophecy shows a remarkable breadth of outlook and depth of insight, as well as purity and vigor of language; an evidence of the culture to which a man of the people could attain in this age of the Hebrew state. It throws light also on the mind of the great prophets as a class. They were men who, in their intimate realization of Jehovah's nature and will, felt also his purpose in the

spiritual pulse-beat of humanity and their own nation's relation thereto (iii, 1-8).

His Indict

The tone of Amos's prophecy is stern and denunciatory. He inveighs against the prevalent heartlessness, injustice, and sensuality which are sapping the character ment and of the nation (v, 10-13; viii, 4-7): the greed, Presage dishonesty, and cruelty of the powerful classes on the one hand; the shameless debauchery of the luxurious classes on the other (vi, 1-8); and hints what a contrast this is to the old heroic days (ii, 6-12). With such corruption of morals all their elaborateness of ritual and formal worship is worse than worthless before Jehovah (v, 21-27), is abomination to him; and the coming day of Jehovah, which is to this day as effect to cause, will be darkness instead of light (v, 18-20).

Such is the gist of his indictment, given mostly in literal and exceedingly trenchant terms. Then in a final series of illustrative figures he puts the summary of it, with its purpose, in symbolic form. The first of these is a vision of Jehovah standing by a wall with a plumb line (vii, 7–9) – a symbol of the standard of righteousness essential to the welfare and survival of a nation. It is his interpretation of this vision which causes the priest Amaziah to accuse him of treason and to send him back to Tekoa (vii, 10-13). Then follows, secondly, a vision of a basket of summer fruit (viii, 1-3); from which he gathers the lesson: "The end is come upon my people Israel." The symbolism of this is not clear to us who read Amos in translation; because he draws the lesson not so much by essential significance as by wordplay, as the words for summer fruit (kaits) and "end" (kets) are in Hebrew almost identical in form; still, the ripeness and rottenness of summer fruit may be connoted. This is followed, thirdly (ix, 9), by a strong figure which, though still severe and searching, contains a promise that compensates for the warning and

gives its ultimate purpose. It is the figure of the sifting of grain. "For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, like as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least kernel fall upon the earth." This reveals the large and in the end beneficent ideal that forms the background of the general prophetic message. By all their threats and warnings, severe as these are, the prophets are preparing for Israel a noble destiny.

II

Hosea, and his Sense of Outraged Love. Amos came to Israel, as Elijah before him had come, from another part of the country, pronouncing doom like a stern and unpitying judge; and he went his way again as a stranger, having apparently gained only scorn and contempt. Soon after his mission was over, however, he was succeeded by another prophet, Hosea, a man of very different point of view and temperament. As one born and bred among the people, familiar with their inherited 'customs and character, Hosea felt with intimate realization their condition as from within.

He attacks the same prevalent evils as did Amos; predicts the same doom of national dissolution and dispersion. His indictment, indeed, is even more severe than Amos's. But unlike his predecessor he speaks in the spirit not of austerity and judgment but of love and entreaty. "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I cast thee off, Israel?" (xi, 8) such is the undertone of his prophecy. The phases of national and social iniquity which come home most poignantly to him are such as correspond to this loving, yearning nature. As Amos has inveighed against the high-handed wrongs and greed which are evident to the world, Hosea feels the evil of the more inward vices: the prevalent falseness and licentiousness, the spiritual ignorance, the social rottenness and consequent decay of all that is sound and manly in character.

His Disor

Hosea's prophetic career dates from near the end of the reign of Jeroboam II—that is, from about 745 B.C.—and extends to about 736 B.C., or some fifteen years dered Times before the downfall of Samaria. It began while still the nation, as in the time of Amos's prophesying, was in its careless and luxurious prosperity. But when, in 740 B.C., Jeroboam died, the moral rottenness and weakness of Israel came to the surface in a period of violence and anarchy. "No sooner was he dead," says a modern account, "than all the faults of administration and sources. of weakness which his pomp had disguised became evident, and suddenly the death-throes of Israel began." In the course of the succeeding eighteen years Israel had six kings, several of whom were assassinated by usurpers; and those who could keep their throne for a little while had to buy off the encroaching power of Assyria by paying enormous tribute. Meanwhile attempts were made to gain the alliance and help of Egypt; which only made matters worse, and revealed the confused state that the mind of the nation was in, wholly unworthy of a people chosen of Jehovah (cf. vii, 11). They were not lacking in desperate bravery when the actual siege of their capital came; their lack was rather of the wisdom, the poise, the stamina, which a loyal and intelligent service of their God would have engendered. It was during this turbulent and anarchic time that all the latter part of Hosea's prophecy was uttered; and the very style of his prophecy, crowded, abrupt, unorganized, reflects the anomalous situation. Both his literal utterances and his figures are full of this quality. "My people are destroyed," he says, "for lack of knowledge" (iv, 6). "Ephraim is like a silly dove, without understanding; they call unto Egypt, they go to Assyria" (vii, 11), — falling helplessly into the clutches of the arrogant outer kingdoms, as a dove flutters into a trap. 1 Westphal and Du Pontet, "The Law and the Prophets,” p. 286.

How his
Prophecy
Reflects the
Situation

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Ephraim, he mixeth among the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned" (vii, 8), — a striking image of an inconsistent, unformed character, burnt to crisp on one side and raw dough on the other. And the cause of it all, to the prophet's mind, is that senseless proclivity to idolatry which bewilders and debases the idea and service of God. "Ephraim is joined to idols," he says; "let him alone" (iv, 17). These and many other utterances, expressed often in very telling figures, go to make up the prophet's description of an enfeebled and degenerate national character, unfit to hold its own and maintain a worthy manhood among the heathen nations of the earth.

His Lesson

rience

And yet all this is said with utmost tenderness by Hosea, preeminently the prophet of love. "My heart is turned within me, my compassions are kindled from Expe- together" (xi, 8), he says in bitterness of grief. Nor does he leave his people without pointing out a way upward from their apostasy and degradation, though at the cost of exile and dispersion. They were to be punished, in a way that would reveal the meaning of their sin, but the punishment would be remedial. This oracle he gives them through the fundamental figure under which he conceives of their relation to Jehovaha figure drawn from his own domestic experience.

Hosea had married a wife who soon after marriage proved an adulteress. Like Isaiah after him, he gave to the children of this union names in the meaning of which his prophetic message was symbolized. To the first, born while his wife was still faithful, he gave the name "Jezreel," significant both for past history and future destiny; for Jezreel was the city where bloody deeds had been committed calling for vengeance (i, 4); but also its meaning, "whom God hath sown," was significant of the dispersion that awaited the nation. "I will sow her unto me in the earth," he says later (ii, 23), not in severity but in promise.