1 After the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem, Titus disposed of the prisoners, whose number reached 97,000 in the course of the war, in the following manner: Those under seventeen years of age were publicly sold; of the remainder, some were executed immediately, some sent away to work in the Egyptian mines, some kept for the public shows to fight with wild beasts in all the chief cities of Rome; and only the tallest and most handsome for the triumphal procession in Rome (compare Josephus, de bell. Jud. vi.9, 2,3). And the Jews who were taken prisoners in the Jewish war in the time of Hadrian, are said to have been sold in the slavemarket at Hebron at so low a price, that four Jews were disposed of for a measure of barley. Even in the contests of the Ptolemzans and Seleucide for the possession of Palestine, thousands of Jews were sold as prisoners of earlier commentators nave clearly seen, we must not stop even at this. The people and inheritance of Jehovah are not merely the Old Testament Israel as such, but the church of the Lord of both the old and new covenants, upon which the Spirit of God is poured out; and the judgment which Jehovah will hold upon the nations, on account of the injuries inflicted upon His people, is the last general judgment upon the nations, which will embrace not merely the heathen Romans and other heathen nations by whom the Jews have been oppressed, but all the enemies of the people of God, both within and without the earthly limits of the church of the Lord, including even carnally-minded Jews, Mohammedans, and nominal Christians, who are heathens in heart.’
Before depicting the final judgment upon the hostile nations of the world, Joel notices in vers. 4-8 the hostility which the nations round about Judah had manifested towards it in his own day, and foretels to these a righteous retribution for the crimes they had committed against the covenant nation. Ver. 4, “And ye also, what would ye with me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all ye coasts of Philistia? will ye repay a doing to me, or do anything to me? Quickly, hastily will I turn back your doing upon your head. Ver. d. That ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have brought my best jewels into your temples. Ver. 6. And the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem ye have sold to the sons of Javan, to remove them far from their border. Ver. 7. Behold, I waken them from the place whither ye have sold them, and turn back your doing upon your head. war. Thus, for example, the Syrian commander Nicanor, in his expedition against the Jews in the Maccabzean war, sold by anticipation, in the commercial towns along the Mediterranean, such Jews as should be made prisoners, at the rate of ninety prisoners for one talent; whereupon 1000 slave-dealers accompanied the Syrian army, and carried fetters with them for the prisoners (1 Mace. iii. 41; 2 Mace. viii. 11, 25; Jos. Ant. xii. 7, 3).
' As J. Marck correctly observes, after mentioning the neighbouring nations that were hostile to Judah, and then the Syrians and Romans: ‘* We might proceed in the same way to all the enemies of the Christian church, from its very cradle to the end of time, such as carnal Jews, ' Gentile Romans, cruel Mohammedans, impious Papists, and any others who either have borne or yet will bear the punishment of their iniquity, according to the rule and measure of the restitution of the church, down to those enemies who shall yet remain at the coming of Christ, and be overthrown at the complete and final redemption of His church.”
Ver. 8. And sell your sons and your daughters into the hand o/' Javan, and they sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; for Jehovah has spoken it.” By v‘gam the Philistines and Phonicians are added to the goyim already mentioned, as being no less culpable than they; not, however, in the sense of, “ and also if one would inquire more thoroughly into the fact” (Ewald), or, “and even so far as ye are concerned, who, in the place of the friendship and help which ye were bound to render as neighbours, have oppressed my people” (Rosenmiiller), for such additions as these are foreign to the context; but rather in this sense, “and yea also... do not imagine that ye can do wrong with impunity, as though ye had a right so to do.” ‘2 DAN MD does not mean, “ What have I to do with you?” for this would be expressed differently (compare Josh. xxii. 24; Judg. xi. 12); but, “What would ye with me?” The question is unfinished, because of its emotional character, and is resumed and completed immediately afterwards in a disjunctive form (Hitzig). Tyre and Sidon, the two chief cities of the Pheenicians (see at Josh. xix. 29 and xi. 8), represent all the Pheenicians. 8 ni>%3 by “all the circles or districts of the Philistines,” are the five small princedoms of Philistia (see at Josh. xii. 2). OD3, the doing, or inflicting (se. of evil), from gamal, to accomplish, to do (see at Isa. ii. 9). The disjunctive question, “ Will ye perhaps repay to me a deed, z.¢. a wrong, that I have done to you, or of your own accord attempt anything against me?” has a negative meaning: “Ye have neither cause to avenge yourselves upon me, z.c. upon my people Israel, nor any occasion to do it harm. But if repayment is the thing in hand, I will, and that very speedily (gal m*hérah, see Isa. v. 26), bring back your doing upon your own head” (cf. Ps. vil. 17). To explain what is here said, an account is given in vers. 5, 6 of what they have done to the Lord and His people, —namely, taken away their gold and silver, and brought their costly treasures into their palaces or temples. These words are not to be restricted to the plundering of the temple and its treasury, but embrace the plundering of palaces and of the houses of the rich, which always followed the conquest of towns (cf. 1 Kings xiv. 26; 2 Kings xiv. 14). p22") also are not temples only, but palaces as well (cf. Isa. xill. 22; Amos viii. 3; Prov. xxx. 28). Joel had no doubt the plundering of Judah and Jerusalem by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Jehoram in his mind (see 2 Chron. xxi. 17). The share of the Phoenicians in this crime was confined to the fact, that they had purchased from the Philistines the Judzeans who had been taken prisoners by them, and sold them again as slaves to the sons of Javan, te. to the Ionians or Greeks of Asia Minor.’ The clause, “that ye might remove them far from their border,’ whence there would be no possibility of their returning to their native land, serves to bring out the magnitude of the crime. This would be repaid to them according to the true. lex talionis (vers. 7, 8). The Lord would raise up the members of His own nation from the place to which they had been sold, i.e. would bring them back again into their own land, and deliver up the Philistines and Pheenicians into the power of the Judzans (mékhar b’ydd as in Judg. ii. 14, ii. 8, etc.), who would then sell their prisoners as slaves to the remote people of the Sabzeans, a celebrated trading people in Arabia Felix (see at 1 Kings x. 1). This threat would certainly be fulfilled, for Jehovah had spoken it (cf. Isa. i. 20). This occurred partly on the defeat of the Philistines by Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi. 6, 7) and Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 8), where Philistian prisoners of war were certainly sold as slaves; but principally after the captivity, when Alexander the Great and his successors set many of the Jewish prisoners of war in their lands at liberty (compare the promise of King Demetrius to Jonathan, “I will send away in freedom such of the Judzeans as have been made prisoners, and reduced to slavery in our land,” Josephus, Ant. xiii. 2, 3), and portions of the Philistian and Phoenician lands were for a time under Jewish sway; when Jonathan besieged Ashkelon and Gaza (1 Macc. x. 86, xi. 60); when King Alexander (Balas) ceded Ekron and the district of Judah (1 Mace. x. 89); when the Jewish king Alexander Jannxus conquered Gaza, and destroyed it (Josephus, Ant. xi. 13, 3; bell. Jud. i. 4, 2); and when, subsequent to the cession of Tyre, which had been conquered by Alexander the Great, to the Seleucide, Antiochus the younger appointed Simon commander-in-chief from the Ladder of Tyre to the border of Egypt (1 Mace. xi. 59).
Vers. 9-17. Fulfilment of the judgment upon all the heathen predicted in ver. 2. Compare the similar prediction of judgment in Zech. xiv. 2 sqq. The call is addressed to all nations to equip themselves for battle, and march into the valley of Jehoshaphat to war against the people of God, but in reality to be judged by the Lord through His heavenly heroes, whom He sends down thither. Ver. 9. “ Proclaim ye this among the nations; sanctify a war, awaken the heroes, let all the men of war draw near and comeup! Ver.10. Forge your coulters into swords, and your vine-sickles into spears: let the weak one say, A hero am I. Ver. 11. Hasten and come, all ye nations round about, and assemble yourselves! Let thy heroes come down thither, O Jehovah! Ver. 12. The nations are to rise up, and come into the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there shall I sit to judge all the heathen round about.” The summons to prepare for war (ver. 9) is addressed, not to the worshippers of Jehovah or the Israelites scattered among the heathen (Cyr., Caly., Umbreit), but tothe heathen nations, though not directly to the heroes and warriors among the heathen, but to heralds, who are to listen to the divine message, and convey it to the heathen nations. This change belongs to the poetical drapery of the thought, that at a sign from the Lord the heathen nations are to assemble together for war against Israel. wap money does not mean “to declare war” (Hitzig), but to consecrate a war, i.e. to prepare for war by sacrifices and religious rites of consecration (cf. 1 Sam. vii. 8,9; Jer. vi. 4). YT: waken up or arouse (not wake up) the heroes from their peaceful rest to battle. With 12 the address passes over from the second person to the third, which Hitzig accounts for on the ground that the words state what the heralds are to say to the nations or heroes; but the continuance of the imperative hottu in ver. 10 does not suit this. This transition is a very frequent one (cf. Isa. xli. 1, xxxiv. 1), and may be very simply explained from the lively nature of the description. 42¥is here applied to the advance of hostile armies against a land or city. The nations are to summon up all their resources and all their strength for this war, because it will be a decisive one. They are to forge the tools of peaceful agriculture into weapons of war (compare Isa. ii. 4 and Mic. iv. 3, where the Messianic times of peace are depicted as the turning of weapons of war into instruments of agriculture). Even the weak one is to rouse himself up to be a hero, “as is generally the case when a whole nation is seized with warlike enthusiasm” (Hitzig). This enthusiasm is expressed still further in the appeal in ver. 11 to assemble together as speedily as possible. The dz. rey. way is related to wan, to hasten; whereas no support can be found in the language to the meaning “assemble,” adopted by the LXX., Targ., etc. The expression piano by no means necessitates our taking these words as a summons or challenge on the part of Joel to the heathen, as Hitzig does; for this can be very well interpreted as a summons, with which the nations call one another to battle, as the following 383?2 requires; and the assumption of Hitzig, Ewald, and others, that this form is the imperative for 18237, cannot be sustained from Isa. xliii. 9 and Jer.1.5. It is not till ver. 110 that Joel steps in with a prayer addressed to the Lord, that He will send down His heavenly heroes to the place to which the heathen are flowing together. Hanchath an imper. hiph., with pathach instead of tzere, on account of the guttural, from néchath, to come down. The heroes of Jehovah are heavenly hosts, or angels, who execute His commands as gibboré khodch (Ps. ciii. 20, cf. Ixxviii. 25). This prayer is answered thus by Jehovah in ver. 12: “ Let the nations rise up, and come into the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will He hold judgment upon them.” Vy" corresponds to 1" in ver. 9; and at the close, “all the heathen round about” is deliberately repeated. Still there is no antithesis in this to “all nations” in ver. 2, as though here the judgment was simply to come upon the hostile nations in the neighbourhood of Judah, and not upon all the heathen universally (Hitzig). For even in ver. 2 on 53 are simply all the heathen who have attacked the people of Jehovah—that is to say, all the nations round about Israel. Only these are not merely the neighbouring nations to Judah, but all heathen nations who have come into contact with the kingdom of God, i.e, all the nations of the earth without exception, inasmuch as before the last judgment the gospel of the kingdom is to be preached in all the world for a testimony to all nations (Matt. xxiv. 14; Mark xiii. 10).
It is to the last decisive judgment, in which all the single judgments find their end, that the command of Jehovah to
His strong heroes refers. Ver. 13. “ Put ye in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe: come, tread, for the wine-press is full, the vats overflow: for their wickedness is great.” The judgment is represented under the double figure of the reaping of the fields and the treading out of the grapes in the wine-press. The angels are first of all summoned to reap the ripe corn (isa... xvii. 5:3 Rey. xiv. 16), and then commanded to tread the wine-presses that are filled with grapes. The opposite opinion expressed by Hitzig, viz. that the command to tread the wine-presses is preceded by the command to cut off the grapes, is supported partly by the erroneous assertion, that bdshal is not applied to the ripening of corn, and partly upon the arbitrary assumption that qatsir, a harvest, stands for bdtsir, a vintage; and maggal, a sickle (cf. Jer. 1. 16), for mazmérah, a vine-dresser’s bill. But baéshal does not mean “to boil,” either primarily or literally, but to be done, or to be ripe, like the Greek mrécow, mrémta, to ripen, to make soft, to boil (see at Ex. xii. 9), and hence in the piel both to boil and roast, and in the hiphil to make ripe ‘or ripen (Gen. xl. 10), applied both to grapes and corn. It is impossible to infer from the fact that Isaiah (xvi. 9) uses the word gdtsir for the vintage, on account of the alliteration with gayits, that this is also the meaning of the word in Joel. But we have a decisive proof in the resumption of this passage in Rev. xiv. 15 and 18, where the two figures (of the corn-harvest and the gathering os the grapes) are kept quite distinct, and the ae WS? ows 2 is paraphrased and ecole thus: “The time is come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” The ripeness of the corn is a figurative representation of ripeness for judgment. Just as in the harvest namely, at the threshing and winnowing connected with the harvest—the grains of corn are separated from the husk, the wheat being gathered into the barns, the husk blown away by the wind, and the straw burned; so will the good be separated from the wicked by the judgment, the former being gathered into the kingdom of God for the enjoyment of eternal life,—the latter, on ‘the other hand, being given up to eternal death. The harvest field is the bcenct GC yh, Rev. xiv. 16), i.e. the inhabitants of the earth, the human race. The ripening began at the time of the appearance of Christ upon the earth (John iv. 35; Matt. ix. 38). With the preaching of the gospel among all nations, the judgment of separation and decision (7) Kptocs, John iii. 18-21) commenced; with the spread of the kingdom of Christ in the earth it passes over all nations; and it will be completed in the last judgment, on the return of Christ in glory at the end of this world. Joel does not carry out the figure of the harvest any further, but simply presents the judgment under the similar figure of the treading of the grapes that have been gathered. 1, not from ydrad, to descend, but from rdédah, to trample under #000 tread the press that is filled with grapes. DPF Pw is eal in ch. il. 24 to denote the most abundant harvest; here it is figuratively employed to denote the great mass of men who are ripe for the judgment, as the explanatory clause, for “their wicked (deed) is much,” or “ their wickedness is great,” which recals Gen. vi. 5, clearly shows. The treading of the wine-press does not express the idea of wading in blood, or the execution of a great massacre; but in Isa. xiii. 3, as well as in Rev. xiv. 20, it is a figure dénoting an annihilating judgment upon the enemies of Gad and of His kingdom. The wine-press is “the wine-press of the wrath of God,” i.e. “what the wine-press is to ordinary grapes, the wrath of God is to the grapes referred to here” (Iiengstenberg on Rey. xiv. 19).
The execution of this divine command is not expressly mentioned, but in ver. 14 sqq. the judgment is simply depicted thus: first of all we have a description of the streaming of the nations into the valley of judgment, and then of the appearance of Jehovah upon Zion in the terrible glory of the Judge of the world, and as the refuge of His people. Ver. 14. “ Tumult, tumult in the valley of decision: jor the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision.” Himonim are noisy crowds, whom the prophet sees in the Spirit pouring into the valley of Jehoshaphat. The repetition of the word is expressive of the great multitude, as in 2 Kings i. 16. ~ 57 Pry, not valley of eins.; for though ohdruts is used in Isa. xxviii. 27 and sli. 15 for the threshing-sledge, it is not used for the threshing itself, but valley of the deciding enon from chdrats, to decide, to determine irrevocably (Isa. x. 22; 1 Kings xx. 40), so that chdrats simply defines the name Jehoshaphat with greater precision, AP 3 ‘i (compare ch. i. 15, ii. 1) is used here to denote the immediate proximity of the judgment, which bursts at once, according to ver..15.
Ver. 15. “ Sun and moon have become black, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. Ver. 16. And Jehovah roars out of Zion, and He thunders out of Jerusalem; and heaven and earth quake: but Jehovah is a refuge to His people, and a stronghold to the sons of Israel. Ver. 17. And ye will perceive that I Jehovah am your God, dwelling upon Zion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem will be a sanctuary, and strangers will not pass through it any more.’ On the forebodings of the judgment in ver. 15, see at ch. 11.10. Out of Zion, the place of His throne, will Jehovah cause His thunder-voice to sound, will roar like a lion which is rushing upon its prey (Hos. v. 14; Amos iii. 4), so that heaven and earth tremble in consequence. But it is only to His enemies that He is terrible; to His people, the true Israel, He is a refuge and strong tower. From the fact that He only destroys His enemies, and protects His own people, the latter will learn that He is their God, and dwells upon Zion in His sanctuary, z.c. that He there completes His kingdom, that He purifies Jerusalem of all foes, all the ungodly through the medium of the judgment, and makes it a holy place which cannot be trodden any more by strangers, by Gentiles, or by the unclean of either Gentiles or Israelites (Isa. xxxv. 8), but will be inhabited only by the righteous (Isa. Ix. 21; Zech. xiv. 21), who, as Rev. xxi. 27 affirms, are written in the Lamb’s book of life. For Zion or Jerusalem is of course not the Jerusalem of the earthly Palestine, but the sanctified and glorified city of the living God, in which the Lord will be eternally united with His redeemed, sanctified, and glorified church. We are forbidden to think of the earthly Jerusalem or the earthly Mount Zion, not only by the cireumstance that the gathering of all the heathen nations takes place in the valley of Jehoshaphat, i.¢. in a portion of the valley of the Kidron, which is a pure impossibility, but also by the description which follows of the glorification of Judah.
Vers. 18-21. After the judgment upon all nations, the land of the Lord will overflow with streams of divine blessing; but the seat of the world-power will become a barren waste. Ver. 18. “ And it comes to pass in that day, the mountains will trickle down with new wine, and the hills flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah jlow with water; and a fountain will issue from the house of Jehovah, and water the Acacia valley. Ver. 19. Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom a barren waste, for the sin upon the sons of Judah, that they have shed innocent blood in their land. Ver. 20. But Judah, it will dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. Ver. 21. And I shall expiate their blood that I have not expiated: and Jehovah dwelleth wpon Zion.” The end of the ways of the Lord is eternal blessing for His people, whilst the enemies of His kingdom fall victims to the curse. This thought is expressed in figures taken from the state of the covenant land of the Old Testament, and those of the bordering kingdoms of Egypt and Edom which were hostile to Israel. If we bear this in mind, we shall not fall into Volck’s error, of seeking in this description for a clear statement as to the transfiguration of the land of Israel during the thousand years’ reign, whilst the rest of the earth is not yet glorified; for it is evident from ver. 18, as compared with the parallel passages, viz. Zech. xiv. 6 sqq. and Ezek. xlvii. 1-12, that this passage does not teach the earthly glorification of Palestine, and desolation of Heypt and Idumea, but that Judah and Jerusalem are types of the kingdom of God, whilst Egypt and Edom are types of the world-powers that are at enmity against God; in other words, that this description is not to be understood literally, but spiritually. ‘“ In that day,” viz. the period following the final judgment upon the heathen, the mountains and hills of Judah, z.e. the least fruitful portions of the Old Testament kingdom of God in the time of the prophet, will overflow with new wine and milk, and all the brooks of water be filled, i.e. no more dry up in the hot season of the year (ch. i. 20). Thus will the fruitfulness of Canaan, the land of the Lord, flowing with milk and honey, come forth in all its potency. Even the unfruitful acacia valley will be watered by a spring issuing from the house of Jehovah, and turned into a fruitful land. The valley of Shittim is the barren valley of the Jordan, above the Dead Sea. The name Shitiim, acacia, is taken from the last encampment of the Israelites in the steppes of Moab, before their entrance into Canaan (Num. xxv. 1; Josh. ii. 1), and was chosen by the prophet to denote a very dry valley, as the acacia grows in a dry soil (cf. Celsii, HMierob. i. p. 500 sqq.). The spring which waters this valley, and proceeds from the house of Jehovah, and the living water that flows from Jerusalem, according to Zech. xiv. 8, are of course not earthly streams that are constantly flowing, as distinguished from the streams caused by rain and snow, which very soon dry up again, but spiritual waters of life (John iv. 10, 14, vii. 88); and, in fact, as a comparison of Ezek. xlvii. 7-12 with Rey. xxu. 1, 2 clearly shows, the “ river of the water of life, clear as a crystal,” which in the New Jerusalem coming down from God upon the earth (Rev. xxi. 10) proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and on both sides of which there grows the tree of life, that bears its fruit twelve times a-year, or every month, and the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations. The partially verbal agreement between the description of this river of water in Rev. xxii. 2, and that in Ezek. xlvii. 12, overthrows the millenarian view, that the glorification of Judah and Jerusalem, predicted by Joel, Zechariah, and Ezekiel, will be a partial glorification of the earth, viz. of the Holy Land, which takes place before the creation of the new heaven and the new earth.—Ver. 19. On the other hand, the curse of desolation will fall upon Egypt and Edom, on account of the sin which they have committed upon the sons of Judah. °32 DOM, with the genitive of the object, as in Ob. 10, Hab. ii. 8, 17, etc. This sin is then more precisely defined, as consisting in the fact that they had shed innocent blood of the sons of Judah, ze. of the people of God, in their land (artsdin, the land of the Egyptians and Edomites, not of the Judzeans): that is to say, in the Egypt in the olden time, more especially by the command to slay all the Hebrew boys (Ex. i. 16), and in the Edom of more recent times, probably when throwing off the dominion of Judah (see at Amos i. 11 and Ob. 10). These nations and lands had both thereby become types of the power of the world in its hostility to God, in which capacity they are mentioned here, and Edom again in Isa. xxxiv. and lsiii.; ef. Jer. xlix. 7 sqq. and Ezek. xxxv.—Ver. 20. On the other hand, Judah and Jerusalem shall dwell for ever,—a poetical expression for “ be inhabited,’ both land and city being personified, as in Isa. xiii. 20, etc. Thus will Jehovah, by means of the final judgment upon the heathen, wipe away the bloodguiltiness that they have contracted in their treatment of His people, and manifest Himself as King of Zion. With these thoughts the prophecy of Joel closes (ver. 21). The verb niggdh, to cleanse, with dam, to wipe away or expunge blood-guiltiness by punishment, is chosen with reference to 8'P2 54 in ver. 19; and ‘Mp2 N2, which follows, is to be taken in a relative sense: so that there is no need to aher *n'p2) into *72P2) (Ges.); and the latter has no critical support in the Septuagint rendering Kab éxontjow, which merely reproduces the sense.—Ver. 21a dees not contain the announcement of a still further punishment upon Egypt and Edom, but simply the thought with which the proclamation of the judgment closes,—namely, that the eternal desolation of the world-kingdoms mentioned here will wipe out all the wrong which they have done to the people of God, and which has hitherto remained unpunished. But Zion will rejoice in the eternal reign of its God. Jehovah dwells upon Zion, when He manifests Himself to all the world as the King of His people, on the one hand by the annihilation of His foes, and on the other hand by the perfecting of His kingdom in glory.
q HE Propuer.—Amos (didy, ze. Bearer or Bur- NED) according to the heading to his book, was
‘among the shepherds (ndq°dim) of Tekoah” when ae Lord called him to be a prophet; that is to say, he was a native of Tekoah, a town situated on the borders of the desert of Judah, two hours to the south of Beth- Jehem, the ruins of which have been preserved under the ancient name (see at Josh. xv. 59, L_X-X.), and lived with the shepherds who fed their sheep in the steppe to the east of Tekoah; of course not as a rich owner of flocks, but simply as a shepherd. For even though ndgéd is applied to the Moabitish king in 2 Kings iii. 4 as a rich owner of a choice breed of sheep and goats, the word properly signifies only a rearer of sheep, ze. not merely the owner, but the shepherd of choice sheep, as Bochart (Mieroz. i. p. 483, ed. Ros.) has proved from the Arabic. But Amos himself affirms, in ch. vii. 14, that he was a simple shepherd. He there replies to the priest at Bethel, who wanted to prevent him from prophesying in the kingdom of Israel: “I am not a prophet, nor yet a prophet’s pupil, but a herdman (bdgéd) am I, and bolés shigmim, a gatherer of sycamores” (see at ch. vii. 14),+~7.e. one who fed upon this fruit, which resembles figs, and is described by Pliny (Hist. n. 13, 14) as predulcis, but which, according to Strabo, xvii. 823 (dT ipmos Kata THY yedow), was very lightly esteemed as food, and also, according to Dioscor., was dttwos Kal KaxooTouayos, and which is only used in Egypt as the food of the common people (Norden, Reise, p. 118). Consequently we have to regard Amos as a shepherd living in indigent circumstances, not as a prosperous man possessing both a flock of sheep and a sycamore plantation, which many commentators, following the Chaldee and the Rabbins, have made him out to be. Without having dedicated himself to the calling of a prophet, and without even being trained in the schools of the prophets, he was called by the Lord away from the flock to be a prophet, to prophesy concerning Israel (ch. vii. 14, 15), under the Judean king Uzziah and the Israelitish king Jeroboam I1., i.e. within the twenty-six years of the contemporaneous rule of these two kings, or between 810 and 783 B.c. Amos therefore commenced his prophetic labours about the same time as Hosea, probably a few years earlier, and prophesied in Bethel, the chief seat of the Israelitish image-worship (ch. vii. 10). We cannot fix with any greater exactness either the time of his appearing or the duration of his ministry; for the notice in ch. i. 1, “two years before the earthquake,” furnishes no chronological datum, because the time of the earthquake is unknown. It is never mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament, though it can hardly be any other than the terrible earthquake in the time of Uzziah, which the people had not forgotten even after the captivity, inasmuch as Zechariah was able to recal the flight that took place on that occasion (Zech. xiv. 5). As Amos has not given the date of the earthquake, his evident intention was not to fix the time when his ministry commenced, or when his book was composed, but simply to point to the internal connection between this event and his own prophetic mission. According to the teaching of Scripture, the earth quakes when the Lord comes to judgment upon the nations (see at ch. viii. 8). The earthquake which shook Jerusalem two years after the appearance of Amos as prophet, was a harbinger of the judgment threatened by Him against the two kingdoms of Israel and the surrounding nations,—a practical declaration on the part of God that He would verify the*word of His servant; and the allusion to this divine sign on the part of the prophet was an admonition to Israel to lay to heart the word of the Lord which he had announced to them. So far as the explanation and importance of his prophecies were concerned, it was enough to mention the kings of Judah and Israel in whose reigns he prophesied.
Under these kings the two kingdoms stood at the summit of their prosperity. Uzziah had completely subdued the Edomites, had subjugated the Philistines, and had even made the
Ammonites tributary. He had also fortified Jerusalem strongly, and had raised a powerful army; so that his name reached as far as Egypt (2 Chron. xxvi.). And Jeroboam had completely overcome the Syrians, and restored the original borders of the kingdom from the country of Hamath to the Dead Sea (2 Kings xiv. 25-28). After the power of the Syrians had been broken, Israel had no longer any foe to fear, for Assyria had not yet arisen as a conquering power. The supposition that Calneh or Ctesiphon is represented in ch. vi. 2 as having already been taken (by the Assyrians), rests upon an incorrect interpretation, and is just as erroneous as the inference, also drawn from the same passage, that Hamath was conquered and Gath destroyed. Amos does not mention the Assyrians at all; although in ch. i. 5 he threatens the Syrians with transportation to Kir, and in ch. v. 27 predicts that the Israelites will be carried into captivity beyond Damascus. In the existing state of things, the idea of the approaching fall or destruction of the kingdom of Israel was, according to human judgment, a very improbable one indeed. The inhabitants of Samaria and Zion felt themselves perfectly secure in the consciousness of their might (ch. vi. 1). The rulers of the kingdom trusted in the strength of their military resources (ch. vi. 13), and were only concerned to increase their wealth by oppressing the poor, and to revel in earthly luxuries and pleasures (ch. ii. 6-8, v. 11, 12, vi. 4-6); so that the prophet denounces woes upon those who are in security upon Zion and without care upon the mountain of Samaria (ch. vi. 1), and utters the threat that the Lord will cause the sun to set at noon, and bring darkness over the land in broad daylight (ch. vii. 9).
It was at such a time as this that the plain shepherd of Tekoah was sent to Bethel, into the kingdom of the ten tribes, to announce to the careless sinners the approach of the divine judgment, and the destruction of the kingdom. And whilst it was in itself a strange event for a prophet to be sent out of Judah into the kingdom of the ten tribes,—so strange, in fact, that in all probability it had never occurred since the kingdom had been founded, or at any rate, that no second instance of the kind is recorded, from the time when the man of God was sent out of Judah to Bethel in the reign of Jeroboam 1. (1 Kings xlii.), down to the time of Amos himself,—it must have attracted universal attention, for a man to rise up who belonged to the rank of a shepherd, who had had no training at all for a prophet’s vocation, but who nevertheless proved, by the demonstration of the Spirit, that he was a prophet indeed, and who foretold, in the strength of God, what destruction awaited the covenant people, before there was the slightest human probability of any such catastrophe.
The prophet’s style of composition does indeed betray the former shepherd in the use of certain words, which evidently belonged to the dialect of the common people,—e.g. P'Y2 for Psd (ch. ii. 18), DYAIZ for DDIA (ch. v. 11), ANN for ayn (ch. vi. 8), 51D for §1W2 (ch. vi. 10), Phe for POS (ch. vii. 9, 16), APY for HYpw3 (ch. viii. 8), and in many figures and similes drawn from nature and rural life; but for the rest, it indicates a close acquaintance on the part of the prophet with the Mosaic law and the history of his nation, and also considerable rhetorical power, wealth and depth of thought, vivacity and vigour, more especially in the use of bold antitheses, and a truly poetical roll, which rises by no means unfrequently into actual rhythm; so that Lowth has already expressed the following opinion concerning him (De poest sacr. ed. Mich. p. 433): “Aquus judex, dere non de homine quesiturus, cersebit, credo, pastorem nostrum pndev UaTEpnKévar TaV UTEpiav TpoPyTOV, ut sensuum elatione et magnificentia spiritus prope summis parem, ita etiam dictionis splendore et compositionis elegantia vie quoquam inferiorem.” Beyond these facts, which we gather from the prophet’s own writings, nothing further is known of the circumstances connected with his life. After fulfilling his mission, he probably returned to Judah, his native land, where his prophecies were most likely first committed to writing. The apocryphal accounts of his death, in Pseud.-Epiphanius, c. 12, and Pseudo- Doroth. (see Carpzoy, p. 819), have no historical value whatever.
2. Tar Boox.—Although Amos was sent by the Lord to Bethel, to prophesy to the people of Israel there, he does not restrict himself in his prophecy to the kingdom of the ten tribes, but, like his younger contemporary Hosea, notices the kingdom of Judah as well, and even the surrounding nations, that were hostile to the covenant nation. His book is not a mere collection of the addresses delivered in Bethel, but a carefully planned, complete work, in which Amos, after the occurrence of the earthquake in the time of Uzziah, gathered together all the essential contents of the prophecies he had previously uttered at Bethel. It consists of a lengthy introduction (ch. i. ii.) and two parts, viz. simple prophetic addresses (ch. iv.-vi.), and visions with short explanations (ch. vil.-xix.). In the introduction the prophet proclaims, in the following manner, the judgment about to fall upon Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah, and Israel. The storm of the Lord, which bursts upon all these kingdoms, remains suspended over the kingdom of Israel, which is mentioned last. This is evident from the fact, that the sin of Israel is depicted more fully than that of the other nations; and the threatening of judgment is couched in such general terms, that it can only be regarded as a provisional announcement, or as the introduction to the body of the book by which it is followed. The jirs¢ part contains an extended address, divided into three sections by the recurrence of {ve (hear ye) in ch. ili. 1, iv. 1, and v.1. The address consists of a “ great warning to Pes in which the prophet holds up We the ial Israelites, especially the rulers of the kingdom, the arts of injustice and wickedness that are current among them, and proclaims a judgment which embraces the destruction of the palaces and holy places, the overthrow of the kingdom, and the transportation of the people. In ch. iii. the sin and iene are described in the most general form. In ch. iv. the prophet sweeps away from the self-secure sinners the false ground of confidence afforded by their own worship, recals to their mind the judgments with which God has already visited them, and summons them to stand before God as their judge. In ch. v. and vi., after a mournful elegy concerning the fall of the house of Israel (ch. v. 1-3), he points out to the penitent the way to life, coupled vith the repeated summons to seek the Lord, and that which is good (ch. v. 4, 6,14); and then, in the form of a woe, for which a double reason is assigned (ch. v. 18, vi. 1), he takes away all hope of deliverance from the impenitent and hardened. Throughout the whole of this address Amos prophesies chiefly to the ten tribes, whom he repeatedly ad ee predicting ruin and exile. At the same time, he not only addresses his words in the introduction (ch. iii. 1, 2) to all Israel of the twelve tribes, whom Jehovah brought out of Egypt, but he also pronounces the last woe (ch. vi. 1) upon the secure ones on Zion, and the careless ones on the mountain of Samaria; so that his prophecy also applies to the kingdom of Judah, and sets before it the same fate as that of the kingdom of the ten tribes, if it should fall into the same sin. The second part contains five visions, and at the close the proclamation of salvation. The first two visions (ch. vii. 1-3 and 4-6) threaten judgments; the next two (ch. vii. 7-9, vill. 1-3) point out the impossibility of averting the judgment, and the ripeness of the people for it. Between these, viz. in ch. vil. 10-17, the conversation between the prophet and the chief priest at Bethel is related. The substance of the fourth vision is carried out still further, in a simple prophetic address (ch. viii. 4-14). Lastly, the fifth vision (ch. ix. 1) shows the overthrow and ruin of the whole of Israel, and is also still further expanded in a plain address (ch. ix. 2-10). To this there is appended the promise of the restoration of the fallen kingdom of God, of its extension through the adoption of the Gentiles, and of its eternal glorification (ch. ix. 11-15). This conclusion corresponds to the introduction (ch. i. and ii.). ‘Like all the nations that rise up in hostility to the kingdom of God, even Judah and Israel shall fall victims to the judgment, on account of their unrighteousness and idolatry, in order that the kingdom of God may be purified from its dross, be exalted to glory, and so be made perfect. This is the fundamental thought of the writings of Amos, who was called by the Lord to preach this truth to the nation of Israel. And just as the close of his book points back to the introduction (ch. i. and i1.), so also do the visions of the second part correspond to the addresses of the first, embodying the substance of the addresses in ‘significant symbols. The parallel between the fifth vision and the elegy struck up in ch. vy. 1 is very conspicuous; and it is also impossible to overlook the material agreement between the first and second visions and the enumeration in ch. iv. 6-11, of the divine visitations that had already fallen upon Israel; whilst the third and fourth visions set clearly before the eye the irrevocable character of the judgments with which careless and wanton sinners are threatened in ch. ii.—vi.
There is evidently no foundation for the AO that the second part contains “the true kernel of his work,” namely, “the addresses which Amos’ originally delivered at Bethel;” and that the first part, together with the introduction (ch. ivi.) and the Messianic conclusion (ch. ix. 11-15), is purely a written description, composed by Amos after his return from Bethel to Judah, to give a further expansion to his original utterances (Ewald, Bwary. This by no means follows, sie from the fact that the account of what the prophet experienced at Bethel is inserted in the series of visions, as it moves on step by step, and that the place in which it occurs (viz. ch. vii.) is evidently its original position, or from the circumstance that Amos commences his work with a saying of Joel (compare ch. i. 2 with Joel iv. 16), and evidently refers to Joel (iii. 18) even in the promise at the close (ch. ix. 13). For the position of this account in ch. vii. proves nothing further than that Amos related those visions in Bethel; and the allusion to Joel simply presupposes an acquaintance with the predictions of this prophet. If there were no previous addresses, the visions in ch. vii. and viii. would have nothing to explain their occurrence, and would also be lacking in the requisite clearness. Moreover, the work of Amos in Bethel cannot possibly be limited to ch. viii—ix. And lastly, the addresses in ch. iv.—vi. are throughout so individual, so full of life, and so impressive, that they clearly reflect the original oral delivery, even though it may be nothing more than the essential substance of what was orally delivered, that has been given here. Only ch. i and ii. appear to have been really conceived in the form of a written composition, and placed at the head of the book at the time when it was first compiled, although certain thoughts that had been orally expressed may lie at the foundation even there.
For the exegetical writings upon Amos, see my Lehrbuch der Finleitung, pp. 284-5.