Priest Against Prophet.

That very night the most prominent people in Israel—military and civilian—assembled at Bethel, and decided that something must be done to get rid of the Prophet. They considered Amos crazy, and, therefore, dangerous. A little group of leaders gathered in the house of one of the merchant princes of Samaria to adopt a definite plan of action.

The High Priest, Amaziah, was called into consultation. He saw the seriousness of the matter, as they all did. Such preaching must be stopped!

"This man," spoke one of the priests, "is destroying the worship of God in Israel. If we are no longer to bring sacrifices on God's chosen altars, wherewith shall we worship him? Besides," he added very pointedly, "without sacrifices the income of the priesthood will be ruined, and the sons of Aaron will be reduced from their high and holy office to beggary."

"Nay, this is not the worst," began another priest, who did not think so much of his income from the sacrifices as the former speaker. "The sons of Aaron can work, as do other men."

"What is more serious," he continued, "is, that this Prophet proclaims all other people as equal in the sight of God with Israel; that God has performed wonders for them, as for us. I fear," he concluded solemnly and with bowed head, "that if such teaching will continue, Israel will lose faith in its God."

A captain of the host sprang to his feet. "You priests," he said, savagely, "worry about many minor things. This man is telling the people that God, Himself, is raising up a powerful nation to destroy our great empire. He is filling our peaceful people with dread and fear of the imagined enemy and will disturb the peace of our country."

"Yea," cried a wealthy merchant, "and its business prosperity."

"All of which," added another merchant and slave dealer, "is, as our friend has said," looking at the captain, "simply imagination. The actual danger lies in his arousing the common people. He tells the poor that they are not getting their rights; that they are not being judged honestly; that the weak and the needy ought to be protected and helped—by us, by us! As if we have anything to do with them! I tell you that it is here the danger lurks. If this crazy Prophet is not silenced immediately, the merchant and military classes will face open rebellion on the part of the common horde."

The last speaker seemed to have said the final word on the subject. All were silent, their eyes turned toward Amaziah. The aged priest had not yet ventured an opinion; but he had been thinking deeply on what was said by the others. He agreed, for the most part, with the speakers who had preceded him; but he counseled caution and delay. "Perhaps, now that the Prophet has seen opposition," Amaziah concluded, "he will quit and go home to Judah."

But Amos did not quit, nor did he go home. The fight, that morning, was a mere incident, to be forgotten; but his mission to his people burned deep in his soul, a flame that could not be quenched.

On the day of the conclusion of the great festival, Amos again appeared in the sanctuary. This time it did not take long for a crowd to gather. In fact, most of the people were looking for him to appear. Even the richest and most exclusive, who usually are not interested in such men, had heard about Amos and had come to see and hear him, expecting something unusual to occur.

Amos did not waste any time. Without preparatory remarks, he gave voice to his warning call:

"Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!"

Hardly had the words left the Prophet's lips, when a man stepped forward from the crowd, and facing Amos with threatening fists, exclaimed:

"Hold thy peace! Thou art a false Prophet. Who hath sent thee to prophesy?"

Here was a challenge to Amos. Who, indeed, had appointed him a Prophet? Who had set him up to judge the people's wrongdoing? Who had commanded him to declare Israel's doom? What entitled him to speak in the name of God?

This challenge, however, was just what Amos was looking for. He had wanted a number of times to correct the mistaken idea the people had of him.

There were, in the land, the long-established Schools of Prophets.
These schools were under the protection of the king. At the head of
each was a leader, like Samuel, Elijah and Elisha of the olden days.
The leader was called "The Seer" and his pupils "Sons of the Prophets."

Now, the Seers and Sons of the Prophets, with the exception of such strong and powerful characters as the three great men mentioned, usually did the bidding of the king and his officers, and prophesied to please them.

Amos was not a member of any of these established schools. He was a free lance—in truth, the first of the independent Prophets, who cried out against the evils of their day and who, fearlessly and without favor, laid the blame where it belonged—on king, on priest, and on people.

Amos, therefore, grasped this opportunity to set himself aright. He answered his questioner with a series of beautiful similes:

"Do two walk together unless they be agreed?
Does a lion roar in the forest when there is no prey for him?
Does a young lion cry out in his den unless he has taken something?
Can a trumpet be blown in a city and the people not tremble?
Can calamity befall a city and God hath not sent it?
Surely, the Lord doeth nothing,
Unless He revealeth His purpose to His servants, the Prophets.
The lion hath roared; who does not fear?
The Lord God hath spoken; who can but prophesy?"

God, then, it was, not the head of a School of Prophets, or a king, or a priest, who had sent Amos to prophesy! He, himself, had no desire to speak these terrible things he was saying to his people. A force over which he had no control—God, had impelled him to his task. It was the still, small voice of which Elijah spoke. Though his heart bled, while delivering the message, Amos could not help himself. God had commanded him; he had but to obey!

Before the challenger could continue the argument, there was a disturbance on the outskirts of the crowd. A murmur arose and all craned their necks to see what was going on. The crowd opened, forming a wide aisle, through which there advanced a tall, majestic figure, with flowing robe and gray beard.

"The High Priest!"

"Amaziah!"

"The High Priest!"

The people whispered to each other and an expectant silence followed, as the venerable priest walked through the row of bowed heads, toward the sanctuary. He stopped in front of Amos and looked at him curiously.

Amaziah was an old man, but as erect as a cedar in Lebanon. He was dressed in an ephod, the holy garment of his office. The robe was of fine twined linen, with threads of blue, scarlet and purple, embroidered in gold. Two shoulder pieces, fastened to the shoulders of the ephod with cords of "wreathed gold," came down the front of the garment to just above the girdle, where they were fastened with two golden rings. Held by these cords above, and by blue ribbons through the golden rings below, was the breastplate, the insignia of the High Priest. On the front of the breastplate, in gold settings, were twelve precious stones, four rows of three stones each, on each of which was engraved the name of one of the tribes of Israel. A mitre on his head completed the High Priest's holy vestments.

Thus brilliantly arrayed, "for glory and for beauty," Amaziah made a great contrast to the simply clad shepherd, robed in his woolen mantle, as they faced each other.

The splendor of Amaziah, his age and his authority, the tension caused by the struggle that was imminent between the Priest and the Prophet, overawed the assembly. There was a deep silence, like the calm before a heavy downpour.

Amos, cool and collected, always prepared for an emergency, bowed low to Amaziah out of respect to his gray head. Amaziah, who was equally prepared for an emergency, smiled at Amos, kindly, in greeting.

Amos, of course, did not know that Amaziah was working out a plan that had been outlined previous to his starting for the sanctuary. Only those who were in the Priest's confidence knew that he had sent a message to King Jeroboam, when it was reported that a crowd had gathered about Amos and that the Prophet would, no doubt, deliver another address. The message to Jeroboam read:

"Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear his words. For thus hath Amos said, 'Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.'"

The messenger proceeded, post haste, to the palace of the king, and
Amaziah, quietly and with dignity, went to the sanctuary.

Hardly had Amos lifted his head from his low salute, when Amaziah addressed him:

"O seer! Go, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there; but prophesy not again any more in Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the royal residence."

How the Priest misunderstood the Prophet! Just because Bethel was the king's sanctuary and the royal residence and the seat of all the mighty in the land of Israel, Amos had selected it, above all other places, to preach his message there.

But Amaziah's little speech contained something more important to Amos than this. Amaziah had addressed the Prophet as "seer," he had taken him for the leader of a "School of Prophets." Amos immediately disclaimed such a questionable distinction. He answered Amaziah:

"I am no Prophet, nor am I the son of a Prophet; but I was a
herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, when God took me
from following the flock and God said to me, 'Go, prophesy
against My people Israel.'"

Entirely unprepared for such an answer, and not quite certain whether he understood what Amos meant by his claim that he had taken his orders direct from God, Amaziah was disconcerted. Amos did not give the Priest a chance to recover from his surprise and continued:

"Now, therefore, hear thou the word of God: 'Thou sayest, "Prophesy not against Israel, nor preach against the house of Isaac."' Therefore, thus saith God, 'Thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shall die upon an unclean soil, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of this land.'"

The fearlessness of the Prophet in attacking the High Priest dismayed Amaziah and his followers greatly. The crowd, too, by its acclamations, was evidently siding with Amos. Amaziah was, therefore, placed on the defensive. In broken and halting sentences he defended himself and the people. The ancient laws of Israel, he pointed out, were being adhered to by all Israelites. He, for one, was not afraid, even if the Day of God, the judgment day, should come to-morrow.

Now, a man like Amaziah might not fear the strict judgment which, Amos said, God was to visit upon Israel; but, how about those who were guilty of the crimes of which God, through the Prophet, was accusing Israel? Amos understood this, though Amaziah did not. The Prophet was speaking to all the people and not to one man in particular. Therefore, he continued:

"Woe unto those that desire the Day of God!
Wherefore would ye have the Day of God?
It is darkness and not light.
It is when one flees from a lion,
And a bear meets him;
Or goes into a house and leans his hand upon a wall,
And a serpent bites him.
Shall not the Day of God be darkness and not light,
Yea, murky darkness, without a ray of light?"

That is why, retorted the High Priest, the people come to Bethel and Gilgal and the other sanctuaries. They bring their sacrifices to God, that He may forgive their sins, against the coming of the Day of God, when all the guilty shall be judged and punished.

Amos did not interrupt Amaziah because he was an old man, and Amos knew what courtesy was due the aged. But when the Priest had finished, the Prophet, with fine sarcasm, showed the uselessness and selfishness of the whole artificial scheme as practiced at the sanctuaries:

"Come to Bethel and transgress,
At Gilgal increase your transgressions,
And bring in the morning your sacrifices,
And every third day your tithes!
Burn some leaven bread as a thanks-offering,
And proclaim aloud the voluntary offerings,
For you love to do so, O Israelites!"

The sarcastic smile, however, suddenly faded from the speaker's lips, as he asked:

"Did ye bring me sacrifices and meal-offerings in the wilderness,
forty years, O House of Israel?"

Then, with the power and fervor of the God-inspired man he was, Amos denounced bitterly the whole system of worshiping God by means of sacrifices, and delivered a message, new to his hearers, relating to what God really expected from Israel:

"I hate, I despise your feasts,
And I will take no delight in your festivals;
With your meal-offerings I will not be pleased,
And the peace-offerings of your fattlings I will not regard
with favor.
Banish from me the noise of your songs;
To the melody of your viols I will not listen.
But let justice roll down as waters,
And righteousness as a never-failing stream."

These concluding sentences literally stunned the crowd. Priest and people gasped at the Prophet's proclamation that God did not command the sacrifices at Sinai and did not care for them, but that, instead, He demanded justice and righteousness on the part of His people. The Prophet had upset all their ideas and traditions regarding their religious forms and practices, and he claimed God for his authority!

No one can tell just what might have happened, there and then, had not a company of the royal guard, in answer to Amaziah's note to the king, rushed upon the crowd and dispersed it "in the name of the king."

"In the name of the king," also, the leader of a small detachment of the guard made his way to Amos and placed him under arrest. Amos might have been successful in getting away, had he resisted; but, being a law-abiding man, he submitted to the authorities, and, long before the scattered crowd was aware of what had happened to the Prophet, he was whirled away in a chariot to the palace of the king.