George Adam Smith

[1] J. J. P. Valeton, jun., Amos en Hosea, 1894: quoted by Budde in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, September, 1894.[2] This date is very uncertain. It may have been 690, or according to some 685.[3] Including, of course, the historical books, Joshua to 2 Kings, which were known as "the Former Prophets"; while what we call the prophets Isaiah to Malachi were known as "the Latter."[4] ??? ??? ???, the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ??? ????, which appears with the other in the colophon to the book. A later contraction is ?????. This is the form transliterated in Epiphanius: da?a??asa?a.[5] See Ryle, Canon of the O.T., p. 105.[6] So Josephus, Contra Apion, i. 8 (circa 90 a.d.), reckons the prophetical books as thirteen, of which the Minor Prophets could only have been counted as one—whatever the other twelve may have been. Melito of Sardis (c. 170), quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iv. 26), speaks of t?? d?de?a ?? ??????. To Origen (c. 250: apud Ibid., vi. 25) they could only have been one out of the twenty-two he gives for the O.T. Cf. Jerome (Prolog. Galeatus), "Liber duodecim Prophetarum."[7] ?? ??de?a ???f?ta?: Jesus son of Sirach xlix. 10; ?? d?de?a-p??f?t??.[8] Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xviii. 29: cf. Jerome, Proem. in Esaiam.[9] The German usage generally preserves the numeral, "Die zwÖlf kleinen Propheten."[10] See Vol. II. on Zech. ix. ff.[11] Talmud: Baba Bathra, 14a: cf. Rashi's Commentary.[12] Talmud, ibid.[13] So the Codices Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, but not Cod. Sin. So also Cyril of Jerusalem († 386), Athanasius (365), Gregory Naz. († 390), and the spurious Canon of the Council of Laodicea (c. 400) and Epiphanius (403). See Ryle, Canon of the O.T., 215 ff.[14] By a forced interpretation of the phrase in chap. i. 2, When the Lord spake at the first by Hosea (R.V.), Talmud: Baba Bathra, 14a.[15] For further considerations on this point see pp. 142, 194, 202 ff., 223 ff., 308, etc.[16] Psalm lxxiv. 9.[17] Herodotus, viii. 36, 37.[18] TimÆus, 71, 72. The whole passage is worth transcribing:—

"No man, when in his senses, attains prophetic truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word either his intelligence is enthralled by sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or possession. And he who would understand what he remembers to have been said, whether in dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and enthusiastic nature, or what he has seen, must recover his senses; and then he will be able to explain rationally what all such words and apparitions mean, and what indications they afford, to this man or that, of past, present, or future, good and evil. But, while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he sees or the words which he utters; the ancient saying is very true that 'only a man in his senses can act or judge about himself and his own affairs.' And for this reason it is customary to appoint diviners or interpreters as discerners of the oracles of the gods. Some persons call them prophets; they do not know that they are only repeaters of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be called prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy."—Jowett's Translation.[19] Nik., i. 91.[20] PhÆdrus, 262 D.[21] It is still a controversy whether the original meaning of the Semitic root KHN is prophet, as in the Arabic KÂHiN, or priest, as in the Hebrew KÔHeN.[22] Cf. Jer. ii. 10: For pass over to the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently; and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods? From the isles of Chittim unto Kedar—the limits of the Semitic world.[23] Numbers xxiv. 4, falling but having his eyes open. Ver. 1, enchantments ought to be omens.[24] Instanced by Wellhausen, Skizzen u. Vorarb., No. v.[25] ??? ?????[26] ?????[27] ????[28] Deut. xiii. 1 ff. admits that heathen seers were able to work miracles and give signs, as well as the prophets of Jehovah.[29] Cf. Mesha's account of himself and Chemosh on the Moabite Stone, with the narrative of the taking of Ai in the Book of Joshua.[30] Cf. Kuenen: Gesammelte Alhandlungen (trans. by Budde), p. 461.[31] So in Deborah's Song.[32] 1 Sam. ix. 9.[33] 1 Sam. x. 1-16, xi. 1-11, 15. Chap. x. 17-27, xi. 12-14, belong to other and later documents. Cf. Robertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 135 ff.[34] 1 Sam. xix. 20-24.[35] What seemed most to induce the frenzy of the dervishes whom I watched was the fixing of their attention upon, the yearning of their minds after, the love of God. "Ya habeebi!"—"O my beloved!"—they cried.[36] Cornill, in the first of his lectures on Der Israelitische Prophetismus, one of the very best popular studies of prophecy, by a master on the subject. See p. 73 n.[37] It is now past doubt that these were two sacred stones used for decision in the case of an alternative issue. This is plain from the amended reading of Saul's prayer in 1 Sam. xiv. 41, 42 (after the LXX.): O Jehovah God of Israel, wherefore hast Thou not answered Thy servant this day? If the iniquity be in me or in Jonathan my son, O Jehovah God of Israel, give Urim: and if it be in Thy people Israel, give, I pray Thee, Thummim.[38] Hosea iii. 4. See next chapter, p. 38.[39] Cf. Deut. xxviii. 34.[40] 2 Sam. xii. 1 ff.[41] 1 Kings xi. 29; xii. 22.[42] 1 Kings xiv. 2, 7-11; xix. 15 f.; 2 Kings ix. 3 ff.[43] 1 Kings xxii. 5 ff.; 2 Kings iii. 11 ff.[44] 1 Kings xxi. 1 ff.[45] 2 Kings vi.-viii., etc.[46] 1 Kings xviii. 46; 2 Kings iii. 15.[47] 3 Kings ix. 11. Mad fellow, not necessarily a term of reproach.[48] 1 Kings xviii. 4, cf. 19; 2 Kings ii. 3, 5; iv. 38-44; v. 20 ff.; vi. 1 ff.; viii. 8 f., etc.[49] 1 Kings xviii. 19; xxii. 6.[50] So Elijah, 2 Kings i. 8: cf. John the Baptist, Matt. iii. 4.[51] Hosea ix. 7.[52] Jer. xxix. 26: Every man that is mad, and worketh himself into prophecy (?????, the same form as is used without moral reproach in 1 Sam. x. 10 ff.).[53] 1 Kings xxii.[54] Amos vii. 12.[55] He died in 798 or 797.[56] 2 Kings x. 32, xiii. 20, 22.[57] 2 Kings xiii. 14.[58] vi. 12 ff., etc.[59] viii., etc.[60] xiii. 17 ff.[61] 2 Kings xiii. 22-25.[62] xiv. 28, if not Damascus itself.[63] 2 Kings xv.: cf. 2 Chron. xxvi.[64] xii. 7 (Heb. ver. 8). Trans., As for Canaan, the balances, etc.[65] Amos, passim. Hosea viii. 14, etc.; Micah iii. 12; Isa. ix. 10.[66] ?????, a word not found in the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, or Samuel, is used in 1 Kings xvi. 18, 2 Kings xv. 25, for a citadel within the palace of the king. Similarly in Isa. xxv. 2; Pro. xviii. 19. But in Amos generally of any large or grand house. That the name first appears in the time of Omri's alliance with Tyre, points to a Phoenician origin. Probably from root ???, to be high.[67] Isa. ix. 10.[68] 1 Kings xii. 25 ff., and Amos and Hosea passim.[69] Hosea v. 1.[70] 1 Kings xviii. 30 ff.[71] 1 Kings xii. 25.[72] Originally so called from their elevation (though oftener on the flank than on the summit of a hill); but like the name High Street or the Scottish High Kirk, the term came to be dissociated from physical height and was applied to any sanctuary, even in a hollow, like so many of the sacred wells.[73] The sanctuary itself was probably on the present site of the Burj Beitin (with the ruins of an early Christian Church), some few minutes to the south-east of the present village of Beitin, which probably represents the city of Bethel that was called Luz at the first.[74] 1 Kings xii. 25 ff.; Amos vii.[75] Amos iv. 4.[76] Amos vii. 13.[77] 1 Kings xii. 25 ff.[78] Curiously enough conceived by many of the early Christian Fathers as containing the second of the calves. Cyril, Comm. in Hoseam, 5; Epiph., De Vitis Proph., 237; Chron. Pasc., 161.[79] Josh. iv. 20 ff., v. 2 ff.; 1 Sam. xi. 14, 15, etc.; 2 Sam. xix. 15, 40. This Gilgal by Jericho fell to N. Israel after the Disruption; but there is nothing in Amos or Hosea to tell us, whether it or the Gilgal near Shiloh, which seems to have absorbed the sanctity of the latter, is the shrine which they couple with Bethel—except that they never talk of "going up" to it. The passage from Epiphanius in previous note speaks of the Gilgal with the calf as the "Gilgal which is in Shiloh."[80] Site uncertain. See Hist. Geog., pp. 579, 586.[81] Amos ix. 3. But cf. i. 2.[82] 2 Kings xii. 28.[83] See above, p. 37, n. 78.[84] The Ephod, the plated thing; presumably a wooden image covered either with a skin of metal or a cloak of metal. The Teraphim were images in human shape.[85] The menhir of modern Palestine—not a hewn pillar, but oblong natural stone narrowing a little towards the top (cf. W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 183-188). From Hosea x. 1, 2, it would appear that the maÇÇeboth of the eighth century were artificial. They make good maÇÇeboth (A.V. wrongly images).[86] So indeed Hosea iii. 4 implies. The Asherah, the pole or symbolic tree of Canaanite worship, does not appear to have been used as a part of the ritual of Jehovah's worship. But, that there was constantly a temptation so to use it, is clear from Deut. xvi. 21, 22. See Driver on that passage.[87] See below, p. 99.[88] Amos iv. 4 ff.[89] Amos vii. 4: cf. 2 Kings v. 23.[90] Amos iv. 4 f.[91] See below, p. 185.[92] But whether these be by Amos see Chap. XI.[93] Isa ix. 10.[94] "The house of Omri": so even in Sargon's time, 722-705.[95] The Black Obelisk of Salmanassar in the British Museum, on which the messengers of Jehu are portrayed.[96] 2 Kings x. 32 f.; xiii. 3.[97] 2 Kings xiii. 14 ff.[98] The phrase in 2 Kings xiii. 5, Jehovah gave Israel a saviour, is interpreted by certain scholars as if the saviour were Assyria. In xiv. 27 he is plainly said to be Jeroboam.[99] The entering in of Hamath (2 Kings xiv. 25).[100] Salmanassar II. in 850, 849, 846 to war against Dad'idri of Damascus, and in 842 and 839 against Hazael, his successor.[101] See in this series Isaiah, Vol. I., pp. 359 ff.[102] See above, pp. 35 ff.[103] To use the term which Amos adopts with such ironical force: vi. 14.[104] When we get down among the details we shall see clear evidence for this fact, for instance, that Amos prophesied against Israel at a time when he thought that the Lord's anger was to be exhausted in purely natural chastisements of His people, and before it was revealed to him that Assyria was required to follow up these chastisements with a heavier blow. See Chap. VI., Section 2.[105] That is, of course, not the Nile, but the great Wady, at present known as the Wady el 'Arish, which divides Palestine from Egypt.[106] So already in the JE narratives of the Pentateuch.[107] Lecky: History of European Morals, I.[108] The present writer has already pointed out this with regard to Egypt and Phoenicia in Isaiah (Expositor's Bible Series), I., Chaps. XXII. and XXIII., and with regard to Philistia in Hist. Geog., p. 178.[109] I put it this way only for the sake of making the logic clear; for it is a mistake to say that the prophets at any time held merely theoretic convictions. All their conviction was really experimental—never held apart from some illustration or proof of principle in actual history.[110] ???? ?????: 1 Sam. i. 3; iv. 4; xvii. 45, where it is explained by the parallel phrase God of the armies of Israel; 2 Sam. vi. 2, where it is connected with Israel's battle emblem, the Ark (cf. Jer. xxii. 18); and so throughout Samuel and Kings, and also Chronicles, the Psalms, and most prophets. The plural ????? is never used in the Old Testament except of human hosts, and generally of the armies or hosts of Israel. The theory therefore which sees the same meaning in the Divine title is probably the correct one. It was first put forward by Herder (Geist der Eb. Poesie, ii. 84, 85), and after some neglect it has been revived by Kautzsch (Z. A. T. W., vi. ff.) and Stade (Gesch., i. 437, n. 3). The alternatives are that the hosts originally meant those of heaven, either the angels (so, among others, Ewald, Hist., Eng. Ed., iii. 62) or the stars (so Delitzsch, Kuenen, Baudissin, Cheyne, Prophecies of Isaiah, i. 11). In the former of these two there is some force; but the reason given for the latter, that the name came to the front in Israel when the people were being drawn into connection with star-worshipping nations, especially Aram, seems to me baseless. Israel had not been long in touch with Aram in Saul's time, yet even then the name is accepted as if one of much earlier origin. A clear account of the argument on the other side to that taken in this note will be found in Smend, Altiestamentliche Religionsgeschichte, pp. 185 ff.[111] See below, Chap. XI.[112] The full list of suspected passages is this: (1) References to Judah—ii. 4, 5; vi. 1, in Zion; ix. 11, 12. (2) The three Outbreaks of Praise—iv. 13; v. 8, 9; ix. 5, 6. (3) The Final Hope—ix. 8-15, including vv. 11, 12, already mentioned. (4) Clauses alleged to reflect a later stage of history—i. 9-12; v. 1, 2, 15; vi. 2, 14. (5) Suspected for incompatibility—viii. 11-13.[113] So designated to distinguish him from the first Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.[114] Apart from the suspected parentheses already mentioned.[115] Chap. vii.[116] And, if vi. 2 be genuine, Hamath.[117] 2 Chron. xxvi. 6. In the list of the Philistine cities, Amos i. 6-8, Gath does not occur, and in harmony with this in vi. 2 it is said to be overthrown; see pp. 173 f.[118] 2 Kings. In Amos ii. 3 the ruler of Moab is called, not king, but ?????, or regent, such as Jeroboam substituted for the king of Moab.[119] According to GrÄtz's emendation of vi. 13: we have taken Lo-Debar and Karnaim. Perhaps too in iii. 12, though the verse is very obscure, some settlement of Israelites in Damascus is implied. For Jeroboam's conquest of Aram (2 Kings xiv. 28), see p. 177.[120] In 775 to Erini, "the country of the cedars"—that is, Mount Amanus, near the Gulf of Antioch; in 773 to Damascus; in 772 to Hadrach.[121] vi. 1.[122] vii. 9.[123] Even KÖnig denies that the title is from Amos (Einleitung, 307); yet the ground on which he does so, the awkwardness of the double relative, does not appear sufficient. One does not write a title in the same style as an ordinary sentence.[124] Zech. xiv. 5, and probably Isa. ix. 9, 10 (Eng.).[125] iv. 11.[126] Of course it is always possible to suspect—and let us by all means exhaust the possibilities of suspicion—that the title has been added by a scribe, who interpreted the forebodings of judgment which Amos expresses in the terms of earthquake as if they were the predictions of a real earthquake, and was anxious to show, by inserting the title, how they were fulfilled in the great convulsion of Uzziah's days. But to such a suspicion we have a complete answer. No later scribe, who understood the book he was dealing with, would have prefixed to it a title, with the motive just suspected, when in chap. iv. he read that an earthquake had just taken place. The very fact that such a title appears over a book, which speaks of the earthquake as past, surely attests the bona fides of the title. With that mention in chap. iv. of the earthquake as past, none would have ventured to say that Amos began to prophesy before the earthquake unless they had known this to be the case.[127] Except for the later additions, not by Amos, to be afterwards noted.[128] Cf. ii. 13; v. 11.; vi. 8, 10; vii. 9, 16; viii. 8 (?).[129] See below, p. 221.[130] Cornill: Der Israelitische Prophetismus. Five Lectures for the Educated Laity. 1894.[131] Amos vii. 14. See further pp. 76 f.[132] Khurbet Ta?Ûa', Hebrew Te?Ôa', ???????, from ???, to blow a trumpet (cf. Jer. vi. 1, Blow the trumpet in Tekoa) or to pitch a tent. The latter seems the more probable derivation of the name, and suggests a nomadic origin, which agrees with the position of Tekoa on the borders of the desert. Tekoa does not occur in the list of the towns taken by Joshua. There are really no reasons for supposing that some other Tekoa is meant. The two that have been alleged are (1) that Amos exclusively refers to the Northern Kingdom, (2) that sycomores do not grow at such levels as Tekoa. These are dealt with on pp. 79 and 77 respectively.[133] 2 Chron. xx. 20.[134] ?????, nÔ?Êd, is doubtless the same as the Arabic "na??Âd," or keeper of the "na?ad," defined by Freytag as a short-legged and deformed race of sheep in the Bahrein province of Arabia, from which comes the proverb "viler than a na?ad"; yet the wool is very fine. The king of Moab is called ?????? in 2 Kings iii. 4 (A.V. sheep-master). In vii. 14 Amos calls himself ???????, cattleman, which there is no reason to alter, as some do, to ??????.[135] ???????, bÔlÊs, probably from a root (found in Æthiopic) balas, a fig; hence one who had to do with figs, handled them, ripened them.[136] The Egyptian sycomore, Ficus sycomorus, is not found in Syria above one thousand feet above the sea, while Tekoa is more than twice as high as that. Cf. 1 Kings x. 27, the sycomores that are in the vale or valley land, ?????; 1 Chron. xxvii. 28, the sycomores that are in the low plains. "The sycamore grows in sand on the edge of the desert as vigorously as in the midst of a well-watered country. Its roots go deep in search of water, which infiltrates as far as the gorges of the hills, and they absorb it freely even where drought seems to reign supreme" (Maspero on the Egyptian sycomore; The Dawn of Civilization, translated by McClure, p. 26). "Everywhere on the confines of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are fine single sycamores flourishing as though by miracle amid the sand.... They drink from water, which has infiltrated from the Nile, and whose existence is nowise betrayed upon the surface of the soil" (ib., 121). Always and still reverenced by Moslem and Christian.[137] So practically Oort (Th. Tjidsch., 1891, 121 ff.), when compelled to abandon his previous conclusion (ib., 1880, 122 ff.) that the Tekoa of Amos lay in Northern Israel.[138] In 1891 we met the Rushaideh, who cultivate Engedi, encamped just below Tekoa. But at other parts of the borders between the hill-country of JudÆa and the desert, and between Moab and the desert, we found round most of the herdsmen's central wells a few fig-trees or pomegranates, or even apricots occasionally.[139] Luke i. 80.[140] Mark i. 18.[141] v. 5; viii. 14.[142] See p. 36.[143] Prov. xxxi. 24.[144] vi. 10.[145] i. 9.[146] v. 16.[147] v. 21 ff.[148] li. 7, 8.[149] viii. 4 ff.[150] vi. 1, 4-7.[151] See pp. 136 f.[152] i. 2.[153] ?????, as has been pointed out, means in early Israel always the trumpet blown as a summons to war; only in later Israel was the name given to the temple trumpet.[154] See further on this important passage pp. 89 ff.[155] Shall a little bird fall on the snare earthwards and there be no noose about her? Shall a snare rise from the ground and not be taking something? On this see p. 82. Its meaning seems to be equivalent to the Scottish proverb: "There's aye some water whan the stirkie droons."[156] There is thus no reason to alter the words who shall not prophesy to who shall not tremble—as Wellhausen does. To do so is to blunt the point of the argument.[157] See Chap. IV.[158] See pp. 53 ff.[159] See pp. 69 f.[160] viii. 8.[161] viii. 9.[162] v. 14.[163] How far Assyria assisted the development of prophecy we have already seen. But we have been made aware, at the same time, that Assyria's service to Israel in this respect presupposed the possession by the prophets of certain beliefs in the character and will of their God, Jehovah. The prophets' faith could never have risen to the magnitude of the new problems set to it by Assyria if there had not been already inherent in it that belief in the sovereignty of a Righteousness of which all things material were but the instruments.[164] Compare, for instance, Hosea's condemnation of Jehu's murder of Joram, with Elisha's command to do it; also 2 Kings iii. 19, 25, with Deut. xx. 19.[165] See above, p. 10.[166] Isa. xxviii.[167] Amos ii.[168] Ante, p. 74.[169] i. 2.[170] Therefore we see at a glance how utterly inadequate is Renan's brilliant comparison of Amos to a modern revolutionary journalist (Histoire du Peuple Israel, II.). Journalist indeed! How all this would-be cosmopolitan and impartial critic's judgments smack of the boulevards![171] Exod. xx.; incorporated in the JE book of history, and, according to nearly all critics, complete by 750; the contents must have been familiar in Israel long before that. There is no trace in Amos of any influence peculiar to either the Deuteronomic or the Levitical legislation.[172] See especially Schultz, O. T. Theol., Eng. Trans. by Paterson, I. 214.[173] ii. 9-11. On this passage see further p. 137.[174] If iv. 13, v. 8 and ix. 6 be genuine, this remark equally applies to belief in Jehovah as Creator.[175] Kayser, Old Testament Theology.[176] v. 6, 14.[177] See above, p. 18.[178] iii. 2.[179] v. 21 ff.[180] Jer. vii. 22 f.[181] See above, p. 23.[182] v. 21-23.[183] vi. 8.[184] ix. 8[185] viii. 7.[186] Chap. V., p. 71.[187] vii. 11.[188] On the ministry of eighth-century prophets to the people see the author's Isaiah, I., p. 119.[189] So LXX., followed by Hitzig and Wellhausen, by reading ????? for ??????.[190] Cf. Hist. Geography of the Holy Land, pp. 64 ff. The word translated spring crop above is ???, and from the same root as the name of the latter rain, ?????????, which falls in the end of March or beginning of April. Cf. Zeitschrift des deutschen PalÄstina-Vereins, IV. 83; VIII. 62.[191] Cf. 1 Kings xviii. 5 with 1 Sam. vii. 15, 17; 1 Kings iv. 7 ff. See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 228.[192] LXX.: Who shall raise up Jacob again?[193] So Professor A. B. Davidson. But the grammar might equally well afford the rendering one calling that the Lord will punish with the fire, the ? of ???? marking the introduction of indirect speech (cf. Ewald, § 338a). But Hitzig for ??? reads ??? (Deut. xxv. 18), to occur, happen. So similarly Wellhausen, es nahte sich zu strafen mit Feuer der Herr Jahve. All these renderings yield practically the same meaning.[194] A. B. Davidson, Syntax, § 57, Rem. 1.[195] i. 19 f.[196] Cf. Micah ii. 3. ????? is the word used, and according to the motive given above stands well for the climax of the fire's destructive work. This meets the objection of Wellhausen, who proposes to omit ?????, because the heat does not dry up first the great deep and then the fields (Ackerflur). This is to mistake the obvious point of the sentence. The drought was so great that, after the fountains were exhausted, it seemed as if the solid framework of the land, described with very apt pathos as the Portion, would be the next to disappear. Some take ??? as divided, therefore cultivated, ground.[197] So for instance, Von Orelli.[198] Chap. iv.[199] See Chap. IV., p. 51.[200] Literally of the plummet, an obscure expression. It cannot mean plumb-straight, for the wall is condemned.[201] 2 Kings xxi. 13: I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet or weight (??????????) of the house of Ahab. Isa. xxxiv. 11: He shall stretch over it the cord of confusion, and the weights (literally stones) of emptiness.[202] John xix. 12.[203] The word seer is here used in a contemptuous sense, and has therefore to be translated by some such word as visionary.[204] Literally eat.[205] ????? ?????????—that is, a central or capital sanctuary. Cf. ???????????? ???? (1 Sam. xxvii. 5), city of the kingdom, i.e. chief or capital town.[206] 1 Kings xii. 26, 27.[207] Prophet and prophet's son are equivalent terms, the latter meaning one of the professional guilds of prophets. There is no need to change herdsman, ????, as Wellhausen does, into ????, shepherd, the word used in i. 1.[208] Cf. Wellhausen, Hist., Eng. Ed., § 6: "Amos was the founder and the purest type of a new order of prophecy."[209] As is done in chap. vi. 2, ix. 7.[210] So against Israel in chap. iv.[211] So Isa. v. 25: ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ????? Cf. Ezek. xx. 22: ???????? ?? ???[212] ??????[213] Called lÛh, i.e. slab.[214] These Syrian campaigns in Gilead must have taken place between 839 and 806, the long interval during which Damascus enjoyed freedom from Assyrian invasion.[215] 2 Kings viii. 12; xiii. 7: cf. above, p. 31.[216] He delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Aram, and into the hand of Ben-Hadad the son of Hazael, continually (2 Kings xiii. 3).[217] No need here to render prince, as some do.[218] So the LXX.[219] The present Baalbek (Baal of the Be?'a?). Wellhausen throws doubt on the idea that Heliopolis was at this time an Aramean town.[220] ix. 7.[221] Doughty: Arabia Deserta, I. 335.[222] On the close connection of Edom and Gaza see Hist. Geog., pp. 182 ff.[223] See Hist. Geog., pp. 194 ff. Wellhausen thinks Gath was not yet destroyed, and quotes vi. 2; Micah i. 10, 14. But we know that Hazael destroyed it, and that fact, taken in conjunction with its being the only omission here from the five Philistine towns, is evidence enough. In the passages quoted by Wellhausen there is nothing to the contrary: vi. 2 implies that Gath has fallen; Micah i. 10 is the repetition of an old proverb.[224] Farrar, 53; Pusey on ver. 9; Pietschmann, Geschichte der PhÖnizier, 298.[225] To which Wellhausen inclines.[226] Gen. x.[227] Under Asarhaddon, 678-676 b.c., and later under Assurbanipal (Pietschmann, Gesch., pp. 302 f.).[228] And he omits it from his translation.[229] So far from such an omission proving that the oracle is an insertion, is it not more probable that an insertor would have taken care to make his insertion formally correct?[230] There seems no occasion to amend with Olshausen to the kept of Psalm ciii. 9.[231] Read with LXX. ???? ????, though throughout the verse the LXX. translation is very vile.[232] In other two passages, Bo?rah, the city, is placed in parallel not to another city, but just as here to a whole region: Isa. xxxiv. 6, where the parallel is the land of Edom, and lxiii. 1, where it is Edom. There is therefore no need to take Teman in our passage as a city, as which it does not appear before Eusebius.

[233] Under RimmÂn-nirari III. (812-783). See Buhl's Gesch. der Edomiter, 65: this against Wellhausen.[234] Wellhausen, in loco.[235] 2 Sam. viii. 13, with 1 Kings xi. 16.[236] 1 Kings xi. 14-25.[237] 2 Kings iii.[238] 2 Kings viii. 20-22.[239] 2 Kings xiv. 10.[240] 2 Chron. xxvi. 2.[241] See, however, Buhl, op. cit., 67.[242] It is, however, no reason against the authenticity of the oracle to say that Edom lay outside the path of Assyria. In answer to that see the Assyrian inscriptions, e.g. Asarhaddon's: cf. above, p. 129, n. 233.[243] Notably in the recent Armenian massacres.[244] 2 Kings viii. 12.[245] xxviii. 2, xxvii. 7, 8, where the Assyrian and another invasion are both described in terms of tempest.[246] The LXX. reading, their priests and their princes, must be due to taking Malcam = their king as Milcom = the Ammonite god. See Jer. xlix. 3.[247]

[248] 2 Kings iii. 26. So rightly Pusey.[249] Jer. xlviii. 24 without article, but in 41 with.[250] Though this is claimed by most for ?iriathaim.[251] Moabite Stone, l. 13.[252] xlviii. 45.[253] The land's.[254] The king's.[255] See above, p. 126.[256] d?sse?a? ?? ???? t???? (Æschylus, Eumen., 534): cf. Odyssey, xiv. 262; xvii. 431.[257] I.e. a tribe; Doughty, Arabia Deserta, I. 335.[258] Judges xix., xx.[259] Duhm was the first to publish reasons for rejecting the passage (Theol. der Propheten, 1875, p. 119), but Wellhausen had already reached the same conclusion (Kleine Propheten, p. 71). Oort and Stade adhere. On the other side see Robertson Smith, Prophets of Israel, 398, and Kuenen, who adheres to Smith's arguments (Onderzoek).[260] "It is plain that Amos could not have excepted Judah from the universal ruin which he saw to threaten the whole land; or at all events such exception would have required to be expressly made on special grounds."—Robertson Smith, Prophets, 398.[261] Ibid.[262] ????, righteous: hardly, as most commentators take it, the legally (as distinguished from the morally) righteous; the rich cruelly used their legal rights to sell respectable and honest members of society into slavery.[263] By adapting the LXX. So far as we know Wellhausen is right in saying that the Massoretic text, which our English version follows, gives no sense. LXX. reads, also without much sense as a whole, t? pat???ta ?p? t?? ???? t?? ???, ?a? ????d?????? e?? ?efa??? pt????.[264] So rightly the LXX. Or the definite article may be here used in conformity with the common Hebrew way of employing it to designate, not a definite individual, but a member of a definite, well-known genus.[265] On the use of Amorite for all the inhabitants of Canaan see Driver's Deut., pp. 11 f.[266] The verb ??? of the Massoretic text is not found elsewhere, and whether we retain it, or take it as a variant of, or mistake for, ???, or adopt some other reading, the whole phrase is more or less uncertain, and the exact shade of meaning has to be guessed, though the general sense remains pretty much the same. The following is a complete note on the subject, with reasons for adopting the above conclusion.

(1) LXX.: Behold, I roll (?????) under you as a waggon full of straw is rolled. A.V.: I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed. Pusey: I straiten myself under you, etc. These versions take ???? in the sense of ????, to press, and ??? in its usual meaning of beneath; and the result is conformable to the well-known figure of the Old Testament by which God is said to be laden and weary with the transgressions of His people. But this does not mean an actual descent of judgment, and yet vv. 14-16 imply that such an intimation has been made in ver. 13; and besides ???? and ???? are both in the Hiphil, the active, to press, or causative, make to press. (2) Accordingly some, adopting this sense of the verb, take ??? in an unusual sense of down upon. Ewald: I press down upon you as a cart that is full of sheaves presseth. Guthe (in Kautzsch's Bibel): Ich will euch quetschen. Rev. Eng. Ver.: I will press you in your place.—But ??? has been taken in other senses. (3) Hoffmann (Z.A.T.W., III. 100) renders it groan in conformity with Arab. 'Î?. (4) Wetzstein (ibid., 278 ff.) quotes Arab. 'Â?, to stop, hinder, and suggests I will bring to a stop. (5) Buhl (12th Ed. of Gesenius' HandwÖrt, sub ????), in view of possibility of ???? being threshing-roller, recalls Arab. 'a??, to cut in pieces. (6) Hitzig (Exeg. Handbuch) proposed to read ???? and ????: I will make it shake under you, as the laden waggon shakes (the ground). So rather differently Wellhausen: I will make the ground quake under you, as a waggon quakes under its load of sheaves.

I have only to add that, in the Alex. Cod. of LXX., which reads ????? for ?????, we have an interesting analogy to Wetzstein's proposal; and that in support of the rendering of Ewald, and its unusual interpretation of ?????? which seems to me on the whole the most probable, we may compare Job xxxvi. 16, ?? ???? ?????. This, it is true, suggests rather the choking of a passage than the crushing of the ground; but, by the way, that sense is even more applicable to a harvest waggon laden with sheaves.[267] Waggon full of sheaves.—Wellhausen goes too far when he suggests that Amos would have to go outside Palestine to see such a waggon. That a people who already knew the use of chariots for travelling (cf. Gen. xlvi. 5, JE) and waggons for agricultural purposes (1 Sam. vi. 7 ff.) did not use them at least in the lowlands of their country is extremely improbable. Cf. Hist. Geog., Appendix on Roads and Wheeled Vehicles in Syria.[268] See above, pp. 82 ff. and pp. 89 ff.[269] With the LXX. ????? for ??????.[270] ?? (ver. 10).[271] Singular as in LXX., and not plural as in the M.T. and English versions.[272] Juvenal, Satires, I.[273] Vision of Piers Plowman. Burgages=tenements.[274] Or The Enemy, and that right round the Land![275] In Damascus on a couch: on a Damascus couch: on a Damascus-cloth couch: or Damascus-fashion on a couch—alternatives all equally probable and equally beyond proof. The text is very difficult, nor do the versions give help. (1) The consonants of the word before a couch spell in Damascus, and so the LXX. take it. This would be in exact parallel to the in Samaria of the previous half of the clause. But although Jeroboam II. is said to have recovered Damascus (2 Kings xiv. 28), this is not necessarily the town itself, of whose occupation by Israel we have no evidence, while Amos always assumes it to be Aramean, and here he is addressing Israelites. Still retaining the name of the city, we can take it with couch as parallel, not to in Samaria, but to on the side of a diwan; in that case the meaning may have been a Damascus couch (though as the two words stand it is impossible to parse them, and Gen. xv. 2 cannot be quoted in support of this, for it is too uncertain itself, being possibly a gloss, though it is curious that as the two passages run the name Damascus should be in the same strange grammatical conjunction in each), or possibly Damascus-fashion on a couch, which (if the first half of the clause, as some maintain, refers to some delicate or affected posture then come into fashion) is the most probable rendering. (2) The Massoretes have pointed, not bedammeseq = in Damascus, but bedemesheq, a form not found elsewhere, which some (Ges., Hitz., Ew., Rev. Eng. Ver., etc.) take to mean some Damascene stuff (as perhaps our Damask and the Arabic dimshaq originally meant, though this is not certain), e.g. silk or velvet or cushions. (3) Others rearrange the text. E.g. Hoffmann (Z. A. T. W., III. 102) takes the whole clause away from ver. 12 and attaches it to ver. 13, reading O those who sit in Samaria on the edge of the diwan, and in Damascus on a couch, hearken and testify against the house of Jacob. But, as Wellhausen points out, those addressed in ver. 13 are the same as those addressed in ver. 9. Wellhausen prefers to believe that after the words children of Israel, which end a sentence, something has fallen out. The LXX. translator, who makes several blunders in the course of this chapter, instead of translating ???? couch, the last word of the verse, merely transliterates it into ?e?e??!![276] Cf. vi. 4: that lie on ivory diwans and sprawl on their couches.[277] Van Lennep, Bible Lands and Customs, p. 460.[278] See p. 205, n. 393.[279] The words for hook in Hebrew—the two used above, ??????? and ??????; and a third, ?????—all mean originally thorns, doubtless the first hooks of primitive man; but by this time they would signify metal hooks—a change analogous to the English word pen.[280] Cf. Isa. xxxvii. 29; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11. On the use fish-hooks, Job xl. 26 (Heb.), xli. 2 (Eng.); Ezek. xxix. 4.[281] The verb, which in the text is active, must be taken in the passive. The word not translated above is ???????????? unto the HarmÔn, which name does not occur elsewhere. LXX. read e?? t? ???? t? ????, which Ewald renders ye shall cast the Rimmon to the mountain (cf. Isa. ii. 20), and he takes Rimmon to be the Syrian goddess of love. Steiner (quoted by Wellhausen) renders ye shall be cast out to Hadad Rimmon, that is, violated as ?????? Hitzig separates ??? from ????, which he takes as contracted from ????, and renders ye shall fling yourselves out on the mountains as a refuge. But none of these is satisfactory.[282] I have already treated this passage in connection with Isaiah's prophecies on women in the volume on Isaiah i.-xxxix. (Expositor's Bible), Chap. XVI.[283] Cf. chap. vi. 4.[284] v. 11.[285] vi. 8, 11.[286] Cf. what was said on building above, p. 33.[287] See p. 141.[288] v. 26.[289] v. 25.[290] Another proof of how the spirit of ritualism tends to absorb morality.[291] Ver. 4: cf. 1 Sam. i.; Deut. xiv. 28. Wellhausen offers another exegesis: Amos is describing exactly what took place at Bethel—sacrifice on the morning, i.e. next to the day of their arrival, tithes on the third day thereafter.[292] See Wellhausen's note, and compare Lev. vii. 13.[293] Matt. vi. 2.[294] ??????: Hist. Geog., p. 64. It is interesting that this year (1895) the same thing was threatened, according to a report in the Mittheilungen u. Nachrichten des D.P.V., p. 44: "Nachdem es im December einigemal recht stark geregnet hatte besonders an der MeereskÜste ist seit kurz vor Weihnachten das Wetter immer schÖn u. mild geblieben, u. wenn nicht weiterer Regen fÄllt, so wird grosser Wassermangel entstehen denn bis jetzt (16 Febr.) hat Niemand Cisterne voll." The harvest is in April-May.[295] Or in the fashion of Egypt, i.e. a thoroughly Egyptian plague; so called, not with reference to the plagues of Egypt, but because that country was always the nursery of the pestilence. See Hist. Geog., p. 157 ff. Note how it comes with war.[296] Apertly, openly.[297] Men.[298] Undo.[299] Hist. Geog., Chap. iii., pp. 73 f.[300] This and similar passages are dealt with by themselves in Chap. XI.[301] Cf. LXX.: ?a???? ?sta? ?? ??? ?p?????sa.[302] The name Bethel is always printed as one word in our Hebrew texts. See Baer on Gen. xii. 8.[303] Wellhausen thinks at Bethel not genuine. But Bethel has been singled out as the place where the people put their false confidence, and is naturally named here. LXX.: t? ???? ?s?a??.[304] Ver. 7 is plainly out of place here, as the LXX. perceived, and therefore tried to give it another rendering which would make it seem in place: ? p???? e?? ???? ???a, ?a? d??a??s???? e?? ??? ????e?. So Ewald removed it to between vv. 9 and 10. There it begins well another oracle; and it may be that we should insert before it ???, as in vv. 18, vi. 1.[305] Literally the Group and the Giant. ????, Kimah, signifies group, or little heap. Here it is rendered by Aq. and at Job ix. 9 by LXX. ???t?????; and here by Theod. and in Job xxxviii. 31, the chain, or cluster, of the group ??e??de?. The Targ. and Pesh. always give it as Kima, i.e. Pleiades. And this is the rendering of most moderns. But Stern takes it for Sirius with its constellation of the Great Dog, for the reason that this is the brightest of all stars, and therefore a more suitable fellow for Orion than the dimmer Pleiades can be. ????, the Fool or Giant, is the Hebrew name of ?????, by which the LXX. render it. Targum ?????. To the ancient world the constellation looked like the figure of a giant fettered in heaven, "a fool so far as he trusted in his bodily strength" (Dillmann). In later times he was called Nimrod. His early setting came at the time of the early rains. Cf. with the passage Job ix. 9 and xxxviii. 31.[306] The abstract noun meaning deep shadow, LXX. s???, and rendered shadow of death by many modern versions.[307] So LXX., reading ???? for ???; it improves the rhythm, and escapes the awkward repetition of ???.[308] So LXX.[309] Possible alternative: make stagnant.[310] Vision of Piers Plowman, Passus IV., l. 52. Cf. the whole passage.[311] Uncertain; Hitzig takes it as the apodosis of the previous clause: Ye shall have to take from him a present of corn, i.e. as alms.[312] See above, p. 33.[313] Cf. "Pecca fortiter."[314] As, for instance, the prophet looks forward to in iii. 12.[315] God of Hosts, perhaps an intrusion (?) between ???? and ????.[316] I have ventured to rearrange the order of the clauses, which in the original is evidently dislocated.[317] Lit. the house.[318] Eph. v. 2; etc.[319] No one doubts that this verse is interrogative. But the Authorised Eng. Ver. puts it in a form—Have ye brought unto Me? etc.—which implies blame that they did not do so. Ewald was the first to see that, as rendered above, an appeal to the forty years was the real intention of the verse. So after him nearly all critics, also the Revised Eng. Ver.: Did ye bring unto Me? On the whole question of the possibility of such an appeal see above, pp. 100 ff., and cf. Jer. vii. 22, which distinctly declares that in the wilderness God prescribed no ritual to Israel.[320] Ver. 26 is very difficult, for both the text and the rendering of all the possible alternatives of it are quite uncertain. (1) As to the text, the present division into words must be correct; at least no other is possible. But the present order of the words is obviously wrong. For your images is evidently described by the relative clause which you have made, and ought to stand next it. What then is to be done with the two words that at present come between—star of your god? Are they both a mere gloss, as Robertson Smith holds, and therefore to be struck out? or should they precede the pair of words, ???? ??????, which they now follow? This is the order of the text which the LXX. translator had before him, only for ??? he misread ?????? or ??????: ?a? ??e??ete t?? s????? t?? ????? ?a? t? ?st??? t?? Te?? ??? ?a?f?? [?ef??, Q], t??? t?p??? a?t?? [om. AQ] ??? ?p???sate ?a?t???. This arrangement has the further evidence in its favour, that it brings your god into proper parallel with your king. The Hebrew text would then run thus:—

[???? ??????] ?????? ?? ???? ????? ???
???? ?????? ??? ????? ???

(2) The translation of this text is equally difficult: not in the verb ??????, for both the grammar and the argument oblige us to take it as future, and ye shall lift up; but in the two words ???? and ????. Are these common nouns, or proper names of deities in apposition to your king and your god? The LXX. takes ???? as = tabernacle, and ???? as a proper name (Theodotion takes both as proper names). The Auth. Eng. Ver. follows the LXX. (except that it takes king for the name Moloch). Schrader (Stud. u. Krit., 1874, 324; K.A.T., 442 f.) takes them as the consonants of Sakkut, a name of the Assyrian god Adar, and of Kewan, the Assyrian name for the planet Saturn: Ye shall take up Sakkut your king and Kewan your star-god, your images which... Baethgen goes further and takes both the ??? of ?????? and the ??? of ?????? as Moloch and ?elam, proper names, in combination with Sakkut and Kewan (Beitr. z. Sem. Rel., 239). Now it is true that the Second Book of Kings implies that the worship of the host of heaven existed in Samaria before its fall (2 Kings xvii. 16), but the introduction into Samaria of Assyrian gods (among them Adar) is placed by it after the fall (2 Kings xvii. 31), and besides, Amos does not elsewhere speak of the worship of foreign gods, nor is the mention of them in any way necessary to the argument here. On the contrary, even if Amos were to mention the worship of idols by Israel, would he have selected at this point the Assyrian ones? (See, however, Tiele, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, III., p. 211, who makes Koun and the planet Keiwan purely Phoenician deities.) Some critics take ???? and ???? as common nouns in the construct state. So Ewald, and so most recently Robertson Smith (O.T.J.C., 2): the shrine of your king and the stand of your images. This is more in harmony with the absence from the rest of Amos of any hint as to the worship of idols, but an objection to it, and a very strong one, is that the alleged common nouns are not found elsewhere in Hebrew. In view of this conflicting evidence it is best therefore to leave the words untranslated, as in the text above. It is just possible that they may themselves be later insertions, for the verse would read very well without them: And ye shall lift up your king and your images which you have made to yourselves.[321] The last clause is peculiar. Two clauses seem to have run into one—saith Jehovah, God of Hosts, and God of Hosts is His Name. The word ??? = His Name, may have been added to give the oracle the same conclusion as the oracle at the end of the preceding chapter; and it is not to be overlooked that ??? at the end of a clause does not occur elsewhere in the book outside the three questioned Doxologies iv. 13, v. 8, ix. 6. Further, see below, pp. 204 f.[322] In Zion: "very suspicious," Cornill. But see pp. 135 f.[323] I remove ver. 2 to a note, not that I am certain that it is not by Amos—who can be dogmatic on such a point?—but because the text of it, the place which it occupies, and its relation to the facts of current history, all raise doubts. Moreover it is easily detached from the context, without disturbing the flow of the chapter, which indeed runs more equably without it. The Massoretic text gives: Pass over to Calneh, and see; and go thence to Hamath Rabbah, and come down to Gath of the Philistines: are they better than these kingdoms, or is their territory larger than yours? Presumably these kingdoms are Judah and Israel. But that can only mean that Israel is the best of the peoples, a statement out of harmony with the irony of ver. 1, and impossible in the mouth of Amos. Geiger, therefore, proposes to read: "Are you better than these kingdoms—i.e. Calneh, Hamath, Gath—or is your territory larger than theirs?" But this is also unlikely, for Israel's territory was much larger than Gath's. Besides, the question would have force only if Calneh, Hamath and Gath had already fallen. Gath had, but it is at least very questionable whether Hamath had. Therefore Schrader (K.A.T., 444) rejects the whole verse; and Kuenen agrees that if we are to understand Assyrian conquests, it is hardly possible to retain the verses. Bickell's first argument against the verse, that it does not fit into the metrical system of Amos vi. 1-7, is precarious; his second, that it disturbs the grammar, which it makes to jump suddenly from the third person in ver. 1 to the second in ver. 2, and back to the third in ver. 3, is not worth anything, for such a jump occurs within ver. 3 itself.[324] Davidson, Syntax, § 100, R. 5.[325] ???? ???; LXX. sa?t?? ?e?d??, on which hint Hoffmann renders the verse: "you that daily demand the tribute of evil (cf. Ezek. xvi. 33), and every Sabbath extort by violence." But this is both unnecessary and opposed to viii. 5, which tells us no trade was done on the Sabbath. ??? is to be taken in the common sense of sitting in judgment (rather than with Wellhausen), in the sense of the enthronement of wrong-doing.[326] To this day, in some parts of Palestine, the general fold into which the cattle are shut contains a portion railed off for calves and lambs (cf. Dr. M. Blanckenhorn of Erlangen in the Mittheilungen u. Nachrichten of the D.P.V., 1895, p. 37, with a sketch). It must be this to which Amos refers.[327] Or perhaps melodies, airs.[328] Of course, it is possible that here again, as in v. 15 and 16, we have prophecy later than the disaster of 734, when Tiglath-Pileser made a great breach or havoc in the body politic of Israel by taking Gilead and Galilee captive. But this is scarcely probable, for Amos almost everywhere lays stress upon the moral corruption of Israel, as her real and essential danger.[329] ???? for ????.[330] Some words must have dropped out here. For these and the following verses 9 and 10 on the pestilence see pp. 178 ff.[331] So Michaelis, ???????? ??? for ???????????.[332] Gen. xiv. 5; 1 Macc. v. In the days of Eusebius and Jerome (4th century) there were two places of the name: one of them doubtless the present Tell Ashtara south of El-Merkez, the other distant from that fourteen Roman miles.[333] Along this ridge ran, and still runs, one of the most important highways to the East, that from Beth-Shan by Gadera to Edrei. About seven miles east from Gadera lies a village, Ibdar, "with a good spring and some ancient remains" (Schumacher, N. Ajlun, 101). Lo-Debar is mentioned in 2 Sam. ix. 45; xvii. 27; and doubtless the Lidebir of Josh. xiii. 26 on the north border of Gilead is the same.[334] With the article, an unusual form of the title. LXX. here ?????? t?? d???e??.[335] 2 Kings xiv. 25. The Torrent of the 'Arabah can scarcely be the Torrent of the 'Arabim of Isa. xv. 7 for the latter was outside Israel's territory, and the border between Moab and Edom. The LXX. render Torrent of the West, t?? d?s??.[336] Here there is evidently a gap in the text. The LXX. insert ?a? ?p??e?f??s??ta? ?? ?at????p??; perhaps therefore the text originally ran and the survivors die.[337] Or uncle—that is, a distant relative, presumably because all the near ones are dead.[338] Literally bones.[339] LXX. t??? p??est???s?: evidently in ignorance of the reading or the meaning.[340] The burning of a body was regarded, as we have seen (Amos ii. 1), as a great sacrilege; and was practised, outside times of pestilence only in cases of great criminals: Lev. xx. 14; xxi. 9; Josh. vii. 25. Doughty (Arabia Deserta, 68) mentions a case in which, in Medina, a Persian pilgrim was burned to death by an angry crowd for defiling Mohammed's tomb.[341] The Assyrian inscriptions record at least three—in 803, 765, 759.[342] As in Psalm lxxviii. 50. ?????????, to give up, is so seldom used absolutely (Deut. xxxii. 30 is poetry and elliptic) that we may well believe it was followed by words signifying to what the city was to be given up.[343] Pp. 141 f.[344] See Chapter VI., Section 3.[345] The phrase is uncertain.[346] Wellhausen thinks that the prophet could not have put the parenthesis in the mouth of the traders, and therefore regards it as an intrusion or gloss. But this is hypercriticism. The last clause, however, may be a mere clerical repetition of ii. 6.[347] Isa. lviii. See the exposition of the passage in the writer's Isaiah xl.-lxvi. (Expositor's Bible Series), pp. 417 ff.: "Our prophet, while exalting the practical service of man at the expense of certain religious forms, equally exalts the observance of the Sabbath; ... he places the keeping of the Sabbath on a level with the practice of love."[348] She shall rise, etc.—The clause is almost the same as in ix. 5b, and the text differs from the LXX., which omits and heave. Is it an insertion?[349] Literally in the day of light.[350] That is, Samaria is used in the wider sense of the kingdom, not the capital, and there is no need for Wellhausen's substitution of Bethel for it.[351] This in answer to Gunning (De Godspraken van Amos, 1885), Wellh. in loco, and KÖnig (Einleitung, p. 304, d), who reckon vv. 11 and 12 to be the insertion: the latter on the additional ground that the formula of ver. 13, in that day, points back to ver. 9; but not to the Lo, days are coming of ver. 11. But thus to miss out vv. 11 and 12 leaves us with greater difficulties than before. For without them how are we to explain the thirst of ver. 13. It is left unintroduced; there is no hint of a drought in 9 and 10. It seems to me then that, since we must omit some verse, it ought to be ver. 13; and this the rather that if omitted it is not missed. It is just the kind of general statement that would be added by an unthinking scribe; and it does not readily connect with ver. 14, while ver. 12 does do so. For why should youths and maids be specially singled out as swearing by Samaria, Dan and Beersheba? These were the oaths of the whole people, to whom vv. 11 and 12 refer. I see a very clear case, therefore, for omitting ver. 13.[352] LXX. here gives a mere repetition of the preceding oath.[353] Doughty: Arabia Deserta I. 269.[354] Since it is the capital that has been struck, and the command is given to break the thresholds on the head of all of them, many translate lintels or architraves instead of thresholds (e.g. Hitzig, and Guthe in Kautzsch's Bibel). But the word ??????? always means thresholds and the blow here is fundamental.[355] LXX. adds of Hosts: on the whole passage see next chapter.[356] We should have expected a grain, but the word ?????? only means small stone: cf. 2 Sam. xvii. 13. The LXX. has here s??t??a, fracture, ruin. Cf. Z.A.T.W., III. 125.[357] The text has been disturbed here; the verbs are in forms not possible to the sense. For ????????? read either ??????? with Hitzig or ???????? with Wellhausen. ??????????, Hiph., is not impossible in an intransitive sense, but probably Wellhausen is right in reading Pi, ?????????. The reading ????? which the Greek suggests and Hoffmann and Wellhausen adopt is not so appropriate to the preceding verb as ?????? of the text.[358] The text reads their breaches, and some accordingly point ?????? hut, as if it were the plural huts (Hoffmann, Z.A.T.W., 1883, 125; Schwally, id., 1890, 226, n. 1; Guthe in Kautzsch's Bibel). The LXX. has the sing., and it is easy to see how the plur. fem. suffix may have risen from confusion with the following conjunction.[359] This against Cornill, Einleitung, 176.[360] iii. 1.[361] III. Wars, x. 8. With the above verses of the Book of Amos Lev. xxvi. 5 has been compared: "your threshing shall reach to the vintage and the vintage to the sowing time." But there is no reason to suppose that either of two so natural passages depends on the other.[362] LXX. God of Hosts.[363] iii. 6b; iv. 9; vi. 14; iv. 12b.[364] vi. 12.[365] viii. 8.[366] iii. 7: Jehovah God doeth nothing, but He hath revealed His secret to His servants the prophets.[367] i. 2; iii. 9; ix. 3.[368] ii. 9.[369] viii. 12.[370] v. 24; 19, 20, etc.; 7; vi. 12.[371] i. 2.[372] iv. 9 ff.[373] iv. 6-11; vi. 11; viii. 8 ff.[374] LXX. the thunder.[375] Or spirit.[376] I.e. God's; a more natural rendering than to take his (as Hitzig does) as meaning man's.[377] See above, pp. 166 f. n.[378] Text of last clause uncertain; see above, p. 167.[379] LXX. Jehovah of Hosts.[380] First in 1875 by Duhm, Theol. der Proph., p. 119; and after him by Oort, Theol. Tjidschrift, 1880, pp. 116 f.; Wellhausen, in locis; Stade, Gesch., I. 571; Cornill, Einleitung, 176.[381] Hosea xiii. 4[382] Smith, Prophets of Israel, p. 399; Kuenen, Hist. Krit. Einl. (Germ. Ed.), II. 347.[383] v. 8, 9.[384] Cornill, Einl., 176.[385] Cf. viii. 8.[386] v. 8; ix. 6, though here LXX. read Jehovah of Hosts is His Name.[387] iv. 13. See previous note.[388] v. 27. See above, pp. 172 f. n.: cf. Hosea xii. 6.[389] xlvii. 4 and liv. 5.[390] xlviii. 2: cf. Duhm, in loco, and Cheyne, Introduction to the Book of Isaiah, 301.[391] x. 16; xxxi. 35; xxxii. 18; l. 34 (perhaps a quotation from Isa. xlvii. 4); li. 19, 57.[392] xlvi. 18, where the words ????? ??? fail in LXX.; xlviii. 15 b, where the clause in which it occurs is wanting in the LXX.[393] But I have room at least for a bare statement of these remarkable facts:—

The titles for the God of Israel used in the Book of Amos are these: (1) Thy God, O Israel, ????? ?????; (2) Jehovah, ????; (3) Lord Jehovah, ???? ????; (4) Lord Jehovah of the Hosts, ????? ???? ????; (5) Jehovah God of Hosts or of the Hosts, ???? ???? ????? or ??????.

Now in the First Section, chaps. i., ii., it is interesting that we find none of the variations which are compounded with Hosts, ?????. By itself ???? (especially in the phrase Thus saith Jehovah, ???? ?? ???) is general; and once only (i. 8) is Lord Jehovah employed. The phrase, oracle of Jehovah, ????? ????, is also rare; it occurs only twice (ii. 11, 16), and then only in the passage dealing with Israel, and not at all in the oracles against foreign nations.

In Sections II. and III. the simple ???? is again most frequently used. But we find also Lord Jehovah, ???? ???? (iii. 7, 8; iv. 2, 5; v. 3, with ???? alone in the parallel ver. 4; vi. 8; vii. 1, 2, 4 bis, 5, 6; viii. 1, 3, 9, 11), used either indifferently with ????; or in verses where it seems more natural to emphasise the sovereignty of Jehovah than His simple Name (as, e.g., where He swears, iv. 2, vi. 8, yet when the same phrase occurs in viii. 7 ???? alone is used); or in the solemn Visions of the Third Section (but not in the Narrative); and sometimes we find in the Visions Lord, ????, alone without ???? (vii. 7, 8; ix. 1). The titles containing ????? or ???? ????? occur nine times. Of these five are in passages which we have seen other reasons to suppose are insertions: two of the Doxologies—iv. 13, ???? ???? ????? and ix. 5, ???? ???? ?????? (in addition the LXX. read in ix. 6 ???? ?????), and in v. 14, 15 (see p. 168) and 27 (see p. 172), in all three ???? ???? ?????. The four genuine passages are iii. 13, where we find ???? ???? ?????? preceded by ????; v. 16, where we have ???? ???? ????? followed by ????; vi. 8, ????? ???? ????, and vi. 14, ???? ???? ?????. Throughout the last two sections of the book ????? is used with all these forms of the Divine title.[394] See below, pp. 213 f.[395] Geschichte, pp. 93 ff., 214 ff., 439 f.[396] A list of the more obvious is given by Kuenen, p. 324.[397] The first chapter in the Hebrew closes with ver. 9.[398] Cf. this with Amos; above, pp. 192 ff.[399] KÖnig's arguments (Einleitung, 309) in favour of the possibility of the genuineness of the verse do not seem to me to be conclusive. He thinks the verse admissible because Judah had sinned less than Israel; the threat in vv. 4-6 is limited to Israel; the phrase Jehovah their God is so peculiar that it is difficult to assign it to a mere expander of the text; and if it was a later hand that put in the verse, why did he not alter the judgments against JudÆa, which occur further on in the book?[400] So Cheyne and others, Kuenen adhering. KÖnig agrees that they have been removed from their proper place and the text corrupted.[401] Rom. ix. 25, 26, which first give the end of Hosea ii. 23 (Heb. 25), and then the end of i. 10 (Heb. ii. 2). See below, p. 249, n. 488.[402] 721 b.c.[403] Stade, Gesch., I. 577; Cornill, Einleitung, who also would exclude no king and no prince in iii. 4.[404] This objection, however, does not hold against the removal of merely and David, leaving their king.[405] ii. 7, 11, 14, 17 (Heb.). In i. 4 B-text reads ???da for ???? while Q^mq have ????.[406] In determining the date of the Book of Hosea the title in chap. i. is of no use to us: The Word of Jehovah which was to Hosea ben Be'eri in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam ben Joash, king of Israel. This title is trebly suspicious. First: the given reigns of Judah and Israel do not correspond; Jeroboam was dead before Uzziah. Second: there is no proof either in the First or Second Section of the book that Hosea prophesied after the reign of Jotham. Third: it is curious that in the case of a prophet of Northern Israel kings of Judah should be stated first, and four of them be given while only one king of his own country is placed beside them. On these grounds critics are probably correct who take the title as it stands to be the work of some later JudÆan scribe who sought to make it correspond to the titles of the Books of Isaiah and Micah. He may have been the same who added chap. i. 7. The original form of the title probably was The Word of God which was to Hosea son of Be'eri in the days of Jeroboam ben Joash, king of Israel, and designed only for the First Section of the book, chaps, i.-iii.[407] vii. 7. There are also other passages which, while they may be referred, as they stand, to the whole succession of illegitimate dynasties in Northern Israel from the beginning to the end of that kingdom, more probably reflect the same ten years of special anarchy and disorder after the death of Jeroboam II. See vii. 3 ff.; viii. 4, where the illegitimate kingmaking is coupled with the idolatry of the Northern Kingdom; xiii. 10, 11.[408] x. 3, 7, 8, 15.[409] ix. 15.[410] vi. 8, 9.[411] vii. 1.[412] vii. 11.[413] x. 6.[414] xiii. 12 f.[415] The chronology of these years is exceedingly uncertain. Jeroboam was dead about 743; in 738 Menahem gave tribute to Assyria; in 734 Tiglath-Pileser had conquered Aram, Gilead and Galilee in response to King Ahaz, who had a year or two before been attacked by Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel.[416] 2 Kings xv. 8-16. It may be to this appearance of three kings within one month that there was originally an allusion in the now obscure verse of Hosea, v. 7.[417] 2 Kings xv. 17-22.[418] Or prince, ???: cf. Hosea's denunciation of the ????? as rebels.[419] Isa. vii.; 2 Kings xv. 37, 38.[420] Some have found a later allusion in chap. x. 14: like unto the destruction of (?) Shalman (of ?) Beth' Arbe'l. Pusey, p. 5 b, and others take this to allude to a destruction of the Galilean Arbela, the modern Irbid, by Salmanassar IV., who ascended the Assyrian throne in 727 and besieged Samaria in 724 ff. But since the construction of the phrase leaves it doubtful whether the name Shalman is that or the agent or object of the destruction, and whether, if the agent, he be one of the Assyrian Salmanassars or a Moabite King Salman c. 730 b.c., it is impossible to make use of the verse in fixing the date of the Book of Hosea. See further, p. 289. Wellhausen omits.