Comments on Amos 1:1

Who was Amos?

First, we need to establish who Amos was. As with all historical reconstruction, we must be careful not to go beyond what we can support from the data found in the text and extrabiblical resources. With that caveat in place, we can make some strides in filling out our portrait of this prophet. We’ll proceed from the more confident information to the more conjectural.

Amos’s prophetic introduction provides his geographic location: Tekoa. The reference in Jeremiah 6:1 indicates that Tekoa was located a few miles to the south of Bethlehem in the kingdom of Judah (see also 2 Chron 11:6). Furthermore, Amaziah encourages Amos to preach in the land of Judah, which seems to be an effective call for Amos to go back home (Amos 7:12). While Amos is from the kingdom of Judah (the Southern Kingdom), God commissions him to prophesy against Israel (the Northern Kingdom). We will look at the implications of this fact in question 3 below.

In addition to his place of origin, the first verse appears to indicate that Amos was some kind of livestock herder. Most translations describe Amos as a shepherd (see NIV, ESV, NRSV, etc.), but the Hebrew word used in this verse is not the normal word for shepherd. Instead, its only other use in the Bible occurs in 2 Kings 3:4, which describes King Mesha as something more than a shepherd.

Now King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder who used to deliver to the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs, and the wool of one hundred thousand rams.

Two other pieces of evidence suggest Amos was more than a simple shepherd. A similar word in Ugaritic, another Semitic language, also refers to someone in charge of other shepherds (Shalom and Cross 1991, 34). Additionally, when Amos describes his vocation, he calls himself a cattle breeder. Though again, some translations render the term as “shepherd” or “herdsman.”

Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees (Amos 7:14 NRSV)

The implications of Amos’s vocation are significant. Rather than a poor shepherd, Amos was likely a man of some financial means. Overseeing multiple herds, a variety of animals, and shepherds would have likely produced a decent living. As we will see throughout Amos’s prophecies, he speaks harshly against the rich who exploit the poor. However, he does not appear to declare these messages from a position of poverty himself (Caroll 2020, 118; Stuart 1987, 298).

Finally, Amos’s name seems to mean something like “to carry” or “to be carried.” As the rest of the book makes clear, Amos both “carries” a message from God and is anointed by (aka “carried by”) God (Shalom and Cross 1991, 34; Carroll 2020, 115-116).

When did Amos function as a prophet?

After establishing some basic biographical facts about Amos, we need to attend to the chronological data provided by verse one. The author locates Amos’s prophetic ministry chronologically with three pieces of information.

First, the author states that Amos prophesied during the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah. Uzziah reigned from roughly 790-740 BC. Again, we will address the significance of a reference to Judah’s king before Israel’s king in question three (Goldingay 2021, 254).

Second, the author also informs the reader that Amos prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam, king of Israel. It’s important to remember that this is Jeroboam II. The other Jeroboam was the first king of Israel after the nation split under the leadership of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Like Uzziah, Jeroboam II reigned from around 790-740 BC (Goldingay 2021, 254).

Third, the author tells us that Amos functioned as a prophet “two years before the earthquake.” When we try to understand this comment, we must address a couple of issues. For example, does this phrase imply that all of Amos’s prophetic ministry occurred two years before the earthquake, or does it simply signal that part of his ministry took place before the earthquake and was thus validated by his prediction of the catastrophic event (Carroll 2020, 119-120)? We will have to formulate an opinion on this issue as we work through the book.

While identifying a precise date for an earthquake is difficult, there is some circumstantial evidence that suggests an earthquake took place during Uzziah’s reign sometime around 760 BC. Archaeological data from Hazor suggest there was a significant earthquake around this time (Shalom and Cross 1991, 35-36). Additionally, the prophet Zechariah compares a future cataclysmic earthquake to the one experienced during the days of Uzziah (Zech 14:4-5). Since Zechariah prophesied nearly a century after that event, it must have left a significant impact on the geography and cultural memory.

On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward. 5 And you shall flee by the valley of the Lord’s mountain, for the valley between the mountains shall reach to Azal; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.

Who is the book’s audience?

A critical part of the interpretive process is identifying the intended audience of a text. While precision is not always possible when it comes to this question, it remains an important step. Ultimately, we will need to keep this question in mind as we study the whole book because the author will provide us with clues along the way. Even so, we can begin to answer the question with the data provided by verse one.

As mentioned above, Amos is a livestock herder from a town in Judah, the Southern Kingdom. Yahweh commissions him to prophesy against Israel, however. Based on this data, one might assume that the intended audience is the Northern Kingdom. This assumption, however, misses a couple of key issues.

First, there can be a distinction between the intended audience of prophetic preaching and the intended audience of prophetic writing. It seems this is the case with the Book of Amos. The prophet directed his oracles to the Northern Kingdom at God’s command. However, his prophetic oracles were written down and preserved for readers in Judah. This likely explains why Uzziah, the king of Juda,h is listed before Jeroboam, the king of Israel (Goldingay 2021, 254; Stuart 1987, 299).

Miscellany

Though unrelated to the three major questions I’ve tried to address in this post, we should take note of the way Amos received the divine message. Verse one states that Amos “saw” the words he spoke against Israel. While we do not have to interpret that literally, it should invite us to pay attention to the visual aspects of Amos’s prophecies.

Definitions

Southern Kingdom - The United Monarchy of Israel split into two kingdoms after Solomon’s death during the reign of Rehoboam. The Southern Kingdom is often referred to by the name Judah. It encompassed the tribe of Judah and Benjamin. The Southern Kingdom survived roughly 140 years longer than the Northern Kingdom. Much of the Old Testament is written or edited from the perspective of the Southern Kingdom.

Northern Kingdom - The Northern Kingdom is often referred to by the name Israel. It included the other ten tribes. Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom in 721 BC and it never recovered.

Ugaritic - This term refers to a language discovered in a library of texts from ancient site called Ugarit. Discovered in 1928, it is a treasure trove of information about culture context of ancient Israel.

Semitic - This term refers to a family of languages found around the land of Canaan and related to Hebrew.

Works Cited

• Douglas Stuart, Hosea–Jonah, vol. 31 of Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1987).
• John Goldingay, Hosea–Micah, ed. Mark J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Prophetic Books (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021).
• M. Daniel Carroll R., The Book of Amos, ed. E. J. Young, R. K. Harrison, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., New International Commentary on the Old and New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020).
• Shalom M. Paul and Frank Moore Cross, Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1991).