judgment. And across the terrors of the judg- ment there smiles an era of grace and Divine com- passion, an era of renewal, when the remnant of the nation shall once more answer to the idea of a people of God, and reap the fruits of such a privi- lege. It is only natural that these various stages of the prophets’ message should not be always found complete or in the same order. Special motives or differences in the audiences addressed might push sometimes one and sometimes another into the foreground, but none of the features above described will be found wanting, at least in the more considerable Prophetical writings. It must be admitted, indeed, that the difficulty of forming a conclusion is not seldom materially increased by what are undeniably later additions to the text (see above, p. 671>f.). In the following survey we shall limit ourselves to the rejection only of such passages as are generally admitted not to be genuine, and will reserve for separate treatment the phenomenon of so-called ‘ Messianic prophecy.’
(a) The above-mentioned assertion that ae threatening of final judgment constitutes the sole contents of pre-exilic Prophetic preaching has most to say for itself in the case of Amos. In his message not the faintest glimmer of consolation seems to shine in the dark night whose advent he proclaims. For not only must we leave out of account the present conclusion of the book (9°*), but the repeated reference in the visions of 71*: to the long-suffering of God, who at the intercession of the prophet may be brought to repent of the evil intended, is designed only to prepare for the moment when God’s long-suffering has an end, and there is scope left only for the execution of judg- ment (77), This accords also with the whole preceding message of Amos. He sees the judg- ment impending over the Northern kingdom in the form of a devastating horde of foreign enemies, whom none can escape either by strength or speed (gif. 311 42f- 58 79 gif ; in 6! there is a pretty clear allusion to the Assyrians as the hostile power). There is no contradiction between this and the threat of exile (5° 2? 67 711: 17 94) or even of a wast- ing pestilence (so, probably, 5! 6° 8% 1°). For pestilence and famine (8) step in of themselves after the ravages of the sword. In view of all this, it appears to follow that the funeral dirge,* which Amos (5!) raises over the virgin of Israel, is the final word of his prophecy, especially as he has immediately before (4) been pointing to the utter fruitlessness of previous judgments.
The ‘Day of the LorD’ is the term fixed for the execution of judgment. The prophet already alludes to it in 26, but a more detailed description of it is first found in 5%, Here we learn that the expectation of the Day of Jahweh was already quite familiar to the hearers of the prophet, only that they manifestly attached to it quite a different sense from what he did. To them it is a day of Jahweh’s vengeance on all the foes of His people, and hence a day of victory and glory for Israel—a day whose coming is heartily desired. ‘To Amos, to0, it isa day on which the justice of Jahweh is glorified, but—true to the principle expressed in 33_the claims of this justice are directed against His own people. Hence the prophet is constrained to pronounce a woe upon those who long for the coming of this day of terror: ‘What shall the day of Jahweh bring to you? It is darkness, not light’; and it is wholly vain to seek to escape it. Indirect allusions to this day of Jahweh’s judg- ment alike upon Israel and Judah and upon the heathen nations underlie all those passages where a prophetic message is introduced with the formula
* Even the rhythm of the two stichoi of 5! is that of the so- called kinah, or mourning refrain, with alternating longer and. shorter verse-members.
See art. Porrry in vol. iv. p. 5.
692 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
‘upon that day.’ Direct allusions are found, further, in Is 2°". in the lengthy catalogue of all the objects that fall victims to that day which Jahweh has reserved, when all that is proud and lofty shall be brought low, when ‘the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low, and Jahweh alone shall be exalted on that day.’ Finally, in Zeph 17. the Day of Jahweh, which is close at hand, is described under the figure of a great sacrificial feast, which Jahweh Himself has appointed, and for which He has sanctified His guests (.e., as in Is 13%, the heathen nations who are to be the instruments of His vengeance). Jerusalem falls before their storming attack, and so (v.) ‘that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm.’
Turning again to Amos after this digression, we have to keep in mind two points in connexion with his seemingly unconditional threatenings of judgment. In the first place, these threatenings, if we leave out of account the manifest gloss 2%, are directed exclusively against the Northern king- dom, and they were fulfilled on it practically to the letter. But all this time the ‘ people of God’ continued to exist in Judah as heir of the historical recollections, and as possessor of the hopes of a better future. Secondly, it is not the case that all thought of the possibility of a timely repent- ance and consequent escape of Israel_is wholly wanting in Amos. For do we not read in 5‘ the exhortation, ‘Seek me that ye may live,’ and in v.14 ‘Strive after the good and not the evil, that