_Thus He gave me to see: and, behold, the Lord had taken His station_--'tis a more solemn word than the _stood_ of our versions--_upon a city wall_ built to _the plummet,_[200] _and in His hand a plummet. And Jehovah said unto me, What art thou seeing, Amos?_ The question surely betrays some astonishment shown by the prophet at the vision or some difficulty he felt in making it out. He evidently does not feel it at once, as the natural result of his own thinking: it is objective and strange to him; he needs time to see into it. _And I said, A plummet. And the Lord said, Behold, I am setting a plummet in the midst of My people Israel. I will not again pass them over._ To set a measuring line or a line with weights attached to any building means to devote it to destruction;[201] but here it is uncertain whether the plummet threatens destruction, or means that Jehovah will at last clearly prove to the prophet the insufferable obliquity of the fabric of the nation's life, originally set straight by Himself--originally _a wall of a plummet_. For God's judgments are never arbitrary: by a standard we men can read He shows us their necessity. Conscience itself is no mere voice of authority: it is a convincing plummet, and plainly lets us see _why_ we should be punished. But whichever interpretation we choose, the result is the same. _The high places of Israel shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Isaac laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword._ A declaration of war! Israel is to be invaded, her dynasty overthrown. Every one who heard the prophet would know, though he named them not, that the Assyrians were meant.
It was apparently at this point that Amos was interrupted by Amaziah. The priest, who was conscious of no spiritual power with which to oppose the prophet, gladly grasped the opportunity afforded him by the mention of the king, and fell back on the invariable resource of a barren and envious sacerdotalism: _He speaketh against Cæsar._[202] There follows one of the great scenes of history--the scene which, however fast the ages and the languages, the ideals and the deities may change, repeats itself with the same two actors. Priest and Man face each other--Priest with King behind, Man with God--and wage that debate in which the whole warfare and progress of religion consist. But the story is only typical by being real. Many subtle traits of human nature prove that we have here an exact narrative of fact. Take Amaziah's report to Jeroboam. He gives to the words of the prophet just that exaggeration and innuendo which betray the wily courtier, who knows how to accentuate a general denunciation till it feels like a personal attack. And yet, like every Caiaphas of his tribe, the priest in his exaggerations expresses a deeper meaning than he is conscious of. _Amos_--note how the mere mention of the name without description proves that the prophet was already known in Israel, perhaps was one on whom the authorities had long kept their eye--_Amos hath conspired against thee_--yet God was his only fellow-conspirator!--_in the midst of the house of Israel_--this royal temple at Bethel. _The land is not able to hold his words_--it must burst; yes, but in another sense than thou meanest, O Caiaphas-Amaziah! _For thus hath Amos said, By the sword shall Jeroboam die_--Amos had spoken only of the dynasty, but the twist which Amaziah lends to the words is calculated--_and Israel going shall go into captivity from off his own land_. This was the one unvarnished spot in the report.
Having fortified himself, as little men will do, by his duty to the powers that be, Amaziah dares to turn upon the prophet; and he does so, it is amusing to observe, with that tone of intellectual and moral superiority which it is extraordinary to see some men derive from a merely official station or touch with royalty. _Visionary,_[203] _begone! Get thee off to the land of Judah; and earn_[204] _thy bread there, and there play the prophet. But at Bethel_--mark the rising accent of the voice--_thou shalt not again prophesy. The King's Sanctuary it is, and the House of the Kingdom._[205] With the official mind this is more conclusive than that it is the House of God! In fact the speech of Amaziah justifies the hardest terms which Amos uses of the religion of his day. In all this priest says there is no trace of the spiritual--only fear, pride and privilege. Divine truth is challenged by human law, and the Word of God silenced in the name of the king.