The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 8

HOMILETICS. Ver. 1.-..4. ~ from the ali«pcotes. The Jewish nation is almost seven centuries· old. A wayward nonage had passed into a maturity incorrigibly perverse. .Alarmed by prophetic thunders, and riven by the lightning-bolts of judgment (eh. iv. 6-11), Israel clung to its iniquities in spite of all (eh. ii. 4; v. 11; Isa. i. 5). Yet God had not cast off his people whom he foreknew. There were other arrows in his quiver still, and he would shoot them against national obduracy with a stronger bow. Amoe shall take up his controversy against Israel where Moses, and Samuel, and Elijah, and Elisha he.d la.id it down. Famine and the sword and captivity shall maintain and strengthen his expostulation (eh. ii. 14---16). The argument shall at length prevail, and, the irreconcilables destroyed, a remnant shall enjoy his grace and choose his way (eh. iL 11-15). In this prefatory word consider- L THE BEEB. An idol-priest supplies the title (eh. vii. 12), but it is suitable and endures. A prophet sees, where other men are blind, the meaning of what is and the na.tureofwhatshall be. 1. Hisna'ITUl. Amossignifies''Bearer,"or"Burden,"or"Heavy." And it was prophetically significant of the owner's work. Hie words were weighty (eh. vii 10), the burden of them was weightier still (eh. vi. 1), and weightiest of all was the Divine authority with which they came (ver. 3). 2. His extraction. "From among the shepherds." These were probably small sheep-owners, who tended their own flocks (Keil, Lange, etc.). They were in the lower ranks of life, the rank from which God has called, and calls the majority of hie servants (1 Cor. i. 27, 28). The poor man depends for all his well-being on spiritual good (Luke vi. 24). He therefore chooses it more reailily (Mark xii. 37), advances in it more easily (Matt. xiii. 22), rejoices in it more entirely (Isa. xxix. 19), and is chosen to it rather than the rich (Jas. ii. 5). "Poverty is the sister of a sound mind," was a heathen maxim embodying a kindred truth. 3. Hia calling. "A herdsman and gatherer of sycamores." This occupation would be no mean preparation for his prophetic office. A tree prophet must be tender of human life, even when he denounces death; and if from the love of man we may rise to the love of God (1 John iv. 20), why not from the love of plant and animal to the love of man ? "He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small: For the dear God who loveth 118 Bath made and loveth all." 4. His Jwm,e. Tekoah, a city south of Bethlehem, in the lnnd of Judnb. Thence he went to Bethel, in the land of Israel, to prophesy. That he may not be "without honour" and correspondina- influence, he goes from his own to a neighbouring country (Matt. 'xiii. 57). Then, like Elijah aud John the Baptist, he goes to the pampered and dissolute town-dwellers, that with the healthy tastes and simple habits and Rtrong pure life of a dweller in the fields, he might put their laxity and luxury to shame (eh. vi. 1-6). II. THE VIBION. The term does not occur in Amos, but the equivalent of it doea, OIL I, 1-16,) THE BOOK OF AMOS. 7