RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Ammonlus Am OB
according to Hommel, 641-640. During his short reign nothing of importance took place. Judah, which was tributary to the Assyrians, enjoyed peace. Anion walked in the ways of his father, Manasseh, imitated the Assyrians in worshiping the heavenly bodies, and continued the Baal and Moloch cults. His servants conspired against him and slew him. The " people of the land " rose up against the conspirators, slew them, and made Josiah, his son, eight years old, king in his stead. His history is found in II Kings xxi. 18-26; II Chron. xxxiii. 20-25. (W Lotz.)
Bibliography: Consult the works mentioned under Ahab. AMORITES, am'6-raits: According to Gen. x. 15-18; I Chron. i. 13-16, one of the eleven tribes descended from Canaan. They are frequently mentioned in lists of the Palestinian peoples dispossessed by Israel (Gen. xv. 21; Ex. iii. 8; Deut. vii. 1; Josh. iii. 10; etc.). As distinguished from the Canaanites, they seem to have formed the chief part of the population of the west-Jordan highlands (Num. xiii. 29; Deut. i. 7, 19-20, 44; Josh, v. 1, x. 6). In certain passages (particularly in E and D) the term is used as a general designation of the pre-Israelitic peoples of Palestine (Gen. xv. 16; Josh. vii. 7, xxiv. 15, 18; Judges vi. 10; I Sam. vii. 14; II Sam. xxi. 2; I Kings xxi. 26; II Kings xxi. 11; Isa. xvii. 9, LXX.; Ezek. xvi. 3; Amos ii. 9-10). In Judges i. 34-35 the people of the lowlands west of the mountains of Judah are called Amorites. Elsewhere (as in Gen. xiv. 7, 13, xlviii. 22, and in many passages in which the east-Jordan kings, Sihon and Og, are called Amorites) it is doubtful whether or not a particular tribe is meant. The extra-Biblical sources have raised new problems instead of throwing light on the ethnographical question. The " Amara " of the Egyptian inscriptions, who are usually identified with the Amorites, lived in the valley between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon (cf. W Max Mtiller, Asien und Europa, Leipsic, 1893, pp. 218-233). Hence it seems probable that the Amorites moved southward in the fifteenth century b.c. — a movement which may be referred to in the Tell el-Amarna letters (cf. H.Winckler, Geschichte Israels, i., Leipsic, 1895, p. 52). (F. Buhl.)
The Amorites are mentioned in the Old Testament more frequently than any other people of Palestine except the Canaanites. West of the Jordan they seem to have been confounded the one with the other; but as the Canaanites are never said to have lived east of the Jordan so the Amorites do not appear on the Mediterranean coast-land. The difficult question as to whether or not the two peoples are essentially identical is probably to be decided in the negative, though it is quite possible that the Amorites as well as the Canaanites were a Semitic people. There is, in any case, no sufficient warrant for the assumption of Sayce and others that they were akin to the Libyans. The Babylonian name for Canaan, mat Amurt, "land of the Amorites" shows that at least the eastern side of Palestine was Amoritic at an early date, and it is a plausible supposition that the two related peoples separated in southern oyna, the Canaanites following the coast-land
(their proper home) and then spreading eastward to the hill-country, and the Amorites coming gradually southward, mainly east of the Jordan. A learned annotator intimates (Deut. iii. 9) that they were once the dominant people about Anti- Lebanon, as the " Sidonians " or Phenicians were about Lebanon. After their loss of the Moabite country (Num. xxi. 21-35) they were gradually absorbed by the Hebrews, Amorites, and Arameans.
J. F. McCubdy.
Bibliography: A. H. Sayce, The White Race of Ancient Palestine, in Expositor, July, 1888; idem, Races of the O. T., London, 1891; DB, i. 84-85; EB, i. 146-147, 640-643; Meyer, in ZATW. i. (1881) 122 sqq.; J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, §§ 130-131, 3 vols., New York, 1896-1901.
AMOS, e'mes: The third of the minor prophets, originally a herdsman and farmer of Tekoa (a town twelve miles s.s.e. of Jerusalem), and destitute of a prophetical education (Amos i. 1, vii. 12, 14-* 15). The Fathers wrongly identified him with the father of Isaiah (Amoz), because his name in the Septuagint is identical with Life. that of Isaiah's father. He prophesied in the Northern Kingdom during the reigns of Uzziah in Judah (777-736 b.c.) and Jeroboam II. in Israel (781-741), when Israel was at the very height of its splendor (i. 1, vii. 10-11). His prophecies were apparently all given in one year, specified as "two years before the earthquake," a momentous but undatable event (i. 1; cf. Zech. xiv. 5; Josephus, Ant., IX. x. 4, gives a fabulous story). The place was Beth-el, the greatest sanctuary of the Northern Kingdom. His plain speaking led to the charge of conspiracy, and he was compelled to return to Judah (Amos vii. 10- 12). Nothing more is known of him.
The Book of Amos, after the opening verse, is divisible into three parts: (1) Chaps, i. 2— ii. 16, describing the judgments of God upon Damascus (i. 3-5), Philistia (i. 6-8), Tyre (i. 9-10), Edom (i. 11-12), Amnion (i. 13-15), Moab (ii. 1-3), Judah (ii. 4-5), and Israel (ii. 6-16). (2) Chaps, iii.— vi., a series of discourses against the Northern Kingdom threatening punishment and judgment. The subdivision of this section is a matter of The dispute. The prophet sets forth in
Book of his usual rhetorical manner the moral Amos. and religious degeneracy of the people. (3) Chaps, vii.-ix., beginning with three successive threatening visions (vii. 1-3, 4-6, 7-9). These were made the basis of the complaint against Amos of Amaziah, high priest at Beth-el, to the king Jeroboam II., and hence resulted his banishment (vii. 10-13). Before he goes, however, he insists upon the reality of his call (vii. 14-15), and foretells the sad fall of the high priest and his family (vii. 16-17). Chaps, vii., viii., and ix. contain two visions and their explanations. The first is of threatening content, but the second (ix. 1-7) adds a promise of salvation for a faithful remnant and of the universal sway of religion and prosperity (ix. 8-15). The book gives only an abstract of the prophet's complete discourses.
The style of Amos is rhetorical. His figures, analogies, and similes are excellent, though at times surprising (cf. iii. 3-6; iv. 2; v. 7; xiii. 11-14). The
Amos Amulet