Amos

Clifford P. Smith

Commonly reckoned among the minor Hebrew prophets, and having an obscure position in the arrangement of the Old Testament, Amos ought to be counted among the persons who have initiated forward steps of large importance in the spiritual progress of mankind. He deserves a creditable rating among all who have contributed distinctly to humanity's knowledge of God. For one thing, Amos appears to have been the first to teach that Yahweh was not exclusively the God of the Hebrew people but was also the God of all people. Apparently, also, Amos was one of the first persons to teach that God is the Mind of man. Furthermore, he evidently had a concept of God's character far in advance of the ordinary religious thought of his time.

To be appreciated as he deserves, Amos needs to be given his own place in Hebrew history. He delivered his prophecies or sermons between 760 and 750 B. C. This period was about five centuries after Moses and about two centuries after the kingdom left by Solomon had been divided into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The prophet-statesman Isaiah had not spoken yet, nor had many of the Psalms been written. Jeroboam II was king of Israel, while Azariah (Uzziah) was king of Judah. For both kingdoms, especially for Israel, this was a time of material prosperity but of spiritual poverty. Tiglath-Pileser III became king of Assyria, then the dominant power in that part of the world, and he was soon to reduce both of the Hebrew kingdoms to the position of dependent and tributary states. Before many years, one of his successors put an end to the kingdom of Israel, and scattered its inhabitants so widely that they were remembered afterward only as the lost tribes. "There was none left but the tribe of Judah only" (II Kings 17:18).

Amos was a resident of Judah, not of Israel. He was a shepherd and a cultivator of fruit trees, not a priest. Nevertheless, he felt that he was called to exhort and warn the rich and ruling class in Israel. So he went to Bethel, the northern kingdom's religious center or sanctuary, and succeeded in delivering the oral sermons which he afterward preserved as the Book of Amos. During the series of sermons, the chief priest at Bethel tried to stop them (Amos 7:10-13), but Amos persisted, and was allowed to complete his work.

In this situation, what Amos said to the rich and ruling class in Israel was remarkable for its social statesmanship as well as for its religious truth. He declared the obligations of men to men in organized society as plainly as he declared the obligations of men to God. At that time, not only in Israel, but everywhere, riches were generally regarded as evidence of divine favor, and the mode of their acquisition was not questioned. Therefore, Amos was one of the first persons in all history to get himself heard publicly in protest against riches acquired by wrong methods. (See Amos 8:4-7.)

When Amos spoke, the inhabitants of both Israel and Judah regarded themselves exclusively as God's people, and believed that His continued favor could be secured by material offerings, sacrifices, and worship. Amos spoke against both of these suppositions. Said he, "Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken" (Amos 5:14-24). Referring to their claim of exclusive position, he spoke as follows: "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?" (9:7).

As a whole, the writing left by Amos shows that his concept of God included inflexible goodness and all action as proceeding in accordance with divine law, but his teaching on these points cannot be indicated by any one quotation. His teaching that God is the Mind of man is shown by the statement that the Lord "declareth unto man what is his thought" (4:13).

Mrs. Eddy has defined a prophet in part as a "spiritual seer," and she has said that Christian Science "presents the calm and clear verdict of Truth against error, uttered and illustrated by the prophets, by Jesus, by his apostles, as is recorded throughout the Scriptures" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 593, 358). Surely, Amos was a "spiritual seer"; also, he was not the least of the prophets who, according to their opportunities, calmly and clearly presented the "verdict of Truth against error." Indeed, the sermons delivered by Amos at Bethel seven hundred and fifty years before the Christian era can be counted among the more important events in the development of religious thought from a crude beginning in a mingling of fear and hope to its present attainment in the comprehension and proof of divine Principle.

Clifford P. Smith

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