Jahveh if they persisted in their
unfaithfulness: they came to be spiritual advisers rather than
political partisans, and orators rather than men of action like their
predecessors. Their discourses were carefully prepared beforehand, and
were written down either by themselves or by some of their disciples
for the benefit of posterity, in the hope that future generations
would understand the dangers or witness the catastrophes which their
contemporaries might not live to see. About 760 B.C., Amos of Tekoa,* a
native of Judaea, suddenly made his appearance at Bethel, in the midst
of the festivals which pilgrims had flocked to celebrate in the ancient
temple erected to Jahveh in one of His animal forms.

* The title of the Book of Amos fixes the date as being "in
the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of
Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel" (i. 1), and the
state of affairs described by him corresponds pretty closely
with what we know of this period. Most critics fix the date
somewhere between 760 and 750 B.C., but nearer 760 than 750.

His opening words filled the listening crowd with wonder: "The high
places of Isaac shall be desolate," he proclaimed, "and the sanctuaries
of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of
Jeroboam with the sword."*

* Amos vii. 9.

Yet Jeroboam had by this time gained all his victories, and never before
had the King of Samaria appeared to be more firmly seated on the throne:
what, then, did this intruder mean by introducing himself as a messenger
of wrath in the name of Jahveh, at the very moment when Jahveh was
furnishing His worshippers with abundant signs of His favour? Amaziah,
the priest of Bethel, interrupted him as he went on to declare that
"Jeroboam should die by the sword, and Israel should surely be led
away captive out of his land." The king, informed of what was going
on, ordered Amos into exile, and Amaziah undertook to communicate this
sentence to him: "O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of
Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but prophesy not again
any more at Bethel: for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a royal
house." And Amos replied, "I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's
son; but I was a herdman, and a dresser of sycomore trees: and the
Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go,
prophesy unto My people Israel. Now therefore hear thou the