e his
palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is
therein.'--AMOS vi. 1-8.

Amos prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Joash.
Jeroboam's reign was a time of great prosperity for Israel. Moab,
Gilead, and part of Syria were reconquered, and the usual effects of
conquest, increased luxury and vainglory, followed. Amos was not an
Israelite born, for he came from Tekoa, away down south, in the wild
country west of the Dead Sea, where he had been a simple herdsman till
the divine call sent him into the midst of the corrupt civilisation of
the Northern Kingdom. The first words of his prophecy give its whole
spirit: 'The Lord will roar from Zion.' The word rendered 'roar' is the
term specially used for the terrible cry with which a lion leaps on its
surprised prey (Amos iii. 4, 8). It is from Zion, the seat of God's
Temple, that the 'roar' proceeds, and Amos's prophecy is but the echo of
it in Israel.

The prophecy of judgment in this passage is directed against the sins of
the upper classes in Samaria. They are described in verse 1 as the
'notable men ... to whom the house of Israel come,' which, in modern
language, is just 'conspicuous citizens,' who set the fashion, and are
looked to as authorities and leaders, whether in political or commercial
or social life. The word by which they are designated is used in Numbers
i. 17: 'Which are _expressed_ by name.' The word 'carried back the
thoughts of the degenerate aristocracy of Israel to the faith and zeal
of their forefathers' (Pusey, _Minor Prophets_, on this verse). Israel,
Amos calls 'The first of the nations.' It is singular that such a title
should be given to the nation against whose corruption his one business
is to testify, but probably there is keen irony in the word. It takes
Israel at its own estimate, and then goes on to show how rotten, and
therefore short-lived, was the prosperity which had swollen national
pride to such a pitch. The chiefs of the foremost nation in the world
should surely be something better than the heartless debauchees whom the
Prophet proceeds to paint. Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic,
who are by no means deficient in this same complacent estimate of their
own superiority to all other peoples, may take note. The same thought is
prominent in the description of these notables as 'at ease.' They are
living in a fool's paradise, shutting their eyes to the thunder-clouds
that begin to rise sl