The Prophetic Tradition of the Hebrews

. . I leave behind dart fire upon Judah . . . I eitherow crush you into the ground . . . and the virtually stouthearted of warriors shall flee naked (Amos 2.4-5, 16).

The principal crime of Israel is that it has glowering away from the sacred Mosaic tradition, i.e., from the covenant of morality and assurance articulated in Deuteronomy and Exodus. The covenant implies a special entitlement of the Israelites to put events so that they overtake and rule subject peoples. All the Israelites prevail to do to bask in graven image's favor is remain plication to him.

By the time of Hosea and Amos, the Jews have disregarded the compact altogether, and their kingdoms be falling. The reason is not bad government nevertheless the treat of idolatry and the lax moral code that it implies: "There is no fidelity, no mercy, no knowledge of idol" (Hos. 4.1). The text has God reminding Israel of the divine power that led the people out of Egypt (Hos. 13.8), just to see them forget about God. Only in the travel verse does Hosea offer hope, citing that only a sincere reward to the one God and permanent rejection of idolatry will can the destruction. The agriculture imagery hints at an echo of the promised land of Exodus, with God promising to re

In Amos, the range of a function of punishment is materially and spiritually bleak, for the kingdom has sinned both spiritually (by idolatry) and materially (by a host of injustices toward the weak and poor). God will dry the land up, will spurn idolatrous sacrifices, and will despoil Israel of luxury and riches (Amos 3-8).

Summoned before King jeroboam to explain this dire prophecy, Amos stands by his word, quoting the Lord's word that "time is innovative to have done with my people Israel; I will absolve them no longer. . . . I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentations" (Amos 8.3).

store Israel "like the Lebanon cedar, and . . . a verdant cypress tree" (Hosea 14.6, 9).

The New American Bible. Wichita, Kansas: Catholic Bible Publisher, 1971-1972.

All of this is meant to be cosmic justice, which will "roll down like waters, and business like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5.24). Only when God shows Amos a mess of destruction of Israel and Judah by fire does God "repent" of his plans (7.4). In the last chapter God says he will "command the make to slay them . . . fix my gaze upon them for evil, and not for good" (9.4), but he also says that he "will not annihilate the house of Jacob completely," or at least not those who gift t
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