The life and times of Amos, minor prophet
During the reign of Jeroboam II (not to be confused with Jeroboam I, who had a flagon for holding wine named after him), there lived a man named Amos, who made it his life’s mission to warn the people of the terrible things that would happen to them if they did not mend their ways, which of course they ignored. Jeroboam II was a good sort as kings went in those days, and he ruled Israel peacefully for many years. (We are talking about 790 BC onwards) but that didn’t stop Amos from inveighing relentlessly against him as well as against everyone else he could think of, accusing them of corrupt and immoral behaviour. It’s a wonder that J2 put up with him. Perhaps he saw him as a harmless meshuggenah. At any rate, Amos was left to get on with his prophesying, which he did with much zeal, making many enemies along the way. Had he lived today, he might have been known as Mr Doom.
By the way, I’m never sure whether to write ‘BC’ or ‘BCE’ after a particular date, or, for that matter, ‘AD’ or ‘CE’. Having been raised in the ‘BC/AD’ tradition, I’ll stick to that, even though AD refers to ‘our Lord’, who was not my Lord, but I’ll overlook that in the interests of sectarian harmony, Have you ever wondered what those living ‘BC’ called the years they were living in? I mean, how could they predict when Christ was going to happen? It’s a question which still perplexes me and if anyone knows, I would be glad to hear from them. Answers, please, to be scratched on a tablet in Linear B script.
In those days, the Holy Land was divided into two kingdoms, Judah in the South and Israel in the North. Amos, coming from the South, naturally started his career as a prophet hurling accusations against the North, but he soon extended his brief to include all nations everywhere and made even more enemies in the process, but that didn’t daunt him.
Before he became a prophet, Amos studied sheep breeding in the Judean desert, in his birthplace, Tekoa, which a friend tells me, is in the Gush Etzion district, about ten miles South of Jerusalem as the ravens fly. Not satisfied with looking after sheep as a career, he signed up for a degree in Prophesying (not to be confused with Profiteering) which included courses in Ranting, Raving, How to become Anorexic and the Art of Grabbing Hold of reluctant passers-by in order to explain to them what would happen to them if they didn’t change their ways.
I can imagine Amos as a smug little boy who liked to tell tales on others. His mother probably let his hair grow long in anticipation of his future career as a prophet and told him that he had a mission to reform the whole world, which appealed to his self-esteem, but there was obviously more money in sheep, so that’s where he started out. Amos soon rose to the rank of Minor Prophet, but he was never promoted beyond that, which is a pity, because he probably saved quite a few souls from eternal misery and deserved to become at least a Major.
I speak with all the wit and wisdom of a kluge yung, an intelligent ignoramus, having never read a word of Amos’s writings in the original Hebrew, although I did like what I read of him in my native English. Basically, Amos sees the human race as divided into rich and poor, with the rich oppressing and enslaving the poor. This, he says, must stop immediately or we will all be consigned to an eternity of fardroos. Quite how the problem is to be managed is up to kings, priests and ordinary folk with a sense of responsibility. He sees himself simply as God’s messenger. But I can also catch a faint whiff of socialism rising from his words, which I rather like.
Amos’s message is richly peppered with metaphors, which makes it intriguingly contradictory. For example, he sees God as both a shepherd caring for his flock and a roaring lion ready to make mincemeat of them when they stray from the fold. Reading this, I was put off lamb chops for a whole week. But that’s metaphors for you.
