Amos is the first of the Bible prophets in chronological order. He was a herdsman and fig grower who may have lived some time between 780 and 740 BCE in the village of Tekoa about twenty kilometers south of Jerusalem. He wrote during a time of prosperity, expansionism, and class struggle. Not all chapters seem to come from Amos, and parts of the final chapter seem to relate to the exile of a century and a half later.

1-2. Amos condemns Israel’s neighbours and prophesizes their destruction. Speaking for God he says, as an example: ‘I will turn my hand against Ekron, until every Philistine is dead’. Then God’s wrath is turned on the southern kingdom of Judah because they have been led astray by false gods; then to the northern kingdom of Israel because of their oppression of the poor.

3-4. Amos prophesizes the invasion of Jerusalem. He says that just as a shepherd may save a piece of an ear or a leg bone or two when one of his flock is taken by a lion, so too will some of the Israelites be saved. Amos, speaking as God, condemns the Israelites for arrogance, leisure, and boastfulness. He says ‘I have given you empty stomachs in every city, and lack of bread in every town, and still you have not returned to me!’ ‘I sent the rain to one town, and withheld it from another. I gave rain to one field, while the other I let dry up, and still you have not returned to me!’ This continues with blight, mildew, locusts, plagues, the ‘killing of your young men with the sword’, the capture of your horses, and filling your nostrils with ‘stench’, all of which meets with the same response.

5-6. Amos condemns the taking of bribes, injustice in the courts, telling lies, and oppressing the righteous. Amos says that the ‘Day of the Lord’ will bring darkness not light. Amos condemns the complacent, saying that they will be the first to go into exile for their pride.

7. Amos says that God was going to send a plague of locusts and a fire storm, but when Amos protested God relented. Then God draws a ‘plumb line’ – a metaphorical ‘line in the sand’ – and says that He will not spare the Israelites any longer. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, complains to King Jeroboam of Amos’ prophesy. Amos prophesizes right back at him, saying ‘your wife will become a prostitute in the city, your children will die by the sword, and you will go into exile and die there!’ That’s Old Testament cussing for you.

8-9. Amos predicts ‘many bodies, flung everywhere, then silence!’ when the Lord’s wrath descends. ‘On that day’ he says, ‘God will darken the earth in broad daylight’ and turn the ‘singing into weeping’. Amos has a vision of God standing by an altar. The pillars of the temple shake and topple on the peoples’ heads, and those who are left ‘die by the sword'. Amos says that God's hand will then take them ‘down to the depths of the grave’, and He will ‘command the sword to slay them’. God seems to be making doubly sure here as they are already dead. At the end of the final chapter the author (not Amos) gives a prediction of Israel’s restoration.

Although Amos says that he derives his insights from God, any keen observer at the time might have seen the potential for a strong Assyrian leader to be attracted by Israel’s prosperity, and take advantage of its weaknesses and inability to defend its territories. Amos rightly and bravely condemns unfair and immoral practices, but his superstitious conclusions are wrong. His revenge fantasies reveal a hatred and bloodlust that seems to have inspired the prophets that followed him.