The Prophet
Amos prophesied during the Assyrian Period about forty years before the fall of Samaria to Assyrian forces. He was a southerner, from a little town south of Jerusalem, who prophesied to northerners and he did it during the days of Israel's prosperity (both north and south) and in the midst of their religious fervor. He had an ally in the prophet Hosea though he did his work a bit earlier than Hosea. Both of them proclaimed the word of God during the reign of the powerful Jeroboam II but Hosea continued his ministry on into the days of Joash and Hezekiah king of Judah (Hosea 1:1).Samuel Goldwyn the movie-maker of an earlier generation is quoted as saying he would like to make a movie that began with a hurricane and worked up to a climax. Amos began his work as a prophet two years before a memorable earthquake (1:1) and pointed toward a climax in 722/21, which is when Samaria went under and to an even greater climax centuries later in the reestablishment of the throne of David in the person of the Messiah. But before either of these events would take place Jeroboam would take advantage of a weakened Syria just north of him and an internally busy Assyria to regain territory and make Israel prosper (while Uzziah in the south expanded Judean borders and brought in wealth and success). See 2 Kings 14:23-29 and 2 Chronicles 26. A mere reading of Amos reveals the corruption that showed itself during economic prosperity when the moneyed people drove the poor into abject slavery, committed the vilest immorality as part of their religion and lived in luxury caring nothing about the religious, moral and social ruin of the nation (6:6).
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