168 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



of Israel. The corrupt and sensual service of Bethel and 

 of Gilgal half Jahveh- worship, half Canaanitish idolatry- 

 was the root as well as the symbol of the sickness of the 

 land. &quot; Thus saith Jahveh, Seek me, and live ! &quot; Stroke 

 after stroke from the hand of Jahveh had fallen upon the 

 people, and yet they refused to turn to Him. And now 

 the judgment must be final : &quot; The high places of Isaac 

 shall be wasted, and the sanctuaries of Israel destroyed. 

 . . . And Israel shall go forth as a captive from his land. &quot; l 

 Nor does the prophet content himself with vague fore 

 bodings of woe. His keen vision detects the instrument 

 of Jahveh s wrath in the distant Assyrians as yet so 

 unfamiliar to his hearers that he describes them with 

 precision, without once mentioning their names. 2 



This sketch of the prophecy of Amos enables us to 

 illustrate the kind of questions of detail which divide the 

 critical school. That Amos prophesied the fall of Israel 

 by the Assyrians, and the overthrow of Jeroboam s house 

 at a time of undisturbed prosperity, all are agreed. Not 

 less unanimous, on the other hand, is the resolution to 

 find the true centre of the prophecy not in this prediction, 

 but in the religious and ethical ideas drawn from a pro 

 foundly spiritual Theism which constrain the prophet to 

 look for an inevitable judgment. But the question 

 remains, how far the definite colouring of this judgment 

 passes beyond the limits of the impressions which present 

 facts would naturally make on an able and reflecting mind. 

 That is, in the present case, How far had the westward 

 development of the Assyrian empire extended itself when 

 Amos wrote ? Ewald, whom we have mainly followed 

 above, judges from Amos vi. 2, that even Ctesiphon 

 on the Tigris had not yet fallen before Assyria. Accord 

 ingly he places Amos in the first half of Jeroboam s reign, 

 when Israel was still the first of the nations (chap. vi. i) 



which, though little current amongst us, is heard in all the lecture-rooms 

 of Germany, we shall, moreover, avoid the awkwardness of writing the 

 name differently in extracts from our authors and in the text itself. 

 1 Amos vii. 9-11. 2 Ewald, Propheten, i. 118. 



