1:1 THE word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

2. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your 3 days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell 4 their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmerworm hath left 5 hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and 6 that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. Awake, ye drunkards, and 7 weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from 8 your mouth. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number; his 9 teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the jaw teeth of a great lion. He hath laid my 10 vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the 11 branches thereof are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the hus- 9 band of her youth. The meal offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of 10 the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn. The field is wasted, the land mourn- 11 eth; for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Be ashamed, O ye husbandmen, howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest 12 of the field is perished. The vine is withered, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered; for 13 joy is withered away from the sons of men. Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, ye priests; howl, ye ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. 14 Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the old men and all the inhabitants of the 15 land unto the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD. Alas for the day! for 16 the day of the LORD is at hand, and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Is not 17 the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seeds rot under their clods; the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for 18 the corn is withered. How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because 19 they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. O LORD, to thee do I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the 20 trees of the field. Yea, the beasts of the field pant unto thee: for the water brooks are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Chap. 1. A plague of locusts comes upon the land, unparalleled in its kind; they are de- scribed (verses 6, 7), their devastations (verses 9-12, 16-20), and various classes of the people are summoned to mourning (verses 5, 8, 9, 13) and to fasting (verse 14). H. C.

4. He puts the four kinds of destroying things on a level. We have not to occupy ourselves with the task of distinguishing one of these kinds from another. The prophet is not describing the different species of the locust (of which there are said to be eighty or ninety), nor the different stages which may be observed in its development; nor is he threatening sev- eral swarms of locusts; but he crowds together a number of locust names to show that nothing shall remain undevastated by one and another, and another, and another devourer. B. C.

5-14. And now, having announced his theme, instead of narrating the several kinds of ruin wrought by the locusts, the prophet, like a true poet, throws verve, fire, dramatic force into his description by a series of appeals, each of which is a little picture in itself, to the various classes of Judah—to the lovers of the wine-cup (verses 5-7), to the nation, personi- fied as a bride awakening to widowhood, weep- ing in passionate abandonment over a land de- spoiled, a temple forsaken by God and man (verses 8-10), to the vine-dressers and husband- men sick at heart with wasted toils and de- feated hope (verses 11, 12), and to the priests and ministers of the altar to cry unto the Lord night and day, and not only they, but the eld- ers and all the people (verses 13, 14). Cox.

7. Successive armies of locusts come upon the land, each, according to the strong lan- guage of this description, devouring all that the next preceding had left. They appear un- der about ten different names, but whether these names represent ten distinct species re- mains in doubt. It is important to the full impression of these chapters, that the power of these locusts for devastation should be un- derstood. One author says: “Man can con- quer the tiger and the lion; can turn the course of mighty rivers, and chain the winds to his car, and can play with the lightnings of heaven, but he is nothing before an army of locusts.” Another says: “In some regions of the East the whole earth is at times covered with locusts for the space of several leagues, often to the depth of four, sometimes of six or seven inches. Their approach, with a noise like the rushing of a torrent, darkens the horizon, hides the light of the sun, and casts an awful gloom like that of an eclipse over the fields.” Major Moore, when at Poonah, had an opportunity of seeing an immense army of locusts which rav- aged the Mahratta country, and was supposed to have come from Arabia. Their column ex- tended five hundred miles, and so compact was it when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun. Pliny calls them “a scourge in the hand of an incensed Deity.” Before them all verdure disappears; the whole country puts on the appearance of being burned. Fire itself devours not so fast. Not a vestige of vegetation is left behind them. In a few hours they eat up every green thing, and consign the miserable inhabitants to in- evitable famine. “The husbandmen make every effort possible to stay or turn aside these foes or destroy them; they build fires or raise a dense smoke to withstand them, or dig trenches and fill them with water, but all to no purpose; for the trenches are soon filled and the fires extinguished by infinite swarms succeeding one another, and forming a bed on their fields of six or seven inches in thickness.

When they die the effluvia becomes intolerable, and often has occasioned a pestilence fearfully destructive to human life.” These few facts will suffice to show that the locust is one of the most terrible agents for destruction in the hands of the Almighty. H. C.

The root idea of the Hebrew word translated “locusts” is “to be numerous;” and among all the myriads of animated nature there is nothing that gives such an overwhelming idea of numbers as a swarm of young locusts leaping and tumbling over each other. The first time I saw a swarm of locusts, they looked like a blinding shower of snow. For about an hour the storm swept over us, darkening the air; but they passed clean away, leaving scarcely a straggler behind. They settled, however, on the sunny slopes of the Anti-Lebanon, where they deposited their eggs. A few months later the earth where the eggs were deposited seemed to have become instinct with life; and the whole surface began to flow, like a flood of lava, with waves of wingless locusts. I met the advancing tide as it rolled up a gently sloping plain toward a village with gardens and extensive fig plantations and vineyards. The villagers saw the danger, and thousands of them bravely resisted the invaders. Trenches were dug and filled with burning brushwood, in front of the rolling mass, and the men stood by the trenches and beat the locusts back into the flames; but the tide rolled on several inches deep, and filled the trenches till the roasting mass extinguished the fires. While the Arabs were resisting wildly at the first trench, another fiery trench was being prepared in their rear; but the young wingless locusts swept over the first and second trenches regardless of their losses, and, without pausing for an instant, they rolled over all barriers, growing in strength as they proceeded, and finally they settled down upon the gardens, devouring every green thing, and barking every tree and shrub. W. Wright.

In every stage of their existence these locusts give a most impressive view of the power of God to punish a wicked world. Look at the pioneers of the host, those flying squadrons that appear in early spring. Millions upon millions, with most fatal industry, deposit their innumerable eggs in the field, the plain, and the desert. This done, they vanish like morning mist. But in six or eight weeks the very dust seems to waken into life, and, moulded into maggots, begins to creep. Soon this animated earth becomes minute grasshoppers, and, creeping and jumping all in the same general direction, they begin their destructive march. After a few days their voracious appetite falls; they become sluggish, and fast, like the silk-worms, for a short time. Like the silk-worms, too, they repeat this fasting four times before they have completed their transmutations and are accommodated with wings. In their march they devour every green thing, and with wonderful expedition. A large vineyard and garden adjoining mine was green as a meadow in the morning, but long before night it was naked and bare as a newly ploughed field or dusty road. The noise made in marching and foraging was like that of a heavy shower on a distant forest.

The references to the habits and behavior of locusts in the Bible are very striking and accurate. Joel says, “He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.” These locusts at once strip the vines of every leaf and cluster of grapes, and of every green twig. I also saw many large fig orchards “clean bare,” not a leaf remaining; and as the bark of the fig-tree is of a silvery whiteness, the whole orchards, thus rifled of their green veils, spread abroad their branches “made white” in melancholy nakedness to the burning sun. W. M. Thomson.

The last recorded visitation of the Holy Land by locusts was in the year 1866, which is thus described by an eye-witness: “The valley of Urtas was first attacked, and has now become a desolate wilderness. The olive yards of Bethlehem, Beitjalah and Jerusalem were next covered, until the trees became a dull red color. They are now barked white. But yesterday (June 1st) will be a day long remembered. From early morning till near sunset the locusts passed over the city in countless hosts, as though all the swarms in the world were let loose, and the whirl of their wings was as the sound of chariots. At times they appeared in the air like some great snow-drift, obscuring the sun and casting a shadow upon the earth. Men stood in the streets and looked up, and their faces gathered blackness. At intervals, those which were tired or hungry descended on the little gardens in the city, and in an incredibly short time all that was green disappeared. They ran up the walls, they sought out every blade of grass, or weed growing between the stones, and after eating to satiety, they gathered in their ranks along the ground or on the tops of the houses. It is no marvel that as Pharaoh looked at them he called them ’this death.’ To day (June 2d) the locusts still continue their work of destruction. One locust has been found near Bethlehem measuring more than five inches in length. It is covered with a hard shell and has a tail like a scorpion.” B. C.

9. Those who loved the service of the Lord were specially afflicted, because they were no longer able to bring to His temple the accustomed and required offerings. H. C.

14. They must come together in the temple, the house of the Lord your God, because that was the house of prayer, and there they might hope to meet with God, because it was the place which He had chosen to put His name there; there they might hope to speed, because it was the type of Christ and His mediation. Thus they interested themselves in Solomon’s prayer for the acceptance of all the requests that should be put up in or toward this house; in which their present case was particularly mentioned (1 K. 8: 37). “If there be locust if there be caterpillar.” H.

15. This verse does not stand alone. The passage (2: 1) repeats: “For the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;” and, of more weight still (in 2: 31) we read: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.” This plainly shows that the prophet has some thought of another great and fearful, but somewhat remote, “day of the Lord,” besides this in which locusts are the manifestation of His retributive vengeance. Here, then, are various allusions to a “great day of the Lord,” to be explained and accounted for. Do we not find the key to their exposition in those laws of mental association which, under the awe-inspiring power of a present judgment, like this of locusts, carry the mind over to the more awful future—to the great power of Almighty God to bring forth from the storehouse of His plagues far more terrible, annihilating judgments, and which make every mind feel that God’s judgments are near at hand? This law of mind is well known. The effect of any present judgment is to make all future judgments seem near. This fearful day of visitation by locusts brought fresh to the prophet’s mind a sense of the awful guilt of his people, and of the certainty and nearness of God’s sorer judgments. And, moreover, as he wrote for moral impression, and as the Divine Spirit had this main if not sole purpose, it need not surprise us that he deems it of no special importance to speak more definitely of the time or manner of these yet future visitations of judgment. Suffice it if he can impress on the souls of wicked men the solemn thought that God’s great day of judgment to them cannot be long delayed! Yet further, as bearing on the sense of this verse, let it be noted that the most fearful thing in any form of judgment is that it comes from God, and is a proof of His stern displeasure. The conscious sense of His wrath burning against us is of all things most awful. This becomes fitly the all-absorbing thought. Any form of judgment may suffice to awaken this feeling. Once awakened in a consciously guilty bosom, the man knows and feels that more and greater demonstrations of God’s displeasure must be near. H. C.

“God that is holy sanctifies Himself in righteousness” (Isa. 5: 16), by sending destructive judgments upon all that opposes His purpose of redemption, and thus insuring the triumph of His kingdom. The usual designation of this final theocratic judgment is, from Joel 1: 15 and 2: 1 onward, “the day of Jehovah” (cf. Zeph. 1: 7); “the day of Jehovah’s anger” (2: 3); “the great and terrible day of Jehovah” (Mal. 4: 5). It is the day on which the Lord will humble all the loftiness of man, and will alone be exalted (Isa. 2: 17; cf. 5: 16). O.

“Alas, for to-day!” the prophet cries. “Alas, for to-day! for even this day of lamentation and woe shows that the final doom draws nigh—the day that will come like a destruction from the Almighty, that will smite evil and all who cling to it with an eternal death.” It was this great and final day of the Lord, ever present to the prophetic eye, which threw deep and ominous shadows on every intervening day of judgment. That the land should be parched by drought and consumed by locusts was in itself a terrible calamity; but this calamity clothed itself in new terrors when it was regarded as a portent of the last judgment. And it was in this portentous light that Joel would have the people regard it. They would miss “the sweet uses” of this adversity, unless they permitted it to quicken within them a profound sense of the moral government of God—the government which is to reach its climax at that final session in which every man will receive according to his deeds, whether they be good or whether they be bad. And at least one feature of that great day was clearly prefigured in the present judgment. The day of Jehovah would come “like a destruction from the Almighty,” a destruction on all that was evil, nay, a destruction of much that in itself was good, in order that evil might be punished and extirpated; for was not the fair teeming earth to be swept with fire? were not the gracious heavens to be folded like a scroll, and the serviceable elements to be consumed as in a furnace, that the wickedness of the wicked might be brought to an end? That aspect of the last day, if no other, was illustrated by what was now passing before their eyes; for even now the fair face of Nature was blackened and deformed as by fire; the innocent creatures, the flocks and herds, roamed disconsolate over wasted pastures, or stood bewildered by water courses that were dried up. Food was cut off; joy and gladness were banished from the house of God. And all for what? All for ’the guilt’ of man; all that men might repent their guilt, and return to Him from whom their hearts had gone astray (verses 15-20). S. Cox.

‘The Day of Jehovah’ in Joel.

All doctrines in regard to the millennium, the second coming of Christ, and the final judgment depend greatly on the passages in the New Testament that use the formulas, ’the day of the Lord,’ ’the day of our Lord,’ ’that day,’ and the like; such passages, for example, as 2 Peter 3:10; 1 Thess. 5:2; 1 Cor. 1:8; 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:14; 2 Thess. 1:10; 2 Tim. 1:12; Matt. 25:13, etc. The meaning of these passages is, in turn, greatly dependent on the relations that exist, both in ideas and in phraseology, between them and the texts in the Old Testament that speak of ’the day of the Lord’—that is, ’the day of Jehovah.’ As Joel presupposes the priestly laws of the Pentateuch, those who regard these laws as of post exilic origin are obliged to assign to the Book of Joel a date still later. But this opinion concerning it cannot be maintained. Its date is truly indicated by its position in the same group with Hosea and Amos, the earliest of what are commonly called the prophetic books, while other indications show that Joel is the earliest of the three.

Regarding the locusts in Joel as literal and not as a mere figure of speech for an invading army, the book is written from the point of view of a time directly following three signal calamities in Judah. A dreadful army of locusts had come and gone (1:4-9; 2:1-11), their ravages having especially affected the fruit crop (1:5, 7); this had been followed by drouth in the sowing time, causing the sown seed to rot in the soil (1:10-13, 15-20, especially verse 17); and meanwhile, foreign nations were lording it in Judah (2:17; cf. 2:19, last clause; 2:20; 4:17 [3:17], etc.). The book represents that, in response to the prayers at a solemn fast (actual or ideal), Jehovah promised to arrest the drouth and the crop failure, and drive out the invading northern foreigner (2:18-20); the last chapter being largely taken up with the threatened punishment of the invader and the nations that had been his accomplices.

The book may be regarded as a monograph, having ‘The Day of Jehovah’ as its subject; considering it, first, as a day of dread to Jehovah’s people, demanding repentance from them (1:2 to 2:17), and, second, as a day of blessing to Jehovah’s repentant people, and of judgment to the nations (2:18 to close of book). Under the first of these heads the day of Jehovah is mentioned as follows: After presenting the locust calamity (1:4-9) and the drouth (1:10-13), the poet challenges the calling of a fasting assembly (1:14), and then a second time presents these calamities. In this second presentation he introduces what he has to say concerning the drouth thus (1:15):

‘Alas for the day! Because the day of Jehovah is near, And like destruction from the Almighty it comes! Has not food been cut off before our eyes?’

Five verses descriptive of the drouth follow, and then (2:1-2) he thus introduces his second presentation of the locusts:

‘Blow ye a trumpet in Zion, And raise a shout in my holy mountain; Let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, Because the day of Jehovah cometh, because it is near! A day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and thick darkness!’

This is followed by the description of the locusts, extending to verse 11, and then another section, a section exhorting to repentance and prayer and fasting, and then mentioning the nations that were lording it in Jehovah’s inheritance, is introduced by the words (2:11, last clause):

‘Because the day of Jehovah is great, And is fearful exceedingly, and who shall abide it?’

In these sentences the phrase ’the day of Jehovah’ occurs for the first time in the Bible. But the phrase is so used as to imply that the idea contained in it was not at that time entirely new. The representation is that the calamities which had come upon that generation were so great and so accumulated as to indicate that the day of Jehovah had arrived, or was impending. From this use of terms it follows that the idea involved in the term ’the day of Jehovah’ was already familiar.

Turning to the second part of the book, we find the day of Jehovah prominent in two passages. In 2:18-20 we are told that Jehovah was jealous for His land, and gave a compassionate answer, promising relief, first from the crop failure, and then from the northerner. In verses 21-27 the promise of relief from the crop failure is amplified. What follows, as far as to 3:17, is the amplification of the promise of relief from the northerner. This begins with the familiar passage cited by Peter at the Pentecost, 2:28-32. The section which begins thus closes with 3:12-17. In these two passages, note that other time-phrases are used in connection with the day of Jehovah: “afterward,” 2:28; “those days,” 2:29; 3:1; “that time,” 3:1.

The day of Jehovah in these two passages has marks of identity with the day of Jehovah in the first part of the prophecy. It is near (cf. 3:14 with 1:15 and 2:1). It is great and fearful (cf. 2:31 with 2:11). It is marked by strange darkness (cf. 3:15; 2:31 with 2:2). The day of Jehovah in the second part differs from that in the first part mainly in being a day when the holiness of Zion is vindicated, and those who call on Jehovah are saved.

I see no room for doubt that these utterances are connected with the history of the times when they were uttered. At the date when Hazael attacked Jerusalem, the Assyrian kings claimed that they held sway over all the countries around Judah except Damascus Syria, and that they reconquered Damascus itself a little earlier or a little later than this. Just after Hazael’s attack, northern Israel threw off the yoke of Damascus, beating the Syrians in three battles. Then Amaziah of Judah overcame Edom with great slaughter. Later we find Uzziah and Jeroboam II. making conquests in every direction, the empire of Assyria being broken in all those regions, and the power of Israel re-established from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. While these events were transacting, there occurred the most marked outburst of prophecy of which we have any record, an outburst which is represented in the fact that Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah all prophesied in the reign of Uzziah. During the same period occurred the earthquake of Uzziah’s time, and the famous solar eclipse of B.C. 763, both of them events which have left their impress on history.

With these parts of the history in my mind as specimens, I have little doubt that intelligent uninspired old men, who had devoutly listened to Joel in their youth, held that the physical and political convulsions they had lived through were the blood and fire and smoke and quaking heaven and earth and darkened skies of Joel’s day of Jehovah.

The question whether this view exhausted their conception of Joel’s meaning is a different question. As we have already seen, this use of the term the day of Jehovah was the application of an idea of an older time to the events of their own time. They must have seen that although the idea fitted the current events, it was nevertheless immeasurably larger than the current events. Probably it gave them no surprise that Obadiah and Amos and Isaiah successively took up the doctrine of the day of Jehovah, and enlarged upon it. If some one had told them that in future centuries Jehovah’s prophets would continue to preach concerning the day of Jehovah, great and fearful and always near at hand, this would not have struck them as unintelligible, or as inconsistent with that fulfilment of the prophecy which they themselves had witnessed.

It is not probable that Joel’s uninspired contemporaries found in his words any specific prediction of any such scene as occurred when the cloven tongues descended at Jerusalem. What they found was a predictive historical description of what Jehovah was doing and was about to do in their own time, yet a description so framed that it was capable of a continually unfolding and enlarging fulfilment as ages should pass. This idea was no more difficult for them to entertain than for us; and it is easy for us at least to note the fact that from Joel’s time to Peter’s, and from Peter’s time to the present day, Jehovah’s ministers have been preaching the doctrine of the day of Jehovah, great and terrible, always impending, making perpetual demand upon His servants for repentance and vigilance and fidelity.

Let us next see whether we can trace the idea in its earlier form.

In the thirty-second chapter of Exodus we have the account of the sin in the matter of the golden calf in the wilderness. The account says that Moses, after rebuking the people, interceded with Jehovah for them, and at last obtained this promise (Ex. 32:34): “And now go, lead thou the people whither I said to thee; behold My angel will go before thee; and in the day of My visiting I will visit upon them their sin.”

We have here the enunciation of an idea capable of being repeated and handed down from generation to generation, the idea of Jehovah’s appointed day for visiting His people in judgment for their sin. In Hebrew, the phrase is necessarily definite—“the day of Jehovah’s visiting,” not “a day of His visiting.” While any time of national chastisement might be a day of visitation, there remained in the minds of those who were familiar with the record the conception of the day of visitation, supreme and alone as compared with other days.

We turn to a different form of phraseology in the earlier writings. In Num. 24 : 14 Balaam proposes to advise Balak : “What this people shall do to Thy people in the latter days.” In Gen. 49 : 1, Jacob says that he will make known to his sons : “What will befall you in the latter days.” In another class of passages, this phrase is used in a distinctly limited sense : “For I know, that after my death, ye will act very corruptly, and will remove from the way which I have commanded you, and the evil will befall you in the latter days, because ye will do evil in the eyes of Jehovah” (Deut. 31 : 29). “In the distress to thee, when all these words find thee, in the latter days, and thou shalt turn unto Jehovah thy God, . . . He will not forget the covenant of thy fathers” (Deut. 4 : 30). The time which in these two passages is called the latter days is three times called “that day,” in Deut. 31 : 17, 18.

Here, then, we have the terms “the latter days,” “that day,” indicating not future time in general, but some point in future time that is conceived of as entirely specific and definable. This point in future time is like Jehovah’s day of visitation in Exodus and the day of Jehovah in Joel, in that it is a time of punishing Jehovah’s people for their sins. It is further like the day of Jehovah in the second part of Joel in that it is a time in which it appears that Jehovah is a faithful covenant God to those who turn to Him.

In fine, the statements of the Old Testament are to the effect that when Israel entered the land of promise, there was sent “before His face” (Ex. 33 : 2 ; cf. 32 : 34 ; 23 : 20, 23 : 14 : 19) Jehovah’s Messenger, who led him to victory. Accompanying this peculiar grace was an awful threatening, the threat of the day of Jehovah’s visiting him for his sins, in the latter days ; but the threatening was balanced by the promise that even in “that day” Jehovah would remain faithful to His covenant. In this somewhat vague form this warning and promise were handed down, until, in the mouth of Joel, they assumed the more definite character of the doctrine of the Day of Jehovah, W. J. Beecher.

1 : 1 THE words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

2. And he said, The LORD shall roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither. 3 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Damascus, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron: but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben hadad. And I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD. 6 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole people, to deliver them up to Edom: but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour the palaces thereof: and I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon; and I will turn mine hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God. 9 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Tyre, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole people to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant: but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour the palaces thereof. 11 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Edom, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever: but I will send a fire upon Teman, and it shall devour the palaces of Bozrah. 13 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border: but I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with shouting in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind: and their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith the LORD.

2 : 1 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Moab, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:

2 but I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet: and I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD. 4 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Judah, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have caused them to err, after the which their fathers did walk: but I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem. 6 Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes: that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go unto the same maid, to profane my holy name: and they lay themselves down beside every altar upon clothes taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of such as have been fined. Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. 10 Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, 11 to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD. 12 But ye gave the Nazirites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy 13 not. Behold, I will press you in your place, as a cart presseth that is full of sheaves. 14 And flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither 15 shall the mighty deliver himself: neither shall he stand that handletth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver him- 16 self: and he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the LORD.

INTRODUCTION. During the reign of Joash, Jonah had predicted the great successes of Jeroboam II., the son of Joash. And the pre- diction was fully accomplished in the forty-one years of Jeroboam’s reign. It was in the lat- ter part of this reign that the prophets Amos and Hosea uttered and recorded their predic- tions of the final overthrow of the kingdom of Israel. Amos was (as he tells us) a simple herd- man and gatherer of wild figs, whose home was in Tekoa, a village twelve miles south of Jerusalem. Though a citizen of the kingdom of Judah, he went under a Divine impulse into the adjoining kingdom of Israel. It was mainly at Bethel, the chief seat of the calf- worship introduced by the first Jeroboam, that he uttered the prophecies of Israel’s downfall and ruin comprised in this book. B.

Bethel was about the same distance to the north of Jerusalem that Tekoa was to the south, and in a single day the shepherd of the wilderness might traverse the twenty-four miles that separated him from the chief scene of his mission. He says that his prophetic vision was granted to him in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. His words indicate the time when those two kings were contemporary—i.e., from n.c. 809-784. His mention (6:14) of the enter- ing in of Hemath as the northern border of Israel, implies that he prophesied after its re- covery by Jeroboam (2 K. 14:28). Besides this, there does not appear to be any limitation of time. B. C.

His ministry was exercised in the reign of Jeroboam II., the son of Joash (Amos 1:1). He was an able but ungodly monarch. He adhered to the worship of the golden calves, but administered the affairs of the kingdom with great wisdom and energy in both its do- mestic and its foreign relations, so that good order and prosperity prevailed within, and the boundaries of Israel were enlarged to the same limit northward as in the time of Solomon

(2 K. 14:25, 27; cf. 1 K. 8:65). It had been promised to Jehu that his sons to the fourth generation should sit upon the throne of Israel (2 K. 10:30). Jeroboam II. was the third in this line of descent, and was succeeded by his son Zechariah, who was assassinated by the usurper Shallum after a reign of six months (2 K. 15:8, 10). After this there was an al- most unbroken series of assassinations and usurpations until the kingdom was finally over- thrown and the people carried away captive by the king of Assyria. W. H. G.

His pursuits had been pastoral. He had been among the shepherds of Tekoa. Much of the imagery of his prophecies arose out of that circumstance. He alludes to the height of the cedars and the strength of the oaks, to the snar- ing of birds and the roaring of the lion, to the sifting of corn and the treading of grapes, to the constellations of the heavens and the changes of morning and evening—natural ob- jects which had been familiar to him, as he tended his sheep by day, or watched over his flocks by night. We see, too, in him, as in Joel and other prophets, an intense sympathy with the beautiful and magnificent in nature, while throughout his discourses he breathes that strong faith in Jehovah, as the personal Creator and sustainer of all things, which dis- tinguishes the Hebrew from the Gentile sage or poet.

Amos was a man who distinctly saw God in all the events of human history, as well as in all the scenes of the material universe, having that conviction of His personal and everlasting presence which should be cherished by us as we study the annals of the world, leading us to paint over every picture of the past and present a hand which the ungodly cannot, will not see. “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in the city”—a misfortune as men call it—“and the Lord hath not done it?” Like Joel, too, he saw God as a moral governor, em- ploying natural agencies for the punishment of sin. With a deep sympathy in the justice of the Almighty, on whomsoever His rod might fall, he calmly follows and records the sweep of the Divine indignation, from Damascus to Gaza—from Tyre to Edom—from Ammon to Moab; noting down the three transgressions and four for which the judgment came, till the circle narrows, and the wings of retribution overshadow the very centre, where the prophet himself is standing; and for the three transgressions and four of Judah and Israel, he declares that a fire shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem; while the most courageous of the Israelites “shall flee away naked in that day, saith the Lord.” Stoughton.

It must also be noticed that Amos abounds in terms, idioms and ritual allusions which prove great familiarity with the Books of Moses, and imply it on the part of those whom he addressed. And as he has employed in his writings the words that are found in the earlier books, so later prophets have incorporated several of his expressions in their works. B. C.

Commissioned especially to rebuke the sins of Israel, he yet in the first and second chapters denounces judgments on six other contiguous powers outside of Judah and Israel, and then upon these two in like general terms. Then in chaps, 3-6 he exposes and reproves in detail the sins of Israel, and threatens judgments therefor. The last three chapters differ from this middle portion by the introduction of visions for purposes of more vivid illustration, and by the blending of promise with the general strain of threatening. The book closes with predictions of peace and prosperity to the kingdom of God on earth. H. C.

Genuineness and Unity of the Book. The book, as it left the prophet’s hands, is an orderly planned and perfect whole. Beyond one or two possible omissions (4:3), or transpositions (5:7 to follow 9), the genuineness and unity of the book are almost beyond question. It is in the interest of a theory rather than on sufficient grounds of fact, that a few sections are asserted to be interpolations—viz., 4:13; 5:8, 9; 9:5, 6, and sometimes 6:2. The plan of the book is well defined. Amos’s message is predominantly one of doom. His duty is to denounce Divine judgment on Israel’s incurable depravity. He proclaims nothing less than the downfall of the throne, the exile of the people and the dissolution of the State.

The book consists of three sections. In the first (1, 2) there is a general announcement of approaching destruction as a punishment of sin. The second section (3-6) expands and re iterates the indictment and the menace. The third (7-9) is a dramatic enforcement and summing-up of the impending doom, passing over into promise for the future. These larger divisions fall easily into smaller subdivisions, and a regular progression of thought may with some degree of confidence be traced through them. The first (1, 2) has the character of a prelude. The seer has heard the roar of approaching judgment. He sees towering on the northern horizon the black thunderstorm of Assyrian invasion. Already, as in the lurid light that preludes a storm, the fair face of Canaan seems to grow pallid and withered (1:2). Slowly the lightning-laden cloud rolls over the whole circle of Palestinian States, striking with destruction now one, now another (1:3-2:3), till at the seventh its fires fall on Judah (2:4, 5), and then concentrate their condensed and prolonged terrors upon Israel (2:6-15). It is usually held that the sins for which the nations are to be punished are violations of humanity, but it is more consistent to think that, as in the case of Judah and Israel, the common cause of judgment is thwarting God’s will in His gracious government of mankind.

The next great division (3-6) consists of five parts, marked by similar headings and order of thought. The first emphasizes the certainty of judgment. As surely as effect follows cause and proves its existence, the prophet’s mission argues God in motion for judgment, the Divine anger postulates sin in Israel, and sin must bring ruin (3:1-4:3). Next we have the hopelessness of more moderate chastisements producing an adequate repentance (4:4-13). Then, as a natural sequel, follows an impassioned exposure of the ineradicable fixedness of their religious and social declension (5:1-18), which, in the two closing sections, expands into a woe pronounced, first, on their religious debasement (5:18-27), and, second, on their moral corruption (6:1-14).

The last large division (7-9) is framed upon five visions, devised to depict powerfully the dark destiny of the nation. We have, first, destruction by locusts; second, by fire; third, the wall condemned upon application of the plumb line (7:1-9). At this point occurs the interruption of the altercation with the priest Amaziah (7:10-17). Resuming, the prophet pictures under the symbol of ripe fruit the nation’s readiness for destruction, and works out the thought at some length (8:1-14). Finally he presents God standing over the altar in the sinful temple, hurling it in ruins on the heads of the worshippers, pursuing to his death the last one of the fugitives, and making an end of old impenitent Israel (9 : 1-10). But with accomplished judgment comes the recoil of recollection, and the prophet proceeds to show how the sifting of Israel among the nations will end in restoration. Once more the ideal Davidic rule and empire shall be established, and in more than earthly prosperity and permanence God’s people shall possess God’s land and be God’s kingdom on earth (9 : 11-15).

Literary Qualities. The literary merits of the production must be rated very high. The general information of the writer is comprehensive and minute. He can paint in detail the religious customs, the social conditions, the local circumstances and vicissitudes of every part of the northern kingdom. With the geography and history, the alliances and feuds, trade relations, national institutions, and aspirations of the neighboring nations, he is thoroughly familiar. He is possessed of profound ideas about nature, providence, the movements of races and their place and function in the world’s government.

For breadth of survey, for strength and massiveness of conception, alike in morals and in religion, he is not surpassed by any of the prophets. He is a poet, an orator, a philosopher, and a statesman. But in those days and in his social environment, he might be all this without being a man of books and cities. Native genius, interest in the traditions of his people, intercourse with passing caravans, personal visits to distant parts, and a spirit awake to the presence and working of God in human history, past, present and future—these were influences potent enough to educate the man, and admirably adapted to prepare the way for the prophet.

His style is terse, dramatic and simple, but very pointed and forcible. He loves brief, uninvolved sentences, though occasionally carried away into passionate appeal or lyrical outbursts of poetic delineation. He indulges much in question, apostrophe and exclamation. He is an orator more than an artist or a bard. With all his simplicity we find traces of paranomasia, rhythmic arrangement and rhetorical construction. His exposition abounds in rich and varied imagery derived from nature, and striking illustrations taken from every-day life. The ordered arrangement, compact style and general literary finish of his book suggest slow, careful and leisurely construction, while the fire of its invective, the impetus of its appeals and the terrible directness of its denunciation prove it the record and embodiment of speech originally orally delivered.

The Prophet’s Teaching. The teaching of Amos is a matter of fact protest against definite sins and errors, and a practical preparation to secure the triumph of religion in impending strains and changes. Israel, intoxicated by success, and lured by the flesh, had forsaken the true Jehovah. The god of the calf-worship was a physical and carnal deity, pleased with a sensual service, pacified by sacrifices, careless of justice and truth and mercy. The life of the nation may be eaten out by oppression, and corruption, and luxury, and lust, but Israel is Jehovah’s people, and—so they argued—He will not for personal pride permit them to suffer loss, but the day of their need will be the day of His gracious and triumphant intervention. This blind superstition was destined speedily to be shattered by the overwhelming avalanche of Assyrian invasion. If faith was to survive, then the lesson of Providence must be interpreted beforehand and set in its true light.

This was the mission of Amos and of the prophets that followed him. Jehovah was not the God the people fancied Him. Sacrifices and incense are nothing to Him whose throne is the universe. Jehovah is a God of mercy and righteousness. With this corrupt Israel He is not pleased, but displeased. Them indeed He chose out of all the nations of the earth to be His people. But, therefore, He will not favor them. He will the more sternly punish their sins. His day of visitation is at hand, but for unrighteous Israel it will be a day, not of deliverance, but of vengeance. He has already gathered the fires of His fury together, and is about to launch them on the States of Palestine, and to execute just retribution on His guilty people. These were startling and creative conceptions, whose value in the growth of revelation was immense. For a national and fleshly notion of the covenant tie between God and Israel his teaching substituted an ethical and religious. In place of a merely natural explanation of the world’s course, it presented the sublime thought of a righteous government and guidance of human history. Beyond all else, it set forth the ethical nature of the Creator and Ruler of the world in unapproachable majesty and might. In the words of a very helpful writer: “Morality is that for the sake of which all things exist; it is the alone essential thing in the world. It is no postulate, no idea, but at once a necessity and a fact, the most intensely living of personal powers—