Two years before the earthquake

Amos has an attention-getting method of dating his era – “...two years before the earthquake” (Amos 1: 1). I had to look into that!

My Commentary on the Bible (Dummelow) has a very detailed introduction which is worth a read to get an all-over picture of the book of Amos. Dummelow (first printing 1908) states that the earthquake cannot be dated. However, on consulting the internet we will find in International Geology Review July 2010 (Title: Amos’s Earthquake: An Extraordinary Middle East Seismic Event of 750 B.C.) that modern archaeology can date it at 750 B.C. They say the epicentre was probably north of present-day Israel in Lebanon, and that the intensity was likely 8.2.

Amos is classified as a Minor Prophet. There were twelve of these, formerly written on a single scroll: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Amos seems to be classed as the first of them.

Amos was a chap of modest means; Dummelow says his possessions consisted of a few sycamore trees and a small flock of sheep of a peculiar breed, ugly and short-footed, but valuable for the excellence of its wool. He was independent and probably had a lad to look after the sheep while he was off prophesying. He was of the lower kingdom of Judea (in the time of the divided kingdom), and he saw the bad things that were happening in Israel, the northern kingdom. He saw that luxury, impurity and intemperance were rife and the poor were treated as chattels not as men.

He got a call from God. He must do something about it. There had been warnings by drought, locusts, famine, and pestilence, but they went unheeded. Dummelow says that Amos was conscious of a direct call from heaven even as Paul was in New Testament times.

No doubt it is time that I actually read the text of Amos!

Joyce Voysey