225
T H E ' K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
April 1924
the unchangeable love of God for His people. Jehovah loves His people not because they are loveable and worthy, but because they are His, and only in this Divine love can the prophet see any hope for the future. God will not let His people utterly perish because He loves them. Though the prophet can find in the heart of the nation no germ of repentance, yet he discovers in the heart of God tnis sign of future promise. The prophecy is usually divided into two unequal por tions. In the first three chapters the relation be tween God and His people is pictured in the sad domestic life of the prophet. In chapters 4 to 14 there are a series of discourses which describe the guilt of the people, the goodness and patience of God, the impending ruin of the national life, all ending with a sweet strain of hopeful promise. Amos 6:1-6; Hosea 6:1-6 This lesson is emphatically a lesson for the times. The state of Israel here pictured and denounced is the state of society and largely the church as they exist today. We do well to give earnest heed to these startling words and see what lies ahead of us unless we re- COMMENTS' pent.— Torrey. PROM THE Amos (meaning in Hebrew “a bur- COMMENTARLES den” ) was a shepherd of Tekoa, a small V, V. Morgan town of Judah, six miles south east from Bethlehem, and twelve from Je rusalem, on the borders of the great desert. The region be ing sandy was fitter for pastoral than for agricultural pur poses. Amos therefore owned and tended flocks and col lected sycamore figs; not that the former was a menial of fice, kings themselves, as Mesha of Moab (2 Kgs. 3:4) exercising it. Amos, however, seems to have been of hum ble rank. Though belonging to Judah, he was commiss ioned by God to exercise his prophetical function in Israel; as the latter kingdom abounded in imposters, and the prophets of God generally fled to Judah through fear of the kings of Israel, a true prophet from Judah was the more needed in it. His name is not to be confounded with that of Isaiah’s father, Amoz.— J. F . & B. Imagine Amos living in our day, preaching in America, seeing evils similar to those which he denounced, and wish ing to impress the same truths. How would he have talked? What particular evils would he have decried? What figures of speech would he have used? What nations would he have mentioned? By way of illustrating this method of study, picture Amos as an Englishman coming to New York and preaching to a crowd of Americans in a public square. “What makes a nation great and keeps it so? What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities low?”—Peloubet.1 V. 3. The notion of judgment being far off has always been an incentive to the sinner’s recklessness of living (Eccl. 8:12, 13; Matt. 24:48). Yet that very recklessness brings near the evil day which he puts far off.— Calvin. V. 5. They fancy they equal David in musical skill (1 Chron. 23:5; Neh. 12:36). They defend their luxurious passion for music by his example; forgetting that he pur sued this study when at peace and free from danger, and that for the praise of God; but they pursue it for their own self-gratification, and that when God is angry and ruin is imminent.— J. F. & B. V. 6. Resembling in this the heartlessness of their fore fathers, the sons of Jacob, towards Joseph, “eating bread” whilst their brother lay in the pit, and then selling him to Ismaelites.—J. F. & B. Little is known of the ancestry of the prophet Hosea. He was the son of Beeri, but we are not told to what tribe he belonged, although it seems certain that he was a native of the northern kingdom from the character of his writings and from the fact that he was a prophet to the kingdom of Israel. Hosea dwells upon the sinfulness of Israel, especi ally with respect to idolatry, and calls the nation to repent ance with the promise of full forgiveness on condition that they return to God.—Pract. Com. V. 3. Our life is a following" on to know the Lord. We marvel at some of the experiences through which we are called to pass, but afterwards we see that they afforded us some new knowledge of our Lord.— G. Bowen.
him with scorn and contempt. Undaunted by the opposition of Amaziah, Amos continued to pour forth his warnings, and predicted for the obdurate priest a fearful day of reckoning. Amos 7:17:-— “Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.” The prophecy of Amos is divided into three parts. In chapters 1 and 2 he enumerates the sins of Israel and of the surrounding nations. In chapters 3 to 6, he tells of God’s goodness to his people, and of their abuse of it, with the judgments that follow. In chapters 7 to 9 he narrates his treatment by Amaziah, and then gives a series of vis ions ending with his only words of hope. Probably after he had returned to his home in Tekoa and to his former occupation as herdsman and fruit-gatherer, he reduced his message to writing. He is quoted in the New Testament by Stephen, Acts 7:42:— “Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?” and by James, Acts 15:16:— “After this I will return, and will build again the taber nacle of David, which is fallen down*M and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up;” After the death of Jeroboam, one usurper followed an other, and anarchy continued until in the reign of Hoshea, the fifth in the list of illegitimate kings, the Assyrians came and besieged Samaria, and after three years captured it and carried the people away in captivity. Hosea gives an appalling picture of the national life at this time. There was utter dissolution of the social order. Every commandment of God was broken. The land was filled with crime and violence. There was no truth, mercy nor knowledge of God to be found. Hos. 4:1, 2:— “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel; for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. “By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touchest . blood.” Kings and princes were profligates, priests shared in their iniquity, and encouraged by their example, the people plunged into deeper excesses. Hosea sees no sign of re pentance or improvement, and predicts the entire ruin of the nation. The Assyrian avenger is at hand. Samaria shall be destroyed. Hos. 13:16. Thistles shall cover her altars, Ch. 10:8. Her king shall pass away like the billows’ foam, Ch. 10:7. Cities and fortresses shall fall before the invader, Ch. 8:14. Neither age nor sex shall be spared, Ch. 13:16. The end of prophecy is not judgment but consolation, and Hosea gives utterance to some of the sweetest and most gracious expressions of Divine love to be found in the Old Testament. He has been called the Jeremiah of the north, and the most melancholy of all the prophets. There is uncertainty as to the date of his appearance and the dura tion of his ministry, but he is supposed to have prophesied for more than fifty years. If this supposition is correct his ministry is a wonderful example of fidelity and patience, for there is no indication that his tender appeals ever met with the slightest recognition and response at any time from the people. More than any other prophet, Hosea proclaimed
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