Amos 7 - Introduction

PART III. Chapter S 7 9

(1) Amos 7:1 to Amos 9:10. A series of visions, interrupted in Amos 7:10-17 by an historical episode, and followed in each case by longer or shorter explanatory comments, intended to reinforce, under an effective symbolism, the lesson, which Amos found so hard to impress, that the judgement, viz., which he had announced as impending upon Israel could now no longer be averted, and that though Jehovah once and again (Amos 7:3; Amos 7:6) had "repented" of His purpose, He could do so no more: the time for mercy had now passed by.

(2) Amos 9:11-15. An epilogue, containing the promise of a brighter future which is to begin for Israel, when the present troubles are passed away.

The vision, as remarked in the note on ch. Amos 1:1, was a frequent mode of prophetic intuition (comp. Hosea 12:10). The vision is a projection or creation of the mind, analogous to the dream: the subject falls into a state of trance, or ecstasy [181], in which the channels connecting the brain with external objects are closed; the conscious operation of the senses is consequently in abeyance; the power of the will to guide thought is relaxed [182] : on the other hand the imagination, or faculty of combining images and ideas, which have been previously apprehended, into new forms, is abnormally active; and the pictures created by it stand out the more vividly, not being contrasted with the sharper impressions produced in a waking state by the senses. In other words, the vision may be described as a combination into new forms, under the influence of a determining impulse, of the images and impressions with which the mind, through its waking experience, is stored. In a prophetic vision, the determining impulse will have been due to the operation of the revealing Spirit; in the case of Amos, as we may suppose, the thought of an impending judgement, which, borne in upon him at the time when Jehovah's -hand" seized him, determined the direction taken by his imagination, and took shape accordingly in the concrete forms presented in these visions. It is in agreement with the character of the vision, as thus explained, that its imagery is generally supplied by the surroundings, amid which the prophet who experiences it lived himself; the basis of Isaiah's vision (ch. 6) is thus the Temple of Jerusalem (though what he sees is not of course an exact copy of it); the forms described by Ezekiel (ch. 1) are modelled upon the sculptured figures of Babylonia; and the material imagery in Amos" visions is suggested similarly by objects, or scenes, with which the prophet would himself be familiar. The vision is thus the forcible symbolic presentation of a prophetic truth. Comp. W. R. Smith, Prophets, p. 219 ff.

[181] The prophets, feeling themselves, when they fell into this state, to be under the influence of an uncontrollable power, speak of "Jehovah's hand coming (orbeing strong) upon" them, Ezekiel 1:3; Ezekiel 3:14; Ezekiel 3:22; Ezekiel 8:1; Ezekiel 37:1; Ezekiel 40:1 (notice how each time the phrase is followed by the description of a vision); cf. 2 Kings 3:15.

[182] But, in the case of the prophets, the reason was not, as in the Greek μάντις, uncreated; see Oehler, Theol. of the O. T., §§ 207, 209.