Volume 1 — FOOTNOTES:

"No man, when in his senses, attains prophetic truth and inspiration; but when he receives the inspired word either his intelligence is enthralled by sleep, or he is demented by some distemper or possession. And he who would understand what he remembers to have been said, whether in dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and enthusiastic nature, or what he has seen, must recover his senses; and then he will be able to explain rationally what all such words and apparitions mean, and what indications they afford, to this man or that, of past, present, or future, good and evil. But, while he continues demented, he cannot judge of the visions which he sees or the words which he utters; the ancient saying is very true that 'only a man in his senses can act or judge about himself and his own affairs.' And for this reason it is customary to appoint diviners or interpreters as discerners of the oracles of the gods. Some persons call them prophets; they do not know that they are only repeaters of dark sayings and visions, and are not to be called prophets at all, but only interpreters of prophecy."—Jowett's Translation.

[26] רֹאֶה

[27] חזֶה

[247]

(1) LXX.: Behold, I roll (κυλίω) under you as a waggon full of straw is rolled. A.V.: I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed. Pusey: I straiten myself under you, etc. These versions take עוּק in the sense of צוּק, to press, and תחת in its usual meaning of beneath; and the result is conformable to the well-known figure of the Old Testament by which God is said to be laden and weary with the transgressions of His people. But this does not mean an actual descent of judgment, and yet vv. 14-16 imply that such an intimation has been made in ver. 13; and besides טעיק and תעיק are both in the Hiphil, the active, to press, or causative, make to press. (2) Accordingly some, adopting this sense of the verb, take תחת in an unusual sense of down upon. Ewald: I press down upon you as a cart that is full of sheaves presseth. Guthe (in Kautzsch's Bibel): Ich will euch quetschen. Rev. Eng. Ver.: I will press you in your place.—But עוק has been taken in other senses. (3) Hoffmann (Z.A.T.W., III. 100) renders it groan in conformity with Arab. 'îḳ. (4) Wetzstein (ibid., 278 ff.) quotes Arab. 'âḳ, to stop, hinder, and suggests I will bring to a stop. (5) Buhl (12th Ed. of Gesenius' Handwört, sub עוּק), in view of possibility of עגלה being threshing-roller, recalls Arab. 'aḳḳ, to cut in pieces. (6) Hitzig (Exeg. Handbuch) proposed to read מפיק and תפיק: I will make it shake under you, as the laden waggon shakes (the ground). So rather differently Wellhausen: I will make the ground quake under you, as a waggon quakes under its load of sheaves.

I have only to add that, in the Alex. Cod. of LXX., which reads κωλύω for κυλίω, we have an interesting analogy to Wetzstein's proposal; and that in support of the rendering of Ewald, and its unusual interpretation of תחתיכם which seems to me on the whole the most probable, we may compare Job xxxvi. 16, לא מוצק תחתיה. This, it is true, suggests rather the choking of a passage than the crushing of the ground; but, by the way, that sense is even more applicable to a harvest waggon laden with sheaves.

[297] Men.

[כוכב אלהיכם] ונשאתם את סכות מלככם ואת כיון צלמיכם אשר עשיתם לכם

(2) The translation of this text is equally difficult: not in the verb ונשאתם, for both the grammar and the argument oblige us to take it as future, and ye shall lift up; but in the two words סכות and כיון. Are these common nouns, or proper names of deities in apposition to your king and your god? The LXX. takes סכות as = tabernacle, and כיון as a proper name (Theodotion takes both as proper names). The Auth. Eng. Ver. follows the LXX. (except that it takes king for the name Moloch). Schrader (Stud. u. Krit., 1874, 324; K.A.T., 442 f.) takes them as the consonants of Sakkut, a name of the Assyrian god Adar, and of Kewan, the Assyrian name for the planet Saturn: Ye shall take up Sakkut your king and Kewan your star-god, your images which... Baethgen goes further and takes both the מלך of מלכיכם and the צלם of צלמיכם as Moloch and Ṣelam, proper names, in combination with Sakkut and Kewan (Beitr. z. Sem. Rel., 239). Now it is true that the Second Book of Kings implies that the worship of the host of heaven existed in Samaria before its fall (2 Kings xvii. 16), but the introduction into Samaria of Assyrian gods (among them Adar) is placed by it after the fall (2 Kings xvii. 31), and besides, Amos does not elsewhere speak of the worship of foreign gods, nor is the mention of them in any way necessary to the argument here. On the contrary, even if Amos were to mention the worship of idols by Israel, would he have selected at this point the Assyrian ones? (See, however, Tiele, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, III., p. 211, who makes Koun and the planet Keiwan purely Phœnician deities.) Some critics take סכות and כיון as common nouns in the construct state. So Ewald, and so most recently Robertson Smith (O.T.J.C., 2): the shrine of your king and the stand of your images. This is more in harmony with the absence from the rest of Amos of any hint as to the worship of idols, but an objection to it, and a very strong one, is that the alleged common nouns are not found elsewhere in Hebrew. In view of this conflicting evidence it is best therefore to leave the words untranslated, as in the text above. It is just possible that they may themselves be later insertions, for the verse would read very well without them: And ye shall lift up your king and your images which you have made to yourselves.

The titles for the God of Israel used in the Book of Amos are these: (1) Thy God, O Israel, אלהיך ישראל; (2) Jehovah, יהוה; (3) Lord Jehovah, אדני יהוה; (4) Lord Jehovah of the Hosts, צבאות אדני יהוה; (5) Jehovah God of Hosts or of the Hosts, יהוה אלהי צבאות or הצבאות.

Now in the First Section, chaps. i., ii., it is interesting that we find none of the variations which are compounded with Hosts, צבאות. By itself יהוה (especially in the phrase Thus saith Jehovah, יהוה כה אמר) is general; and once only (i. 8) is Lord Jehovah employed. The phrase, oracle of Jehovah, נְאֻם יהוה, is also rare; it occurs only twice (ii. 11, 16), and then only in the passage dealing with Israel, and not at all in the oracles against foreign nations.

In Sections II. and III. the simple יהוה is again most frequently used. But we find also Lord Jehovah, אדני יהוה (iii. 7, 8; iv. 2, 5; v. 3, with יהוה alone in the parallel ver. 4; vi. 8; vii. 1, 2, 4 bis, 5, 6; viii. 1, 3, 9, 11), used either indifferently with יהוה; or in verses where it seems more natural to emphasise the sovereignty of Jehovah than His simple Name (as, e.g., where He swears, iv. 2, vi. 8, yet when the same phrase occurs in viii. 7 יהוה alone is used); or in the solemn Visions of the Third Section (but not in the Narrative); and sometimes we find in the Visions Lord, אדני, alone without יהוה (vii. 7, 8; ix. 1). The titles containing צבאות or אלהי צבאות occur nine times. Of these five are in passages which we have seen other reasons to suppose are insertions: two of the Doxologies—iv. 13, יהוה אלהי צבאות and ix. 5, אדני יהוה הצבאות (in addition the LXX. read in ix. 6 יהוה צבאות), and in v. 14, 15 (see p. 168) and 27 (see p. 172), in all three יהוה אלהי צבאות. The four genuine passages are iii. 13, where we find יהוה אלהי הצבאות preceded by אדני; v. 16, where we have יהוה אלהי צבאות followed by אדני; vi. 8, צבאות יהוה אלהי, and vi. 14, יהוה אלהי צבאות. Throughout the last two sections of the book נְאֻם is used with all these forms of the Divine title.

Now in Hosea it occurs twice in the phrase given above— גאון ישראל בפניו וענה (v. 5, vii. 10). LXX., Targum and some Jewish exegetes take ענה as a ל״ו verb, to be humbled, and this suits both contexts. But the word בפניו to his face almost compels us to take ענה as a ל״י verb, to witness against (cf. Job xvi. 8; Jer. xiv. 7). Hence Wellhausen renders "With his arrogance Israel witnesseth against himself," and confirms the plaint of Jehovah—the arrogance being the trust in the ritual and the feeling of no need to turn from that and repent (cf. vii. 10). Orelli quotes Amos vi. 8 and Nahum ii. 3, and says injustice cleaves to all Israel's splendour, so it testifies against him.

But the context, which in both cases speaks of Israel's gradual decay, demands rather the interpretation that Israel's material grandeur shows unmistakable signs of breaking down. For the ethical development of this interpretation, see below, pp. 337 f.

Yet to this there is a grammatical obstacle.

A. Taken as a threat 1. "It is I who redeemed you from the grip of the grave, and who delivered you from death—but now I will call up the words (sic) of death against you; for repentance is hid from My eyes." So Raschi. 2. "I would have redeemed them from the grip of Sheol, etc., if they had been wise, but being foolish I will bring on them the plagues of death." So Kimchi, Eichhorn, Simson, etc. 3 "Should I" or "shall I deliver them from the hand of Sheol, redeem them from death?" etc., as in the text above. So Wünsche, Wellhausen, Guthe in Kautzsch's Bibel. etc.

B. Taken as a promise. "From the hand of Sheol I will deliver them, from death redeem them," etc. So Umbreit, Ewald, Hitzig and Authorised and Revised English Versions. In this case repentance in the last clause must be taken as resentment (Ewald). But, as Ewald sees, the whole verse must then be put in a parenthesis, as an ejaculation of promise in the midst of a context that only threatens. Some without change of word render: "I will be thy plagues, O death? I will be thy sting, O hell." So the Authorised English Version.

[660] LXX.

[673] ידע.

[824] LXX.

[859]

I will gather, gather thee, O Jacob, in mass, I will bring, bring together the Remnant of Israel! I will set them like sheep in a fold, Like a flock in the midst of the pasture. They shall hum with men! The breach-breaker hath gone up before them: They have broken the breach, have carried the gate, and are gone out by it; And their king hath passed on before them, and Jehovah at their head.

[870] May.

[876] LXX.