How do the visions lead into the dispute at Bethel?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Two intercessions and a trowel vision precede accusation, prohibition and Amos’s reply.

Chapter breakdown

The heading introduces three visions and an accusation by Bethel’s false priest. Amos sees a locust forming with the latter rain after the king’s mowing. The edition interprets the moderated locust and fire judgments as Assyrian invasions under Phul and Theglathphalasar before Salmanasar’s desolation. After the grass is eaten, Amos asks mercy for little Jacob; God pities and says it shall not be. Fire then devours the great deep and a part. Amos asks God to cease for little Jacob, and God again says this shall not be.

The third vision shows God upon a plastered wall holding a mason’s trowel. Amos identifies it; God will lay it among Israel and plaster them over no more. Idol high places and Israel’s sanctuaries face ruin, and the sword rises against Jeroboam’s house. Amasias, Bethel’s priest, sends Jeroboam an accusation of rebellion and reports that Amos predicts the king’s death and Israel’s captivity. The edition distinguishes the actual threat against the house from the priest’s personal-death claim and cites Zacharias, Jeroboam’s son and successor, slain by the sword in Fourth Kings 15:10.

Amasias tells Amos to flee to Juda, eat bread and prophesy there, and stop prophesying at Bethel because it is the king’s sanctuary and house of the kingdom. Amos answers that he is neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but a herdsman plucking wild figs. The edition explains this as lack of prophetic education or profession. Amos says God took him from the flock and sent him to prophesy to Israel. He repeats Amasias’s prohibition against Israel and the idol’s house, which the edition identifies with Bethel’s calf. The announced sentence names the wife’s harlotry in the city, children falling by the sword, land measured by a line, death in a polluted land and Israel’s captivity. These are announcements; their fulfillment is not narrated here.

The story inside

The edition distinguishes king from house in the sword threat. Amos describes herding and wild figs. The household sentence is announced rather than fulfilled here.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The edition distinguishes king from house in the sword threat.
2
Amos describes herding and wild figs.
3
The household sentence is announced rather than fulfilled here.

Test your recall

What does the third vision place in God’s hand?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 100886–100893
7:1. These things the Lord God shewed to me: and behold the locust was formed in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter rain, and lo, it was the latter rain after the king’s mowing. The locust, etc.... These judgments by locusts and fire, which, by the prophet’s intercession, were moderated, signify the former invasions of the Assyrians under Phul and Theglathphalasar, before the utter desolation of Israel by Salmanasar.
Lines 100911–100920
7:7. These things the Lord shewed to me: and behold the Lord was standing upon a plastered wall, and in his hand a mason’s trowel. 7:8. And the Lord said to me: What seest thou, Amos? And I said: A mason’s trowel. And the Lord said: Behold, I will lay down the trowel in the midst of my people Israel. I will plaster them over no more. 7:9. And the high places of the idol shall be thrown down, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste: and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.
Lines 100922–100932
7:10. And Amasias the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: Amos hath rebelled against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. 7:11. For thus saith Amos: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be carried away captive out of their own land. Jeroboam shall die by the sword.... The prophet did not say this; but that the Lord would rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword: which was verified, when Zacharias, the son and successor of Jeroboam, was slain by the sword. 4 Kings 15.10.
Lines 100934–100949
7:12. And Amasias said to Amos: Thou seer, go, flee away into the land of Juda: and eat bread there, and prophesy there. 7:13. But prophesy not again any more in Bethel: because it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is the house of the kingdom. 7:14. And Amos answered and said to Amasias: I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet: but I am a herdsman plucking wild figs. I am not a prophet.... That is, I am not a prophet by education: nor is prophesying my calling or profession: but I am a herdsman, whom God was pleased to send hither to prophesy to Israel. 7:15. And the Lord took me when I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me: Go, prophesy to my people Israel.