Prophet Amos the Prophet

Amos was a shepherd of Tekoa in the hill country of Judah in the eighth century before Christ, and a dresser of sycamore fig trees — by his own confession to the priest Amaziah at Bethel, "no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit; and the Lord took me as I followed the flock." From this hidden life God sent him north to the kingdom of Israel in the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II, when both Israel and Judah were enjoying a peace that masked a great injustice in their social and religious life.

His preaching — which we possess in the nine chapters of his book — opens with the great rhetorical procession of God's judgments against the surrounding nations (Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab) before turning at last upon Judah and then upon Israel itself. He denounces the indifference of the prosperous, the trampling of the poor, the corruption of the courts and of religious practice. "Let judgment run down as waters," he says, "and righteousness as a mighty stream." He prophesies the destruction of the northern kingdom, which would come within a generation at the hands of Assyria, and through that destruction the eventual restoration of the house of David — a promise the Apostle James cites at the apostolic council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:16).

Driven from the royal sanctuary at Bethel by the priest Amaziah, Amos returned to his sheep in Judah, where he died in peace. The Church commemorates him among the Minor Prophets — minor only in the brevity of their books, not in the weight of their witness. His feast is kept on June 15.