Amos 3 - Introduction

III.

Amos 3-6 form a connected series, standing, however, as a natural sequence upon the previous section (Amos 1:2). In the denunciations with which the oracles of Amos open, the last strophe refers to Israel. The same subject is the burden of the following discourses, Amos 3-6, and with searching minuteness the whole of Israel’s sin and doom are laid bare by the prophet; the blindness to the warnings of prophecy, the pride and luxury of the powerful, and the misery of the oppressed, as well as the prevailing idolatrous corruption. In Amos 4:5, the utterance of the prophet assumes the form of a measured strain (as in Amos 1), with an intercalary refrain, which may have been the model for Isaiah’s yet more artistic effort (Amo. 9:7 — 10:4, Amos 5:25). A solemn dirge over Israel and Judah (Amos 5:6) closes the first part of these prophetic addresses.