Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

But prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court.

Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son ; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit : *

And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.

For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen,

And close up the breaches thereof;

And I will raise up his ruins,

And I will build it as in the days of old:

That they may possess the remnant of Edom,

And of all the heathen, which are called by my name,

Saith the LORD that doeth this.

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper,

And the treader of grapes him that soweth seed ;

And the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel,

And they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them;

And they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof;

They shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

And I will plant them upon their land,

And they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them,

Saith the LORD thy God.

Mulberry figs.

COMMENT.-This vision of Amos denoted that whereas the commonwealth of Israel had been built up and raised by rule, like a mason's plumb-line, so it should now be destroyed by rule, in accordance with the law of its growth. If they would keep the covenant, they should prosper; if they would not, they should fall. Observe, he who stood on the wall is not called the LORD JEHOVAH, but the Lord, by which it is plain that it was God who spoke to Amos, but that he with the plumb-line was rather an Angel of Wrath.

They were measured out for destruction, the high places of Isaac— Beersheba, his well of the oath, and the sanctuaries of Israel, Bethel, Mahanaim, all that Jacob's faith had hallowed and the sins of his children stained; and the family of the king, whom prosperity had not made grateful, should be cut off with the sword.

On this prophecy, Amaziah, the priest of the Golden Calf at Bethel, of the order no doubt that Jeroboam I. had instituted, accused Amos to the king. It was a false accusation, keeping near the truth, like that which the Jews brought against our Lord. Amos had said Jeroboam's house or family should perish by the sword. Amaziah represented him as saying that the king himself should so die, which would have been treason. His real object was to ric himself of one who continually warned men from his shrine, and so he gave apparently friendly advice to Amos to go safe back into his own land of Judah, where people were of his own way of thinking, and he might "eat bread"—the only use the Bethel priest saw in prophecy-but he had better not hurt the feelings of great men by meddling with Bethel, the king's own private chapel or sanctuary, founded by his hero namesake. So spoke the courtly priest. How grandly Amos stood forth! He was not bred to be a prophet. It was not like a profession to him! No, he was only a herdsman and gatherer of wild figs, the food of the poorest, when God called him away from his flock to give His message. He, who had nothing to lose, need not be threatened with great men's displeasure. He is a man of God, who comes from Judah to threaten the altar of Bethel, but does not heed the deceitful voices of the Bethelites. And, by God's will, he announces to the proud priest the terrible lot prepared for his family and himself. Some visions of judgment more, and Amos comes to a wondrous prophecy. Moses had fore

told that Israel should be scattered in all lands; Amos adds that all the nations of the earth shall be like one vast sieve, in the midst of which God's people are continually shaken to and fro; but while the chaff is blown away, not one grain of the true wheat shall perish, but shall be gathered into His garner.

And a glorious prophecy of hope follows. David's house, now decaying, and soon still more to decay, should be raised up and repaired; become more powerful than ever, and rejoice in a glorious land of peace and fertility, and unite all Israel once more. This was what the Jews expected to see literally come to pass. They looked for a mighty conqueror, with all the twelve tribes again under him, ruling all the countries round. But in time there came to some of them a right understanding that the true Son of David was raised up indeed, but that the kingdom was not of this world, that the captivity from which He brought His true Israel was the bondage of sin, and that the fruits of corn and wine were the Holy Feast He has plenteously given—the peace which the world cannot give. Thus St. James, himself of the house of David, spoke at the first Council of the Church, which was called to consider whether Christians from other nations should be treated as Jewish proselytes. He viewed the remnant of Edom as meaning the residue of nations, and understood, through the Holy Spirit, that it meant that the kingdom of the Son of David had room for people outside the covenant of Moses, and therefore that they need not be bound by its peculiar observances, only by the eternal laws of right and wrong (Acts xv.) ::

James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me :

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.

And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,

After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:

That the residue of men might seek after the LORD, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the LORD, who doeth all these things.

There is a Jewish tradition that Amaziah's malice succeeded in getting Amos put to death, but this is uncertain. His sepulchre is still shown at Tekoa; so he may be one of the prophets of whom our Lord said that whereas the Jews of old killed the prophets, their children built their sepulchres.

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.

Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares* that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.

So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.

And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?

And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.

Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought,+ and was tempestuous.

And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.

Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.

Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee.

* Goods.

↑ Worked, whirling as if it were boiling.

So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea and the sea ceased from her raging.

Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows.

COMMENT.-The prophet Obadiah, who stands next in the roll, foretold the judgments that would fall upon the Edomites for the cruelties they would inflict upon the people of Judah; but we pass on to Jonah, who, in the narrative of the reign of Jeroboam II. has been mentioned as foretelling the victories against Syria. But another work was now appointed to Jonah. Jonah's name means "a dove," and he belonged to Gath-Hepher, a small village in the tribe of Zebulun, and there is a tradition that he was the son of the widow of Zarephath, who was raised by Elijah. He had probably already prophesied to Israel, when a command came to him to perform a commission most new and strange to an Israelite prophet, namely, to go to the great heathen city on the river Tigris, Nineveh, which had been founded long ago, before Abraham's time, by Assur, after whom Assyria was called. It had long been known that Nineveh was a more dangerous foe than Damascus. Already had Jehu had to make submission to the conquering Shalmaneser, and Amos's prophecy of being carried captive beyond Damascus pointed to the East, while Joel's locusts were in many respects like the Ninevite warriors, so terrible in a siege. Just then a weak luxurious king was reigning, and thus the neighbour nations had rest, but Jonah could not endure the command to preach in a strange city to the enemies of his country. He sullenly tried to escape by going southward to Joppa, instead of going across the desert to Mesopotamia, and took ship-probably a Phoenician ship -for Tarshish, namely Tartessus, in Spain. But he was not to escape from the presence of God.

A mighty tempest was sent to "forbid the madness of the prophet," but he, worn out perhaps with his flight and struggle with his Maker, lay asleep. Even the heathen sailors believed in Divine power. They called on their gods, and Jonah was wakened and