Amos
Let us now listen to Amos.
The prophet, profoundly united with God and with God’s people, exposed the conspiracy of a cabal of government officials and temple authorities against the poor. Amos, for example, in the time of King Jeroboam II (786-746 BCE) had a detailed list of this trampling of the poor. Spoliation of the land, forced migration of the people, pitiless murder and unforgiving anger of brother against brother, and killing of women and children in their womb – all these typified the transgressions of the law of Yahweh. To cap these charges against the sinful people and nation, in general, Amos declared (2,6-8):
because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes. they trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same maiden… they lay themselves down beside every altar upon garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.
The perpetrators have been identified by the prophet: the cows of Bashan – women of power who forced their husbands to cause the oppression of the poor and the crushing of the needy so they may have something to drink; the temple authorities who offer sacrifices soaked with the blood of the poor; the notable men of the nation who were at home and secure in their power to rule with violence; members of the economic elite who lay upon beds of ivory, filling themselves with food, music and wine but were totally unconcerned with the destruction and death of the people and nation.
And their conspiracy, at a time of seeming prosperity for the nation, was described, thus: Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the refuse of the wheat? (Amos 8,4-6). All they think is business and cheat the poor for profit.
And the victims: the poor and the needy of the land, the women, the young people and children, Nazirites and genuine prophets and creation.
So now comes the prophetic admonition (5,21-24):
Thus says the Lord: I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and the righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
With the consequence: a class society, weakened by a corrupt social moral fiber and a fundamentally loose and tumultuous social order that can be easily made prey to foreign powers. Assyria would come, and Israel, torn by social strife caused by an oppressive few and defenseless from within, would fall.
Proclaim to the strongholds in Assyria (Ashdod), and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say: Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and see the great tumults within her, and the oppressions in her midst. They do not know how to do right, says the Lord, those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds. Therefore, thus says the Lord God: An adversary shall surround the land, and bring down your defenses from you, and your strongholds shall be plundered
(Amos 3,9-11).
Hosea
Hosea lived his own prophecy. He mirrored the sin of the people. He identified the most guilty.
Hosea gave a stinging summary to what was going on in the land, to a people who have learned to run after other gods and plundered the people with violence and oppression. Idolatry, not atheism nor paganism, was the anti-thesis to the worship of Yahweh. In social practice, it was likened to harlotry and prostitution. Absence of knowledge of Yahweh spelled transgressions of the law. In the socio-historic order, this meant swearing, lying, killing, stealing and committing adultery. As a result of this social violence, the integrity of creation suffered the fate of the neglected and the downtrodden (Hos 4,1-3). Yet, Yahweh’s lawsuit was specially directed at the temple authorities as the most guilty of all these, for
For with you is my contention, O priest. You shall stumble by day, the prophet also shall stumble by night. And I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children .
(Hos 4,4-6)
For the priest and the prophet knew the law and the justice of Yahweh. But they ceased to proclaim and to teach them. In the time of violence of oppression and injustice, they said nothing. While the people were in search for an alternative moral order, in the time of successive palace revolutions and coups d’etat, assassinations and dynastic changes, these temple officials did nothing. Therefore, they were most guilty.
