10. Ye that rejoice in a thing of nought; that say, Have we not in our strength taken to ourselves horns?

11. Surely I raise up a nation against you, house of Israel, is the saying of the ETERNAL, the God of hosts, and they shall afflict you from the entrance of Hamath to the river of the desert.8

12. This vision9 the Lord, the ETERNAL, shewed me, and I beheld him fashioning locusts, in the beginning of the lattermath's growth; and lo, it was the lattermath after the king's mowings.

13. And it came to pass, as it finished devouring the grass of the land, that I said, Lord, ETERNAL, spare now; how' shall Jacob stand, since he is small? The ETERNAL repented over this: It shall not be, said the ETERNAL.

14. This vision the Lord, the ETERNAL, shewed me, and I beheld the Lord, the ETERNAL, calling to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and consumed the part thereof.

• Desert, or plain. By the river is meant the southern boundary of the Samaritan kingdom, (perhaps the river Arnon), as by Hamath its northern extension. Compare Numbers xxi. 13-15, with Joshua xiii. 5—9; but some make the river here further south than the Arnon; e. g. the brook Zered, or Wadi el Ahseh, as in Isaiah xiv. 7. (xv. 7.) With this verse ends the Poem.

9 This vision. Hebr. Thus he caused me to see.

1 This vision. Hebr. Thus he called me to see.

2 How shall Jacob stand.

Hebr. Who or by what, &c.

hope of those who trust to reap safety from wickedness, when from north to south foes over-run them.

12-17. The reason why Amos expects such foes, lies partly in his perception of sinfulness ripe for suffering; partly his foreboding trust in an unseen Judge; partly signs which strike his mind, through the sight of locusts, fire, and wall of downright depth, on which last his imagination paints the Avenger, not now as it were an

15. And I said, Lord, ETERNAL, pray, cease; how shall Jacob stand, since he is small? The ETERNAL repented upon this: Neither shall this be, said the Lord, the ETERNAL.

16. This vision he shewed me; and I beheld the Lord standing upon a downright wall, with a plumb-line in his hand and the ETERNAL said to me, What seest thou, Amos? and I said, A plumb-line.3

17. Then the Lord said, Behold me setting a plumbline down the midst of my people Israel; I will not again pass by him any more, but the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel wasted, and I am risen against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

VI.

1. Then Amaziah, priest of the House of El, (Bethel) 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 endure all his sayings: for thus saith Amos, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel go utterly exiled from off his soil.

2. And Amaziah said to Amos, Seer, Go, flee for

This vision. Hebr. Thus he made see.

angel, but as Providence in person, the Creator and Destroyer, drawing the unseen sword, so prompting the sword of war, or of conspiracy. So the prayer of the Prophet's interceding heart sinks in despair.

1-2. The high-priest, or bishop, at Bethel, if he does not believe these forebodings of zeal, sees what awkward agitation they may breed in men's minds; and warns the king and government, while he advises Amos to go back to his friends, where he may foretell what he likes.

thyself into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and there thou mayest play the prophet; but come not to Bethel again any more to play the prophet; for it is the king's sanctuary, and the church of the kingdom.

3. Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, No prophet was I, neither prophet's son was I, but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of wild figs, and the ETERNAL took me from following the flock, and the ETERNAL said to me, Go, be thou a prophet to my people Israel.

4. And now hear the word of the ETERNAL: Thou sayest, Prophesy not, neither distil knowledge to the house of Isaac; therefore thus saith the ETERNAL, Thy wife shall be for hire in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be portioned by a line, and thou shalt die upon a polluted soil," and Israel shall go utterly into exile from off his soil.

5. This vision' the Lord, the ETERNAL, shewed me, and I beheld a basket of summer fruit; and he said, What seest thou, Amos? and I said, A basket of summer fruit. 6. Then the ETERNAL said unto me, The supreme end

• Church, or Court. Hebr. Baith, House.

• Gathering, or pricking wild figs or mulberries.

• Polluted, or unhallowed soil. Either the land of Israel desecrated, or some other than the Holy Land.

7 This vision. Hebr. Thus he made me see.- Summer fruit. Hebr. Sum

mer.

3-4. The Prophet, like a Puritan or early Quaker, or the sterner Friars of the 12th century, answers wrathfully; and denounces on his mitred opponent calamities, of which we have no record whether they came to pass; or whether God, whose thought is larger than our thought, over-ruled the too fervid zeal. We know that Jeroboam died in peace, though Amos, if he is reported truly by Amaziah, meant differently.

5-7. Amos proceeds to relate the signs of calamity

is come upon my people Israel: I will not again pass by him any more, but the chantingss of the Temple shall become howlings in that day, is the saying of the Lord, the ETERNAL; and many the carcase in every spot; cast them forth to burial, and hush.

7. Hear this, ye that swallow up the poor, and are for making the needy2 fail out of the land, saying, When will the moon feast be over, that we may sell corn, and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat; for us to make the measure small, and the price great, and to twist the deceitful balances; to buy for silver the helpless, and the poor for a pair of shoes, and that we may sell the windfall3 of the wheat?

8. The ETERNAL hath sworn by the pride of Jacob, Never will I forget all these their works. Doth not for this our land quake, and every dweller in it mourn, and it has swollen, like a flood, all of it, and has been tossed to and fro and subsided* like the flood of Egypt.

Chantings of the Temple, or the songs of the Palace. The two renderings are equally defensible. I have preferred finding a reference to the sanctuary at Bethel, which wrought so vividly on the Prophet. See iv. 15. • Cast them forth to burial, and hush. Or, (punctis non mutatis) "he that casteth them forth to burial is silent."

1 Swallow up. Or, greedily pant over the poor. Vulg. Qui conteritis pauperem.

2 The needy fail. Lit. and cause to cease the needy of the land. Nisi forte

.in servitium absorbentes לַשְׁבוּת legendum sit לִשְׁבִית pro

3 Windfall; rather the fallen, or refuse.

♦ Subsided, i.e. ny, which is the marginal correction or Keri. The Hebrew text gives watered, which probably was written by some scribe who thought of the flood of the Nile, and did not notice that the flood was only a comparison for the land heaving with earthquake.

which had struck his roused fancy, and records the consequent warnings to people in Bethel or Samaria, though here painted with the fiery glow of a mind brooding on its memories.

8. He records the petty grasping and greed which he

9. And it shall be in that day, is the saying of the Lord, the ETERNAL, that I will make the sun go down at noon, and throw darkness on the earth in bright day; and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and your songs into death-wails, and bring up sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head, and make the city as a place of mourning for an only child, and her last end as a bitter day.

10. Behold days coming, is the saying of the Lord, the ETERNAL, when I send a hunger in the land; not a hunger for bread, and not a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the ETERNAL; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east they shall run about to seek the word of the ETERNAL, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair maidens and the choice youth faint for thirst.

had seen, 8. and suggests that the earthquake which followed his expulsion from Bethel is a sign of God's displeasure.

When the day of doom comes, light will be darkness to the perishing; and feasts become mourning as for a darling child. These striking images of a kingdom's downfall, the deepest form of the universal creed of poetry that Nature suffers in man's suffering, suggest to the Gospels and to the Apocalypse the strong figures of desolating war, in the fall of Jerusalem, when the powers of Heaven were shaken, and the day of the Lord came in gloom.

10, 11. As in our sorrow we all turn to God, so those who have cast out the Prophet will one day sigh for his words; and a hunger for guidance, a thirst for comfort,