[309] Isa. xv. 7; Amos vi. 14.
[310] Amos vi. 2.
[311] Merchandise had hitherto been considered discreditable for a pure Jew, so that a trader is called a Canaanite (Hos. xii. 7, 8).
[312] See the writer's Minor Prophets ("Men of the Bible" Series), pp. 231-243.
[313] Amos vii. 1. Famine (iv. 6); drought (iv. 7, 8); yellow blight and locusts (iv. 9); pestilence (iv. 10); earthquake and burning (iv. 11).
[314] Amos vii. 4.
[315] Amos i. 1, iii. 14, iv. 11, viii 8; Zech. xiv. 5: "Ye shall flee like as ye fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah." Josephus says that in an earthquake a little before the birth of Christ ten thousand were buried under the ruined houses (Antt., XV. v. 2), and he has many Rabbinic haggadoth to tell us about the earthquake, which, he says, happened at the moment when Uzziah burnt incense in the Temple (Antt., IX. x. 4).
[316] According to Hind, they took place on June 15th, b.c. 763, and February 9th, b.c. 784. Amos alludes to the capture of Gath by Uzziah, of Calneh (Ktesiphon), and of Hamath (vi. 2; 2 Chron. xxvi. 6). Gath henceforth disappears from the Philistian Pentapolis (Amos i. 7, 8; Zeph. ii. 4; Zech. ix. 5).
[317] Or "dresser of sycomore-trees" (R.V.). LXX., κνίζων συκάμινα; Vulg., vellicans sycomoros. The sycomore-fruit (fruit of the Ficus sycomorus, or wild fig) is ripened by puncturing it (Theoph., H. Plant., iv. 2; Pliny, H. N., xiii. 14).
[318] The well-known town of Tekoa had been Solomon's horse-fair, and had been fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chron. xi. 6). It lay in a wild country six miles south of Bethlehem (2 Chron. xx. 20; 1 Macc. ix. 33; Robinson, Bibl. Res., i. 486). For a fuller account of these prophets, I must refer to my book on The Minor Prophets in the "Men of the Bible" Series. It has always been assumed that Amos belonged to the well-known Tekoa, and was therefore a subject of the Southern Kingdom. In recent days this has become uncertain. No sycomores grow or can grow on the bleak uplands of Tekoa (Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 397); so that Jerome, in his preface to Amos, thinks that "brambles" are intended. Even Kimchi conjectured that Tekoa was an unknown town in the tribe of Asher. Amos's allusions to scenery are all applicable to the Northern landscape.