[329] This was not quite accurate; he had rather prophesied the devastation of the high places (vii. 9). In fact, his words had often been very vague. "Thus will I do unto thee" (iv. 12).
[330] Amos ix. 11-15. Comp. Hos. iii. 5.
[331] The exaggerated haggadoth of later days say that Amaziah had Amos beaten with leaded thongs, and that he was carried home in a dying state (Epiphan., Opp., ii. 145), to which there is a supposed allusion in Heb. xi. 35: ἄλλοι δὲ ἐτυμπανίσθησαν.
[332] We cannot be sure that the term "Seer" was meant to be contemptuous, although from 1 Sam. ix. 9 we should infer that the title had become somewhat obsolete. Further, we must bear in mind that it may not have been always easy for worldlings to distinguish between true prophets and the unprincipled pretenders who, about this time, succeeded in making the name and aspect of a prophet so complete a disgrace that men had carefully to disclaim it (Zech. xiii. 2-6). It is true that the heading of Amos (i. 1), which may not, however, be by the prophet himself, tells us of "the words which he saw" (i.e., spoke as a seer), and he also disclaims the name of prophet (vii. 14).
[333] Amos viii. 1-ix. 9, 10.
[334] Amos ix. 11-15.
[335] Hos. iv. 15-19.
[336] Hos. v. 13, vii. 11, viii. 9, ix. 3-6, xi. 5, xii. 1, xiv. 3. It must be borne in mind that the cuneiform inscriptions prove that Assyria had burst into sight like a lurid comet on the horizon far earlier than we had supposed. Jehu had paid tribute to Shalmaneser as far back as b.c. 842, more than a century before Menahem's tribute in 738. The destruction which Hosea prophesied took place within thirty-one years of his prophecies—probably in b.c. 722, when Sargon finished the siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser. The king Hoshea was perhaps taken captive before the siege.
[337] Hos. viii. 5, ix. 15.
[338] Hos. x. 13, 14.