Amos 7

These things the Lord God showed me: and behold, the maker of the locust at the beginning of the shoots of the late rain, and behold, the late one, afterwards the king's shearer. And it came to pass, when it had finished eating the grass of the land, I said: O Lord God, be merciful, I beseech you; who will raise up Jacob, for he is very small? The Lord had pity over this: It shall not be, said the Lord. LXX: Thus the Lord showed me: And behold, a brood of locusts was coming in the morning; and behold, one cankerworm, Gog the king. And it will be, if it has finished devouring the hay of the land, and I said: O Lord God, be merciful; who will raise up Jacob, since he is small? Repent, O Lord, over this; and this shall not be, says the Lord. The prophetic word foretells not only the things which are to come many ages later, but also things near at hand, which follow immediately upon the prophecy. For we men are accustomed to think much more about ourselves than about posterity, as Hezekiah says: Let there be peace in my days. This is so that those who see fulfilled in fact what was announced beforehand may be converted to the worship of God, in whose prophets is the truth of divination. The Lord therefore shows that Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, with a boundless multitude of his army, like a locust shearing everything, would come at the beginning of the late rain, when Israel was in need of the utmost mercy of God Almighty; and the maker and creator of this locust is the Lord. This locust comes at the beginning of the late rain, when all things are green and every field is in labour, and the blossoms of the various trees burst out into fruits of their own kind. And to show in one word what I mean, the blossoms of the trees and the blades of the crops promise an abundance of all things. These locusts, which were flying in early spring, were followed by a countless cankerworm, which came after the late rain and was called the shearer, or the shearing, of the king, because it laid everything waste and left nothing at all of green grass on the earth. This shearer, or shearing, Isaiah calls a sharp razor, which shaved off all the hairs and locks of the body of Israel. And when, he says, I was in doubt what this razor might be, he at once added: the king of the Assyrians. The razor, therefore, and the king's shearer is the army of the Chaldeans, which like the cankerworm ravaged everything, and consumed not only the crops but the trees, the hay and the stubble.

The LXX translators seem to me to have understood the Hebrew word gozi, which means shearer or shearing, as Gog, taking the letter zai for uau, and to have compared the countless multitude of the cankerworm to Gog, a most savage nation, which is described as about to lay waste the land of Judea. But what Aquila meant to say with Behold, the late one after the king of Gaza, since Gaza is called Aza in the Hebrew word, I do not well understand, unless perhaps he set down the very word gozi, and it was gradually corrupted by error into Gaza. Let us speak also spiritually: those who after works of righteousness — of which it is said in the prophet: Sow for yourselves in righteousness, and break up fresh ground for yourselves; and do not sow upon thorns — have committed grave sins, upon them is brought the brood, or generation, of locusts coming in the morning, when, as the darkness of night passes, they begin to recognize their own sins; and because they have not repented, the cankerworm is brought on, which is called Gog, the king; and Gog is rendered in our language roof, a certain proud and arrogant strength.

And it came to pass, when the cankerworm that had come after the locust had finished eating the grass of the land, and the prophet understood what he was seeing, he turns to prayer and says: O Lord God, be merciful, I beseech you. I do not wish my words to be fulfilled in the overthrow of my people; I do not wish to have been chosen from the number of the shepherds for this, that I should announce the ruin of the ten tribes. For who will be able to raise up Jacob, except you alone? When you strike him down, there is no one to raise him up. Jacob is very small, and destroyed by the frequent incursions of enemies.

And when it has consumed the hay and the stubble of our land, whoever are saints among the people will pray for pardon and will say: O Lord God, be merciful. For who else will be able to raise up Jacob? Which of the physicians can heal the αἱμοῤῥοῦσαν (the woman with the issue of blood), except you alone, at the touch of whose fringe health at once returns? For Jacob is very small, or of small number, because no traces of virtues, or only a few, have remained in them.

It is, after all, the practice of the prophets and the just to grieve not only for themselves but also for the rest of humankind. If you're inclined to check that, you will find them all giving evidence of this compassion—for example, you can listen to Jeremiah, "Who will pour water on my head, and provide a fountain of tears for my eyes?" or Ezekiel, "Alas, Lord, you will destroy what remains of Israel?" or Daniel lamenting in these words, "You have made us few in number by comparison with the Gentiles," or Amos, "Think better of this, Lord."

And as he prayed and poured out the tears of the inner man, the Lord had pity over this and answered: I will not destroy the whole race of Israel; a remnant will be saved. Or certainly it is to be taken thus: he beheld two things to come together, first the locust, then the cankerworm. For both he entreated the Lord, and he is heard in one only, so that the cankerworm should not lay everything waste to utter destruction; but the locust, flying about, devours some things and leaves others untouched.

Repent, O Lord, over this which you threatened that you would do to your people. But the repenting of God in the Scriptures we ought to understand in the same way as his sleep and his anger: not that God repents or changes his sentence, he who speaks through the prophet: I am God, and I do not change, and to whom we say: But you are the selfsame, and your years will not fail; but that, when we are converted to better things, he too repents of his sentence, so that he neither pays the just man the rewards he promised, if he turns aside to iniquity, nor the sinner the punishments he threatened, if he is converted to salvation. It is said to him who is about to repent: Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, that you may be freed like a little doe from the nets, and like a bird from the snares. If such a one has at first despised the commandments of the Lord, and afterwards, set in straits, begins to wake up, he rouses the Lord, who for him is sleeping, and says: Arise, why do you sleep, O Lord? On the other hand, those who have stored up wrath for themselves in the day of wrath will feel God angry. But if they choose repentance, the wrath will be turned into mercy, and according to our disturbances and our virtues the Lord will change in either direction, toward punishment or toward clemency.

These things the Lord God showed me, and behold, the Lord God was calling judgment to fire; and it devoured the great deep and ate up a part as well. And I said: O Lord God, be still, I beseech you; who will raise up Jacob, for he is very small? The Lord had pity over this: But this too shall not be, said the Lord God. LXX: Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold, the Lord God called judgment in fire, and it devoured the great deep, and ate up a part; and I said: O Lord God, cease; who will raise up Jacob, since he is very small? Repent, O Lord, over this; and this shall not come to be, says the Lord God. First the Lord showed the prophet the maker of the locusts at the beginning of the shoots of the late rain, and after the late rain the shearer king, or the king's shearer, and, to render word for word, the shearing of king Sennacherib, by which he sheared and laid waste everything of the ten tribes. Now the same Lord shows Nebuchadnezzar, or rather calls him and commands him to come against Judah and Jerusalem. And he calls him so that he may set the temple and Jerusalem on fire, and execute judgment in fire upon that which was once his people. And when the fire had come to judgment, to fulfil the Lord's command, it devoured the great deep, and ate up a part as well: all the cities of Judah, and the Lord's part, which was called his temple.

But since, once and for all, following the prophet Hosea and the psalmist, who says: The sons of Ephraim, bending and shooting the bow, turned back in the day of battle, we have referred the ten tribes, which were called Israel, to the person of the heretics, and the two, over which Judah presided, to the Church and the sinners of the Church, who confess indeed the right faith, but because of the filth of their vices need flames to purge them; therefore the Lord now shows that he calls judgment to fire, so that the fire may prove of what sort each one's work is, and that may be fulfilled which is written: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which you have kindled. Hence it is said also to Babylon: You have coals of fire, you will sit upon them, they will be a help to you. And in the psalm the deceitful tongue, full of lies, is said to need purging by the fire of coals: What shall be given you, or what shall be added to you, against a deceitful tongue? The sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals. Of these coals of the altar, the desolating coal is taken up with the tongs of the two testaments, and purges the unclean lips of Isaiah, so that he can prophesy the word of the Lord. The fire, then, called to judgment, first devours the deep, that is, all kinds of sins, wood, hay, stubble, and afterwards eats up a part as well, that is, it reaches his saints, who are reckoned as the Lord's own possession and in his portion; for it is time for judgment to begin from the house of the Lord. And in Ezekiel it is commanded to those who are to inflict the punishments: Begin from my saints. And in the Apostle we read: If anyone's work burns, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

And when the prophet had seen this, he said to the Lord, not as above: Be merciful, I beseech you, but: Be still, or cease, so that by his prayers he might obtain that he whom he had already seen begin should cease, especially since there is no other who can raise up Jacob, fallen and very small and humbled, except the Lord, who is able to bring back into the land of Judah those taken captive and carried off into Chaldea.

And when we have all been in sin, and have lain prostrate before the truth of the sentence, the Lord will have mercy on us, and because we are very small, he will raise us up at the time of the resurrection, or he will raise up through virtues us who lay in vices; the Lord promising this and saying: But this too shall not be. And he said well: But this too, because above he had already said: This shall not be. Not, indeed, to the end will he be angry, nor for ever will he threaten. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us according to our iniquities. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our iniquities from us. As a father has pity on his sons, so the Lord has had pity on those who fear him.

These things the Lord showed me: And behold, the Lord standing upon a plastered wall, and in his hand a mason's trowel. And the Lord said to me: What do you see, Amos? And I said: A mason's trowel. And the Lord said: Behold, I will set a trowel in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again overlay it, and the high places of the idol shall be demolished, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be made desolate; and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. LXX: Thus the Lord showed me: And behold, a man was standing upon a wall of adamant, and in his hand adamant. And the Lord said to me: What do you see, Amos? And I said: Adamant. And the Lord said to me: Behold, I will cast adamant into the midst of my people Israel. I will by no means again pass him by, and the altars of laughter shall be scattered, and the sacrifices of Israel shall be made desolate, and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. Before we discuss the adamant, which Symmachus and the LXX gave for what is written in the Hebrew as enach, it must be said briefly that Aquila rendered this word γάνωσιν and Theodotion τηκόμενον, of which the one means tinning and the other melting, so that that frying pan which we read of in Ezekiel, in which is signified the frying of the people hemmed in by siege, may be shown, through the word tinning, also in the ten tribes and in the reign of Jeroboam — who was the grandson of Jehu, under whom this prophecy is seen —. The Lord, then, is seen standing upon a wall tinned, or plastered, and in his hand tinning, or a mason's trowel, with which walls are usually overlaid, and receive not only beauty but also strength against the harm of the rains and the very frequent storms.

We have said as best we could what has been handed down to us by the Hebrews according to the truth of the history; let us pass to anagogy, setting down a few words from Xenocrates, who wrote on the natures of stones and gems: "Adamant is a stone of its own name, which in Latin we can call untamable, because it yields to no material, not even to iron. For if it is placed on an anvil and struck with a heavy blow of the hammer, the anvil and the hammer receive damage before the adamant is broken. And though fire tames all things and consumes all metals, it renders the adamant harder, so that the force of excessive heat does not blunt even the smallest corner of it. I have seen also in gold an adamant the size of a millet grain, and though the gold around it is worn away by long use and great age, the adamant alone is not worn down, and it cannot be diminished by any file, but on the contrary wears down the file, and furrows with lines whatever it touches. This stone, most hard and untamable, is dissolved by the blood of goats alone, and put into hot blood, it loses its strength. It is small and unsightly, having the colour of rust and the brilliance of crystal. And four kinds of adamant are described: the first is Indian, the second Arabian, the third Macedonian, the fourth Cyprian, possessing more or less hardness according to the character of the regions. It is said also, like electrum, to detect poisons and to resist the arts of sorcerers". Such is the Lord and Savior, who, though he was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in bearing as a man; humbling himself, made obedient unto death, and the death of the cross. Of whom Isaiah writes: He has no form nor comeliness; we saw him, and there was no beauty, despised and the last of men, a man of sorrows, and knowing how to bear infirmity. He stands upon the wall of adamant, that is, upon his saints and apostles, to whom he granted that they too should be called adamants, and, overcome by no one, should say: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? And again: I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor strength, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Peter too was a most strong adamant: the gates of hell did not prevail against him. This man and Lord, who stands upon the wall of adamant, has in his hand the adamant, which, unless it is held by the hand of God and fortified by his help, loses all its strength, as the Lord says in the Gospel: No one can snatch out of the hand of my Father. And he is so robust that it is said to him: If you pass through fire, the flame will not burn you; and the more he is beaten by temptations, the stronger he becomes, and for the name of the Savior he rejoices amid the scourges. And though he can be overcome by no one, he is dissolved by the heat of deadly lust alone. For this is said to be the nature of the blood of goats and of the goat himself, that he is most hot for lust, and that what fire cannot tame, his blood alone dissolves.

I will also proclaim confidently that there is someone who cannot be affected very much by the "hammer of the whole earth." And since the example was offered of a perceptible "hammer," I will seek a material stronger than the "hammer" which does not feel the blows from it. In searching for it I find it too in what was written: "Behold a man standing above the adamant walls, and in his adamant." History records about "adamant" that it is stronger than every "hammer" striking it, remaining unbroken and unyielding. Even if the "hammer," the devil, stands above, and the serpent, who "as an indomitable anvil," may position himself below, still "adamant" endures nothing when it is resting "in the hand of the Lord" and in his regard. Thus the two opposites to this "adamant" are the "hammer" and the immovable "anvil." Yet there is indeed among the nations a much-used proverb in the common language concerning those who are pressed by anxieties and extremely bad situations; they say, "They are 'between a hammer and an anvil.' " Still you can say that this refers to the devil and the serpent, who are always signified by names of this sort in the Scriptures for a variety of purposes. And you can say that the holy person, who is an "adamant wall" or is "adamant in the hand of the Lord," is not affected either by the "hammer" or by the "anvil," but the more one is struck, the brighter will his virtue shine.

Jesus would lead his detractors to the point of judging themselves, saying, "What do the vinedressers deserve?" They decided concerning themselves, saying, "Let him destroy the evil ones with evil." Then he explained this, saying, "Have you not read that 'the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner?' " What stone? That which is known to be lead. For see, he has said, "I am setting a plumb line in the midst of the sons of Israel." To show that he himself was this stone, he said concerning it, "Whoever knocks against that stone will be broken to pieces, but it will crush and destroy whomever it falls upon." The leaders of the people were gathered together against him and wanted his downfall because his teaching did not please them. But he said, "It will crush and destroy whomever it falls upon," because he had resisted idolatry, among other things. For "the stone that struck the image has become a great mountain, and the entire earth has been filled with it."

We read in Ezekiel that the Lord threatens that, when storm and hail arise, he will by no means plaster or clothe the wall of Israel, but will let it be broken up by the rains. Hence now too he of whom it is written, He shall be called the builder of the wall, himself the cornerstone and the builder of the house, says that he will lay down the trowel in the midst of his people Israel, and make it cease and lie idle, so that he will by no means again overlay it, and clothe and protect it with his help.

The Lord therefore sets an adamant of this kind in the midst of his people Israel, and no longer passes him by, nor does he leave off, so that the altars, which deserve laughter and derision, are scattered, and he strikes with the sword and overthrows all the mysteries of the heretics and the house of Jeroboam, who first divided the people of God.

And when the Lord, the trowel ceasing, has withdrawn his protection and, so to speak, the clothing of the wall, then the high places of the idols, which in Hebrew are called bamoth, will be demolished, and the sanctuaries of the ten tribes will be made desolate, so that Dan and Bethel are destroyed, in which the golden calves were worshipped.

And Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: Amos has rebelled against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land will not be able to bear all his words. For thus says Amos: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall go captive out of his land. And Amaziah said to Amos: You who see, go, flee into the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and there you shall prophesy; and in Bethel you shall not again prophesy any more, because it is the sanctuary of the king and it is the house of the kingdom. LXX: And Amaziah sent the priests of Bethel to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: Amos is making gatherings against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land will not be able to bear all his words. For thus says Amos: Jeroboam shall die by the sword. But Israel shall be led captive out of his land. And Amaziah said to Amos: You who see, go out, withdraw into the land of Judah, and live there, and there you shall prophesy; but in Bethel you shall not again prophesy any more, because it is the sanctuary of the king, and the house of the kingdom. It is a proverb of Solomon, or rather a command: Do not rebuke the wicked, lest they hate you. And on the contrary he gave a precept about the good: Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. In another place also: He who rebukes, he says, the ways of a man will have more favor than he who speaks what pleases. And so Amos too spoke to the people out of a desire for their amendment, and from the words of God threatened terrible things, so that they might repent, return to God and forsake their idols. Then the priest of Bethel, in which was the golden calf that Jeroboam the son of Nebat and the others who had succeeded him in the rule had set up, sends to Jeroboam, the grandson of Jehu, someone to report to him, saying: Amos has rebelled against you, or, is making gatherings and assemblies in the midst of your kingdom, Israel; and he says such great things that the land of your kingdom cannot bear his words. And he dares to send to the king of Israel as though he were a high priest, fearing that if the people should be converted to the worship of God, he would lose the glory of his priesthood. And though he had heard two things, the high places for idols will be demolished, or the altars of laughter, and the sanctuaries, or ceremonies, of Israel will be laid waste, and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword, because the idols over which Amaziah the priest presided were to be utterly destroyed, and God would rise up against Jeroboam with the sword unless he repented, he sends no word about the wrong done to himself, so that he may seem to grieve only over the insult to the king.

All that we have interpreted concerning Amaziah, and Jeroboam, and Israel, and Amos must be referred τροπολογικῶς (tropologically) to the heretics, whose priest Amaziah is accustomed at times to send to Jeroboam, the heretical king and patron of heretics, and to accuse holy men and heralds of the faith before him, and to order the teachers not to preach in Israel, lest they act against the king's will, because Bethel, that is, the house of God, and the false Church is the sanctuary of the king and the house of the kingdom. For they are accustomed to say: The emperor is in communion with us; and if anyone resists them, they at once bring the slanderous charge: So you act against the emperor? You despise the commands of the Augustus? And yet let us consider that many Christian kings who have persecuted the Church of God, and tried to establish the Arian impiety in the whole world, outdo Jeroboam king of Israel in wickedness. For he despised the commands of the false priest, and would give no answer to his prompting. But these, with their many Amaziahs as their priests, by hunger and want, by prisons and exiles, have put to death the prophet Amos and the priests of the Lord.

For thus, he says, says Amos. You are wrong, slanderer. For in all his words the prophet does not speak as though from himself, but always sets at the head: Thus says the Lord. Therefore he makes out that the prophet Amos said what the Lord spoke, so as to provoke the king the more to vengeance. What are the things that Amos says? Jeroboam shall die by the sword. In this too you lie: for he did not say: He shall die; for if he had said this, it would seem that he did not admit repentance; but he said that the Lord will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword, threatening punishment, not inflicting it. Nor does he say: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, but: I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. For Jeroboam did not die by the sword, but his house, that is, his son Zechariah, was destroyed when God struck him. And Israel, he says, shall go captive out of his land; add the rest too: if he does not repent.

Moreover Jeroboam, despising the utterly empty messages of Amaziah, would give no answer to what he had sent him; whereupon Amaziah takes upon himself the authority of the priestly eminence, and speaks to Amos: You who see, go, flee into the land of Judah. The prophets, as we have often said, were formerly called seers, because they beheld with the eyes of the heart the things they said were to come. The prudent reader may ask why he calls him a seer, and by the prophetic name, the man whom he compels to leave the land of Israel. To him the answer must be either that he says it in mockery, κατὰ ἀντίφρασιν (by antiphrasis), since everything Amos says is a lie, or that he saw there were many among the people who listened to him gladly; for which reason he also reported to the king: Amos is making gatherings against you; he does not dare to do him an open injury, lest he seem to offend those who listen to him. Go, he says, into the land of Judah, in which you were born, where madmen are gladly listened to, and eat your bread there, or live there, or at any rate practise your art there, by which you may find yourself food, and prophesy there, because you have many there whom you are used to leading astray; but in Bethel, in which I am priest, you shall not prophesy any more, because it is the sanctuary of the king and the house of the kingdom. And this he says as a false priest, flattering the royal eminence, so that he does not say: It is the sanctuary of our God, and the house of the idol, but the sanctuary of the king and the house of the kingdom; for all who worship false gods have this custom, to ascribe their own pride to kings, so that what they themselves do may seem to have been done by the king.

How good it is to raise up eyes of faith to the power of this worker, the Holy Spirit, and to look here and there at our ancestors in the Old and New Testaments. With the eyes of my faith open, I gaze on David, on Amos, on Daniel, on Peter, on Paul, on Matthew—and I am filled with a desire to behold the nature of this worker, the Holy Spirit. But I fall short. The Spirit filled a boy who played upon the harp, and made him a psalmist; on a shepherd and herdsman who pruned sycamore trees, and made him a prophet; on a child given to abstinence, and made him a judge of his elders; on a fisherman, and made him a preacher; on one who persecuted the church, and made him the teacher of the Gentiles; on a tax collector, and made him an Evangelist. What a skilled worker this Spirit is! There is no question of delay in learning what the Spirit teaches us. No sooner does the Spirit touch our minds in regard to anything than we are taught; the Spirit's very touch is teaching. The Spirit changes the human heart in a moment, filling it with light. Suddenly we are no longer what we were; suddenly we are something we never used to be.

If the spirit of prophecy had always been present to the prophets, the prophet Amos when asked would never have said, "I am no prophet"; he even adds, "neither a prophet's son, but I am a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit." How then was he no prophet who foretold so many true things concerning the future? Or in what way was he a prophet if he at the time disowned the truth concerning himself? At the moment that he was called in question, he felt that the spirit of prophecy was not with him. He bore true testimony concerning himself in saying, "I am not a prophet." Yet he added afterward, "Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. Therefore thus said the Lord, 'Your wife shall be a harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line, and you shall die in a polluted land.' " By these words of the prophet it is plainly shown that while he was bearing that testimony about himself he was filled, and on the instant rewarded with the spirit of prophecy, because he humbly acknowledged himself to be no prophet.

"And Amaziah sends, etc." In fact, since the prophet had received the order to prophesy beside the temple of the idols, so that his words might be heard not only by the ten tribes but also by the people living around, Amaziah, the priest of the temple, thinks that if these words were addressed to the people for some time, inevitably they would have been afraid and would not have come to worship the idols anymore, and therefore he would have lost authority. So he sends his complaint to excite the reaction of the king against the prophet, asking that either he was executed or expelled from that place. But since the king was afraid to harm the prophet, Amaziah dares say to the prophet by mocking him and laughing at him—in fact, the word seer is used with scorn: "Go, flee away to the land of Judah." That is, there you will be treated justly by receiving the wage for your role as a prophet, because those of the house of Judah are accustomed to taking care of their prophets. This priest of the demons had believed that the prophet had taken up his task as if it was an ordinary job, that is, to make a living as he himself had done. He imagined that the motive of Amos was to stuff himself with food. But the prophet answered, according to the Greek text, "I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son." That is, I have not learned this profession as a trade nor have I inherited it from my fathers, but it is the work of divine grace that is given to those who seek after God. "I was a goat herder and dug around sycamore trees." Other versions read, "I looked for the fruits of the sycamore trees," or "I scraped the wild fig trees," or "I made incisions on the fruits of the sycamores." This meaning is, sometimes I pastured goats and sheep as well, sometimes I tilled the ground by digging and raking and irrigating around the trees. By mentioning the sycamore trees, which are wild fig trees, he refers to all trees.

And Amos answered, and said to Amaziah: I am not a prophet, and I am not the son of a prophet, but I am a shepherd plucking sycamores. And the Lord took me when I was following the flock, and said to me: Go, prophesy to my people Israel. And now hear the word of the Lord: You say: You shall not prophesy over Israel, and you shall not drip upon the house of the idol. Therefore thus said the Lord: Your wife shall commit fornication in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your ground shall be measured with the line, and you shall die in a polluted land, and Israel shall go captive out of his land. LXX: And Amos answered, and said to Amaziah: I was not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but a herder plucking sycamines. And the Lord took me from the sheep, and the Lord said to me: Go, and prophesy over my people Israel. And now hear the word of the Lord: You say: Do not prophesy over Israel, and do not gather hearers against the house of Jacob. Therefore thus says the Lord: Your wife shall commit fornication in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided with the line, and you shall die in an unclean land; but Israel shall be led captive out of his land. What Scripture records that the blessed apostles did, when the scribes and Pharisees warned them not to teach in the name of Jesus, and they answered, saying: We must obey God rather than men, we recognize that the prophet Amos also did: when the high priest of the idols ordered him not to prophesy in Bethel, he not only prophesies, and shows that he fears God who sends him more than the man who forbids him, but boldly and freely announces punishments to the very man who tried to forbid him and to hinder the word of God. Not only, he says, am I not a prophet, or, was not — of which the one belongs to humility, the other to truth — nor the son of a prophet, descended from a prophetic stock, but when I was a herdsman and was stripping blackberries from the brambles, the Lord took me as I followed the flocks. For herdsman, which in Hebrew is called boger, Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion and the Fifth edition translated βουκόλον, one who pastures herds of cattle, not sheep. The Seventy alone said αἰπόλον, which properly means a herder of goats, ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰπολίου, which indeed means a flock that lives on the heights, to show that flocks of goats always climb rocks and rough crags and higher places. But since he adds: And the Lord took me ἐκ τῶν προβάτων, that is, from the flocks, he seems rather to mean sheep than goats, although we read at the beginning of Leviticus that both sheep and goats are designated by the name of flocks. For thus the Lord speaks: If you offer ἀπὸ τῶν προβάτων, that is, from the flocks to the Lord, a lamb or a kid, and a sheep or a goat. Moreover, what he says, plucking sycamines, which Aquila translated searching sycamores, and Symmachus having sycamores, some explain in this way, holding that sycamines is the name of a kind of tree that grows in the plains of Palestine and bears wild figs; and these, if they are not plucked, produce very bitter little figs and are spoiled by gnats. To us, however, since the wilderness in which Amos lived produces no tree of this kind, it seems rather that he means brambles, which bear blackberries and relieve the hunger and want of herders. However the reader may wish to take it, this must be said: that the Lord took up a lowly and rustic herder, and sent him to his people Israel, and commanded him to go out from his own land and proceed to Samaria, and there prophesy the things that are to come.

Amos also said, "I was no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but only a herdsman, a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And God took me." But he did not say this to exalt himself, but to stop their mouths that suspected him as no prophet, and to show that he is no deceiver, nor says of his own mind the things which he says.

Since, therefore, he says, when the Lord commands me to speak, you, Amaziah, say to me: You shall not prophesy over Israel, and you shall not drip upon the house of the idol, hear what the Lord threatens against you. For house of the idol, in the Hebrew is written beth isaac, that is, house of laughter, for Isaac means laughter; which the LXX translated house of Jacob, understanding one name in place of another, and not the thing. Again, where we have put: And you shall not drip, Symmachus translated: you shall not rebuke. Now that the prophets drip is an idiom of the Scriptures, because they do not bring on the whole wrath of God at once, but announce it in small drops by their threatening.

According to tropology, Amaziah the priest means strong and rigid, because, rebellious and fierce, he forbids the churchman and true prophet to bring forth the words and the teaching of God, and prohibits him from correcting the erring people. His wife, the false Church, will lie open to the fornication of all, and his sons and daughters, whom he wickedly begot in error, will be struck by the Lord's sword; his ground too and all his possession will be the portion of demons, and he himself will die in a polluted land, which does not have God as its inhabitant but is contaminated by the many errors of a depraved religion; and all the people who take to themselves the false name of Israel will go captive out of their land, so as not to serve God, but to submit their necks to the yoke of heretics and demons.

Because, therefore, you said to me: You shall not prophesy, your wife shall commit fornication in the city; which Symmachus translated better, πορνευθήσεται, not that she herself will commit fornication, but that, in the passive voice, violated by others, she will suffer fornication. And it is a great grief and an incredible disgrace when a husband, in the middle of the city, with everyone present, cannot prevent the outrage done to his wife. Your sons also, he says, and your daughters shall fall by the sword. The grief over a violated daughter is not so great as over a defiled wife, nor the grief over a slain wife so great as over slaughtered children. For a husband would more willingly have his wife killed than defiled. Nor is this enough for the outrage, unless his land too is divided with the line by the enemy, and receives new tillers. Amaziah himself also, who now glories in the power of the priesthood, will by no means die in his own land, but, led into captivity, will die in a land polluted with idols; and he will not die before he sees the people he had deceived enslaved and captive.