Commentary on Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah and Nahum John Calvin
Amos 1
Amos 1:1
1. The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
1. Verba Amos, qui fuit inter pastores (vel, pecuarios) ex Tucua: quae vidit super
Israel diebus Uzziah regis Juhudah, et diebus Jarobeam filii Joas regis Israel, biennio ante motum (vel {χασμα}) terrae. nominibus, quia de sensu Prophetae satis constabit. Nunc venio ad inscriptionem libri.)
Amos boasts not here, in speaking of his own words, that he adduced anything as from himself, but avows himself to be only the minister of God; for he immediately adds that he received them by a vision. God himself raised up the Prophets and employed their labor; And, at the same time, guided them by his Spirit, that they might not announce anything but what had been received from him, but faithfully deliver what had proceeded from him alone. These two things then, well agree together, --- that the prophecies which follow were the words of Amos and that they were words revealed to him from above; for the word {,}חזהchese, which Amos uses, properly means, to see by revelation; 23 and these revelations were called prophecies.
But he says, that he was among the shepherds of Tekoa. This was a mean towns and had been shortly before surrounded by walls and had ever been previously a village. He then mentions not his country, because it was celebrated, or as though
23There is an incongruity in our language in saying, "The words of Amos, which he saw." To see words, except when written, is no proper expression. To avoid this, Newcome has paraphrased the passage thus, — "Which had come to him in a vision." There would be no necessity for this, had we a suitable term for "words," which in Hebrew has the same latitude of meaning with {λογος} in Greek. Dathius renders it, Effata, oracles. They were the things, the matters, the events, which the Prophet saw, or were discovered to him in a supernatural manner. The faculty of sight seems to have been used, because scenes were presented often to the prophets, when these communications were made to them; and then seeing became the term to designate these divine revelations, when nothing but messages, either of mercy or of judgment, were conveyed to the prophets. --- Ed.