Amos setting & dates

The Setting of Amos

Amos’s ministry spans the two kingdoms. He came from Tekoa, a village in the hill country of Judah about ten miles south of Jerusalem, where he worked as a shepherd and a tender of sycamore-fig trees. From this southern home God sent him north to prophesy against the kingdom of Israel, and much of the action centers on the northern religious and political capitals: Bethel, the royal shrine where he clashed with the priest Amaziah, and Samaria, the capital city whose wealthy elite he denounced. Gilgal too is named among the shrines whose worship God rejected.

The book’s horizon, however, is far wider than Israel. Amos’s opening oracles sweep across the surrounding nations (Damascus (Syria) to the northeast, the Philistine cities of Gaza and others to the southwest, Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, Edom and Ammon and Moab across the Jordan, and Judah to the south) before settling on Israel itself. The effect is to show that the God who speaks through this Judean shepherd rules every nation on the map and will judge them all.

Timeline

• c. 760 BC - Amos, a shepherd of Tekoa, is called to prophesy during the reigns of Jeroboam II (Israel) and Uzziah (Judah).
• A time of prosperity - Israel enjoys wealth and security, but injustice and empty religion flourish beneath the surface.
• Amos’s warnings - He announces judgment on the nations and on Israel, and clashes with Amaziah at Bethel.
• 722 BC - Within a generation, Assyria destroys the northern kingdom, fulfilling Amos’s prophecies.