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12Words spoken by the wise bring them favor, but the lips of fools consume them.
5Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother's womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything.
6In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
8Even those who live many years should rejoice in them all; yet let them remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.
9Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the inclination of your heart and the desire of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.
10Banish anxiety from your mind, and put away pain from your body; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.
12 Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;
Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. 14For God will bring every deed into judgment, includingg every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Vanity (Heb “hebel”) occurs thirty-seven times in Ecclesiastes, and is perhaps its most important term. The Heb word describes wind, breath, and vapor, but often refers metaphorically to the fleeting nature of such things as life or beauty (e.g., Job 7.16; Pss 39.5; 78.33; Prov 31.30), the ineffective character of knowledge, labor, or wealth (e.g., Job 9.29; 21.34; Ps 94.11; Prov 13.11), or the unreliability and emptiness of non-Israelite gods and peoples (e.g., Deut 32.21; Isa 30.7; Lam 4.17). Qohelet uses “hebel” in similar ways; but “breath,” though fleeting, is constitutive of life itself.
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The book of Hosea consists of a narrative about the prophet and sayings attributed to him. Hosea began his career in the final days of Jeroboam II (1.1), whose long reign (788–747 bce) capped a century of political stability and economic prosperity in the Northern Kingdom of Israel under the dynasty founded by Jehu in 842.
When Hosea's prophetic career ended is uncertain, though his oracles appear to allude to events right up to the Assyrian siege of Samaria in 722 (13.10–11,16).
After the destruction of Samaria, Hosea's words were preserved and transmitted in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Some or all of the references to Judah may have been added in this era as Hosea's words were reinterpreted to address an analogous situation there (e.g., 1.7; 3.5; 11.12). It is also possible, however, that Hosea himself, though a northern prophet, addressed Judah as well.
As a prophet of the Northern Kingdom, Hosea presents a unique perspective among the prophets as an Israelite native, not a Judahite like his near contemporary Amos, who viewed the events from the south.
The book of Hosea stands first in that part of the latter prophets called the Book of the Twelve, also known as the Minor Prophets because of their relative brevity in comparison with Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Along with Amos, Hosea was the first of the “writing prophets,” those prophets whose speeches were collected and edited as literary documents.
Hosea often refers to the Northern Kingdom under the titles of “Ephraim,” its largest tribe, and “Samaria,” its capital (see 4.17n.).
With frequent allusions to earlier Israelite traditions, Hosea portrayed Israel's entire history as a spiritual decline from an ideal time, its “youth” in the period of the Exodus from Egypt (2.15; 11.1).
Hosea issued an unrelenting critique of existing political and religious institutions. Through dynastic kingship, political alliances with other nations, and, above all, illicit religious practices, Israel had violated the divine claim upon it for exclusive dependence upon and worship of the Lord. As divine punishment, Israel would be stripped of political and religious institutions too corrupt to be reformed and its land left desolate and barren. Israel would, in essence, find itself again in the wilderness. The severity of the prophetic critique is juxtaposed with language of divine longing
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In the short term, Hosea presented the annihilation of the Northern Kingdom as inevitable. Drawing, however, on a pattern discerned in Israel's sacred traditions, Hosea ultimately offered hope. In this new wilderness, as in the Sinai desert, Israel would recognize its dependence on the Lord and be restored to a harmonious state with God and with nature (2.14–23).
Hosea is best known for his metaphors, drawn from the natural world, agriculture, and kinship structures: Israel as the Lord's wife, Israel as the Lord’s son. These familial metaphors are introduced in two narrative sections about the prophet's own life at the beginning of the book (1.2–2.1; 3.1–5). The prophet's personal life is presented as a paradigm of the relationship between the Lord and Israel.
Hosea deals with Gomer as the Lord deals with Israel. Gomer is “a wife of whoredom” (1.2), best understood as “a promiscuous woman.” She bore three children, of whom Hosea was perhaps not the father (2.4–5). After a period of marital separation, Hosea took her back (3.1–5). In a similar way, Israel, the Lord's unfaithful wife, will be separated from her husband and home but, just as Hosea bought back Gomer (3.2), the Lord will restore Israel.
Hosea's image of Israel's sexual misconduct may be more than symbolic; its illicit rituals are described as having a sexual dimension (e.g., 4.13–19; 9.1).
Chapters 1–3 contain the material about Hosea's marriage and can be understood against the background of the last days of Jeroboam II, since 1.4 announces the demise of the Jehu dynasty of which Jeroboam was the final ruler.
Hosea Section 1
The second major section, chs 4–14, consists entirely of prophetic speeches that seem to allude to the chaotic days following the demise of the house of Jehu and the prolonged Assyrian crisis. Boundaries between individual speech units in this second section are hard to discern. It seems to fall into two parts (chs 4–11; 12–14), rhetorically couched as legal indictments of Israel for breach of covenant (4.1; 12.2), and ending with images of restoration (11.1–11; 14.1–7).
Hosea Section 2
9Those who are wise understand these things; those who are discerning know them. For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.
The book of Amos is a compilation of sayings attributed to the prophet Amos, who was active in the first half of the eighth century bce, during the long and peaceful reigns of Jeroboam II of Israel (788–747 bce; Am 1.1) and Uzziah of Judah (785–733 bce).
Sounds familiar… “Nothing new under the sun”
Amos, himself a farmer and herder from Tekoa, a small village in Judah, who was probably active as a prophet during the decade 760–750 bce.
Amos denounced the society of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, in vivid language, bitterly describing the decadent opulence, immorality, and smug piety of the elite who “trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth” (2.7). Amos's program, in contrast, called for “justice” and “righteousness” (5.7,24; 6.12), terms that connote social equality and concern for the disadvantaged (Isa 5.7; Mic 6.8).
Amos also condemned impure religion, which for him and the other prophets meant worship of deities other than the Lord, the use of images (5.26) to represent God...
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The narrative about Amos's encounter with Amaziah (7.1–7) and the superscription (1.1) yield the only portrait of the prophet. A native of the Southern Kingdom of Judah who raised livestock and tended fruit trees, Amos prophesied to and in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Within a few decades of Amos's prophetic activity, the Northern Kingdom saw devastation and destruction which made his foreboding words all the more sobering.
Amos's prophetic career was roughly contemporaneous with that of Hosea, though Amos probably preceded him. Chronologically, then, Amos inaugurated the era of classical prophecy.
In the Septuagint the book of Amos directly follows Hosea. The traditional arrangement of the Book of the Twelve (see p. 971) in the Masoretic Text and in English translations, however, is based not solely on chronology but often on specific verbal similarities or catchwords that link the end of one book to the beginning of the next.
Amos is linked to the preceding book of Joel by identical phrases (see Joel 3.16a and Am 1.2a) and to the following book of Obadiah by a simila...
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The book of Amos has three major parts: chs 1–2 are presented as a single speech, an ethical tour of the region from the divine perspective, which climaxes in judgment on Israel itself; chs 3–6 are the least unified section, a collection of short prophetic sayings indicting Israel for sin and injustice; chs 7–9 contain the visions of Amos, as well as the Amaziah narrative (7.10–17), and a final speech of comfort (9.11–15) addressed not to Israel but to Judah.
Some of Amos's sayings are presented as messenger speeches (“Thus says the Lord”), others as visions (“This is what the Lord showed me”), especially in chs 7–9.
Amos, in a legal style of indictment followed by punishment (“therefore . . .”) announced judgments (e.g., 1.3–2.16), delivered funeral orations (e.g., 5.1–2) to lament the fate of Israel, and gave exhortations (e.g., 5.6). He rarely encouraged (but see 9.11–15 and the notes there). In addition to the preceding types of prophetic sayings, the book contains three hymnic fragments (4.13; 5.8–9; 9.5–6) and one narrative (7.10–17).
Though Amos affirmed the special quality of God's relationship with Israel, he stressed that it entailed a special ethical responsibility (3.1–2). Historically, the agent of this divine punishment would be the Assyrian army (not mentioned in Amos, but see Isa 10.5–11). The frequent references to exile in Amos (e.g., 3.11; 6.7; 7.17) reflect a grim threat: the Assyrian imperial practice of deporting and transplanting conquered peoples.
Amos described himself as “a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees” (7.14). The latter tree is not the same as a North American “sycamore” (Platanus occidentalis), but a type of wild fig tree (Ficus sycomorus). These wild figs were gathered by poor people. The small fruit of this tree was inferior to that from the domesticated fig tree (Ficus carica). By “dressing” or gashing the small fruit of this tree, Amos and his cohorts hastened their ripening. This single, vivid detail about Amos's background in 7.14 speaks volumes about the prophet's ethics and harsh tone. It explains his
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Amos rebuked far more often than he comforted. This arborist with his knife understood that pruning was required for revitalization and new growth. Amos lashed out at the elite's prosperity gained at the expense of the poor, upsetting their “baskets of summer fruit” (8.1–2).
The book of Amos begins and ends with references to an earthquake (1.1 and the images of shaking in 9.1–9). The exact year is unknown (760 has been proposed), but some archaeological evidence of a catastrophe exists. Did this earthquake, so severe that it was recalled centuries later (Zech 14.5), offer cosmic validation of Amos's preaching?
3Do two walk together unless they have made an appointment? 4Does a lion roar in the forest, when it has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from its den, if it has caught nothing? 5Does a bird fall into a snare on the earth, when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when it has taken nothing? 6Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster befall a city, unless the Lord has done it? 7Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. 8The lion has roared; who will not fear? The
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8The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name,
11Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
12For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. 13Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time.
14Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said.
Amos means “one supported” (by the Lord); for a longer form of the same name, see “Amasiah” (“Yah[weh] supports”; 2 Chr 17.16).
The book of Jonah is a story about a prophet rather than a collection of his prophecies, as we find in the other prophetical books. It is the fifth of the Minor Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, where its placement between Obadiah and Micah reflects midrashic traditions concerning the dating of Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah. The Septuagint places Jonah as the sixth of the twelve Minor Prophets and Nahum as the seventh, an arrangement also reflected in 2 Esd 1.38–40.
Jonah son of Amittai is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible only in 2 Kings 14.25 as a prophet who prophesied in the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the days of King Jeroboam II in the mid-eighth century bce.
