Some critics have remarked upon a certain rusticity in the style of Amos,* and accounted for it by reference to the occupation, which he is said to have followed. With some exceptions, however, as to orthography and grammar, which are quite as probably to be traced to the copyists, his style can scarcely be said to betray any want of cultivation. His figures, as was natural from his early circumstances, are mostly drawn from rural objects; but being well chosen, they have, on this account, only the more congruity and force. And in some respects the structure of his composition is much more than commonly artificial. The closely resembling forms of the remonstrances against the several nations, specified in the first chapter and the beginning of the second, present an example.† Another of the same kind occurs in a portion of the fourth chapter; ‡ and another in the description of the visions, which are described in the first half of the seventh.

We have an instance, in this book, of that bold form of illustration of political disaster, of which I spoke in a

the name of prophet, occurs in the first book of Kings xxii. 15–23; a passage which I suppose no one can read carefully, and entertain a doubt, that Micaiah, there spoken of, did not mean to describe appearances which literally he had witnessed, but to use a form of address suited to give to his warning the greatest energy and impression. Do I not need to be pardoned for asking the question, whether any one understands Micaiah as saying, that he actually saw God inviting a deception to be practised, in some way, on Ahab, and then commissioning a lying spirit to animate the false prophets in whom Ahab placed confidence? Yet, if verbal simplicity of narrative, apart from all other considerations, is to be taken as proof that a literal transaction is described, to what bold representation of the kind, in the Later Prophets, could the argument more confidently be applied, than to this language of Micaiah?

So Jerome says ("Præfatio in Amos"); “Ex numero pastorum fuit Amos imperitus sermone, sed non scientiâ.

The reference in Amos ii. 1, appears to be to the event related in 2 Kings iii. 26, 27.

former Lecture.* The subject is the calamities destined to come upon Israel for the punishment of its sins;

"It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah,
That I will cause the sun to go down at noon,

And will darken the land in the clear day.

I will turn your feasts into mourning,
And all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth upon all loins,
And baldness upon all heads.

I will fill the land with mourning, as for an only son,

And its end shall be as a day of bitter woe." — viii. 9, 10.

In closing these remarks upon the book before us, I select three passages, which appear to me more obscure than others, for the purpose of attempting to elucidate them by means of a brief paraphrase.

"Can two walk together,

Unless they agree together?

Will the lion roar in the forest,
When he seeth no prey?

Will the young lion cry aloud from his den,

If he have nothing to seize?

Can a bird fall into a snare upon the earth,

Where none is set for him?

Will one take up a snare from the ground,

When it hath caught nothing?

Shall a trumpet be blown in the city,

And the people not be afraid?

Shall there be evil upon the city,

And Jehovah not have done it?

Surely the Lord Jehovah doeth nothing,

But he revealeth his secret

To his servants the prophets.

When the lion roareth, who will not fear?

When the Lord Jehovah speaketh, who will not prophesy?"

-iii. 3-8.

The connexion here I take to be as follows; “Can you expect me any longer to be your friend, when you no longer agree with me, when your conduct no longer

* See pp. 328, 329.

accords with my will? Do you despise my threats? Will the lion roar, except when about to take prey, or the young lion, except when he is going to seize? No more do I threaten, except when my judgments are near at hand. And when your calamities come, remember, that it was as certainly by my appointment, as a bird's falling into a snare shows, that a snare has been set. A trap will not spring, except it have caught something; no more will my judgments be sent, except to take full effect. - Will you still disregard these threats, or refuse to trace their execution to me? When an alarm is given, is it not to be expected, that the people will heed it? and when evil befalls them, it can only be under my providence. Listen then to him, who, in the admonitions he conveys to you, is truly denouncing the vengeance against you which I mean to execute. When I speak, as when a lion. roars, all ought to fear. When I declare my will, all ought to make it known [or, to be instructed]."

Woe to them, that ask for the day of Jehovah!

What is the day of Jehovah to you?

It shall be darkness and not light.

As if a man fled from a lion,

And a bear met him;

Or went into a house and leaned his hand on a wall,

And a serpent bit him;

So shall the day of Jehovah be darkness, and not light,
Even thick darkness, and no brightness in it."

v. 18-20.

The force of these verses, as I conceive it, may be represented thus. "Alas! for those who ask, When will that day of vengeance, of which you speak, arrive? who tauntingly inquire, Where is the promise of his coming? That day will come, and, when it comes, will change the contemptuous mood of such scorners. will bring them no joy; it will allow them no more in

It

their levity; but meet them with its array of terrific dangers on every side."

The sense intended to be conveyed by the three visions described in the first nine verses of the seventh chapter, I understand to be, that Jehovah had repeatedly spared the people of Israel, when they had so provoked him as to deserve extirpation, but that now the measure of their iniquities was full, and he would spare no longer. The representation here is in effect the same as is made in the first chapter, respecting Judah. and some heathen nations, where it is said, that "for three transgressions and for four," that is, for a hopeless repetition of transgression,-Jehovah would no longer withhold the due recompense. The prophet exhibits him, in the visionary delineations, as twice meditating the destruction of Israel, and each time, before the ruin was consummated,-while the locusts were yet devouring, and the fire had not reached the dwellings, — as being moved by prayer, so as to relent in his purpose, and arrest the destroyer; but as at last so incensed at the obduracy of the reprieved criminals, as to command the agents of destruction to go on, and accomplish all their work.

LECTURE XXXVI.

HOSEA AND JOEL.

TIME OF HOSEA. — SUBJECT OF HIS PROPHECY. - MEANING OF THE
REPRESENTATION, THAT THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME TO HIM.-
FIGURATIVE IMPORT OF LANGUAGE DESCRIBING CERTAIN ACTIONS
DONE BY HIM. EXPLANATION OF THE REPRESENTATIONS HERE
EMPLOYED. - ANTICIPATION OF HAPPIER TIMES, AND OF THE Reign
OF A PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID. IMPORT OF REFER-
ENCES BY HOSEA TO THE MESSIAH'S REIGN, — AND TO
THE FU-
TURE FORTUNES OF HIS NATION. WANT OF CORRESPONDENCE
BETWEEN SOME OF HIS VIEWS AND THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. —
LOWTH'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS STYLE.-TIME OF JOEL. — SUBJECT
OF HIS PROPHECY. HIS DESCRIPTION OF AN INVASION OF LO-
CUSTS, - AND CALL UPON THE PEOPLE TO SEEK SAFETY BY RE-
MEANING OF HIS REPRESENTATION OF JEHOVAH'S
SPEAKING. HIS REFERENCE TO THE TIMES OF THE MESSIAH.

PENTANCE.

It was mentioned in my last Lecture, that Hosea, like Amos, addressed himself chiefly to the kingdom of Israel. Who Hosea was, we have no knowledge, other than what is furnished by the inscription prefixed to his book, which is of doubtful authenticity, though there is, perhaps, no sufficient reason for distrusting the statement which it contains. He is therein represented as the son of a certain Beeri, and as having flourished in the reign of Jeroboam, king of Israel, and in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Between the last year of Jeroboam and the first of Hezekiah, intervened a period of fifty-six years.* Accordingly, if we rely on the

* Comp. 2 Kings xiv. 29; xv. 8, 13, 17, 22, 27; xvii. 1; xviii. 1.