Stories of the Prophets Part 5

"Amaziah!"

"The High Priest!"

The people whispered to each other and an expectant silence followed, as the venerable priest walked through the row of bowed heads, toward the sanctuary. He stopped in front of Amos and looked at him curiously.

Amaziah was an old man, but as erect as a cedar in Lebanon. He was dressed in an ephod, the holy garment of his office. The robe was of fine twined linen, with threads of blue, scarlet and purple, embroidered in gold. Two shoulder pieces, fastened to the shoulders of the ephod with cords of "wreathed gold," came down the front of the garment to just above the girdle, where they were fastened with two golden rings.

Held by these cords above, and by blue ribbons through the golden rings below, was the breastplate, the insignia of the High Priest. On the front of the breastplate, in gold settings, were twelve precious stones, four rows of three stones each, on each of which was engraved the name of one of the tribes of Israel. A mitre on his head completed the High Priest's holy vestments.

Thus brilliantly arrayed, "for glory and for beauty," Amaziah made a great contrast to the simply clad shepherd, robed in his woolen mantle, as they faced each other.

The splendor of Amaziah, his age and his authority, the tension caused by the struggle that was imminent between the Priest and the Prophet, overawed the a.s.sembly. There was a deep silence, like the calm before a heavy downpour.

Amos, cool and collected, always prepared for an emergency, bowed low to Amaziah out of respect to his gray head. Amaziah, who was equally prepared for an emergency, smiled at Amos, kindly, in greeting.

Amos, of course, did not know that Amaziah was working out a plan that had been outlined previous to his starting for the sanctuary. Only those who were in the Priest's confidence knew that he had sent a message to King Jeroboam, when it was reported that a crowd had gathered about Amos and that the Prophet would, no doubt, deliver another address. The message to Jeroboam read:

"Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear his words. For thus hath Amos said, 'Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.'"

The messenger proceeded, post haste, to the palace of the king, and Amaziah, quietly and with dignity, went to the sanctuary.

Hardly had Amos lifted his head from his low salute, when Amaziah addressed him:

"O seer! Go, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there; but prophesy not again any more in Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the royal residence."

How the Priest misunderstood the Prophet! Just because Bethel was the king's sanctuary and the royal residence and the seat of all the mighty in the land of Israel, Amos had selected it, above all other places, to preach his message there.

But Amaziah's little speech contained something more important to Amos than this. Amaziah had addressed the Prophet as "seer," he had taken him for the leader of a "School of Prophets." Amos immediately disclaimed such a questionable distinction. He answered Amaziah:

"I am no Prophet, nor am I the son of a Prophet; but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, when G.o.d took me from following the flock and G.o.d said to me, 'Go, prophesy against My people Israel.'"

Entirely unprepared for such an answer, and not quite certain whether he understood what Amos meant by his claim that he had taken his orders direct from G.o.d, Amaziah was disconcerted. Amos did not give the Priest a chance to recover from his surprise and continued:

"Now, therefore, hear thou the word of G.o.d: 'Thou sayest, "Prophesy not against Israel, nor preach against the house of Isaac."' Therefore, thus saith G.o.d, 'Thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shall die upon an unclean soil, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of this land.'"

The fearlessness of the Prophet in attacking the High Priest dismayed Amaziah and his followers greatly. The crowd, too, by its acclamations, was evidently siding with Amos. Amaziah was, therefore, placed on the defensive. In broken and halting sentences he defended himself and the people. The ancient laws of Israel, he pointed out, were being adhered to by all Israelites. He, for one, was not afraid, even if the Day of G.o.d, the judgment day, should come to-morrow.

Now, a man like Amaziah might not fear the strict judgment which, Amos said, G.o.d was to visit upon Israel; but, how about those who were guilty of the crimes of which G.o.d, through the Prophet, was accusing Israel? Amos understood this, though Amaziah did not. The Prophet was speaking to all the people and not to one man in particular.

Therefore, he continued:

"Woe unto those that desire the Day of G.o.d!

Wherefore would ye have the Day of G.o.d?

It is darkness and not light.

It is when one flees from a lion, And a bear meets him; Or goes into a house and leans his hand upon a wall, And a serpent bites him.

Shall not the Day of G.o.d be darkness and not light, Yea, murky darkness, without a ray of light?"

That is why, retorted the High Priest, the people come to Bethel and Gilgal and the other sanctuaries. They bring their sacrifices to G.o.d, that He may forgive their sins, against the coming of the Day of G.o.d, when all the guilty shall be judged and punished.

Amos did not interrupt Amaziah because he was an old man, and Amos knew what courtesy was due the aged. But when the Priest had finished, the Prophet, with fine sarcasm, showed the uselessness and selfishness of the whole artificial scheme as practiced at the sanctuaries:

"Come to Bethel and transgress, At Gilgal increase your transgressions, And bring in the morning your sacrifices, And every third day your t.i.thes!

Burn some leaven bread as a thanks-offering, And proclaim aloud the voluntary offerings, For you love to do so, O Israelites!"

The sarcastic smile, however, suddenly faded from the speaker's lips, as he asked:

"Did ye bring me sacrifices and meal-offerings in the wilderness, forty years, O House of Israel?"

Then, with the power and fervor of the G.o.d-inspired man he was, Amos denounced bitterly the whole system of wors.h.i.+ping G.o.d by means of sacrifices, and delivered a message, new to his hearers, relating to what G.o.d really expected from Israel:

"I hate, I despise your feasts, And I will take no delight in your festivals; With your meal-offerings I will not be pleased, And the peace-offerings of your fattlings I will not regard with favor.

Banish from me the noise of your songs; To the melody of your viols I will not listen.

But let justice roll down as waters, And righteousness as a never-failing stream."

These concluding sentences literally stunned the crowd. Priest and people gasped at the Prophet's proclamation that G.o.d did not command the sacrifices at Sinai and did not care for them, but that, instead, He demanded justice and righteousness on the part of His people. The Prophet had upset all their ideas and traditions regarding their religious forms and practices, and he claimed G.o.d for his authority!

No one can tell just what might have happened, there and then, had not a company of the royal guard, in answer to Amaziah's note to the king, rushed upon the crowd and dispersed it "in the name of the king."

"In the name of the king," also, the leader of a small detachment of the guard made his way to Amos and placed him under arrest. Amos might have been successful in getting away, had he resisted; but, being a law-abiding man, he submitted to the authorities, and, long before the scattered crowd was aware of what had happened to the Prophet, he was whirled away in a chariot to the palace of the king.

CHAPTER VI.

_The Prophet in Tekoah._

King Jeroboam II was now an old man. The vehemence and determination and aggressiveness that had made him a far-famed conqueror had been mellowed by the years and rarely, if ever, showed themselves.

The note he received from Amaziah regarding Amos, however, awoke the old spirit in him. The dispatch of the section of the royal guard with orders for the Prophet's immediate arrest was in line with the way Jeroboam did things during the days when he personally led his armies.

But instead of having Amos put in chains and thrown into a dungeon, Jeroboam had him brought into his presence. The king wanted to see and speak to the man who, according to Amaziah, had conspired against him and the G.o.d of Israel and was proclaiming the doom of his dynasty.

Amos, who had never seen the king face to face, who had never even been inside any of the royal palaces, was, nevertheless, calm and cool as usual. The splendor of the throne room and the crowd of officers and counselors did not in the least affright him. He made a low obeisance to his king and waited for the order to rise.

Jeroboam was a much keener man than Amaziah. When he saw Amos, studied his bearing, the seriousness of his face, the simplicity of his garb, he recognized at once that before him stood an uncommon man.

Amos neither smiled the smirky smile of him who is anxious to get into the king's good graces, nor did he tremble like a coward, who, being caught, feared the king. He waited for Jeroboam to speak.

From the messenger who brought Amaziah's note the king had learned something about Amos and about the things he was telling the people.

Having supposed the Prophet to be either a traitor or a madman, but judging him now to be neither one nor the other, Jeroboam now was puzzled as to the manner in which to speak to him.

Jeroboam looked quizzically at Amos for a few moments and began:

"Thou, then, art the Prophet?"

"I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees," Amos replied.

"But thou speakest evil against the king and against the house of Israel," exclaimed Jeroboam.