Chapter 4 - Theological Themes in the Additions to the Book of Amos

Summary

In accordance with the conclusions arrived at in Chapter 1, I will not treat the book of Amos as multilayered and having passed through many stages of redaction because, while this is entirely possible, it is also, I believe, impossible to prove. I will simply examine the various oracles identified as probably later additions, in order to assess their theological message. It seems to me that, despite the fact that they may span a considerable period of time, there is quite a coherent message in these additions, which differs at some points quite sharply from what we have been able to identify as the theology of Amos and his immediate circle. After this, I will go on in the next chapter to ask how, by being added to the earlier material, these additions change its meaning, and thus produce the synthetic theology of the book of Amos in its present form.

Covenant

We ended the last chapter by looking at the covenant – never named as such by Amos, yet in all essentials probably one of his discoveries or inventions. Later editors had no reason to avoid the word bĕrît (תירב), which through the work of the authors of Deuteronomy and the deuteronomistic school, as seen in the historical books and in the book of Jeremiah, had become a central concept in Israel’s thinking about the relationship between God and the nation. Even so, these redactors of Amos did not introduce the word into the book in its religious sense. Bĕrît is found, however, along with some associated ideas, in two of the oracles against the nations regarded by most scholars as secondary to the original core of five – specifically, the oracles against Tyre and Edom. The oracle against Tyre reads:

1. Thus says the Lord:

2. For three transgressions of Tyre,

3. and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;

4. because they delivered entire communities over to Edom,

5. and did not remember the covenant of kinship.

6. so I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre,

7. fire that shall devour its strongholds. (Amos 1:9–10)