Amos 1-2

Bible Fiber

One reason this podcast is focusing on the Minor Prophets is because they are very difficult texts to read at times. The text is often organized by theme or literary style, rather than chronologically like in Genesis, Kings, or Chronicles. And as we talked about in Hosea, the nature of prophetic writing also means the voice can change from first to third person within the same passage and the literary style can shift many times in one book. But the most difficult thing of all is that the minor prophets are absolutely filled with references to historical events in Israel’s history and allusions to religious laws from Deuteronomy that only the most biblically literate grasp in the first reading. The guys at the podcast, Bible Project, fittingly refer to these as biblical hyperlinks. The text would be much easier to work through if we could click on a hyperlink for every historical figure and event that we do not recognize. You may have felt this itch when you were reading the first two chapters of Amos. But in lieu of hyperlinks, I would like to walk with you through the first two chapters and provide a little condensed commentary for each of the eight oracles.