His polemic is directed against
the praxis of his contemporaries, but here he rests it upon a
theoretical foundation in which they are at one with him,--on
this, namely, that the sacrificial worship is not of Mosaic origin.
Lastly, if ii.4 be genuine, it teaches the same lesson. By the
Law of Jehovah which the people of Judah have despised it is
impossible that Amos can have understood anything in the remotest
degree resembling a ritual legislation. Are we to take it then
that he formed his own special private notion of the Torah? How in
that case would it have been possible for him to make himself
understood by the people, or to exercise influence over them? Of
all unlikely suppositions, at all events it is the least likely
that the herdsman of Tekoah, under the influence of prophetic
tradition (which in fact he so earnestly disclaims), should have
taken the Torah for something quite different from what it actually
was.
Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah are in agreement with Amos. The first
mentioned complains bitterly (iv.6 seq.) that the priests
cultivate the system of sacrifices instead of the Torah.
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