and then goes on to show how rotten, and therefore short-lived, was the prosperity which had swollen national pride to such a pitch.  The chiefs of the foremost nation in the world should surely be something better than the heartless debauchees whom the Prophet proceeds to paint.  Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic, who are by no means deficient in this same complacent estimate of their own superiority to all other peoples, may take note.  The same thought is prominent in the description of these notables as ‘at ease.’  They are living in a fool’s paradise, shutting their eyes to the thunder-clouds that begin to rise slowly above the horizon, and keeping each other in countenance in laughing at Amos and his gloomy forecasts.  They ’trusted in the mountain of Samaria,’ which, they thought, made the city impregnable to assault.  No doubt they thought that the Prophet’s talk about doing right and trusting in Jehovah was very fanatical and unpractical, just as many in England and America think that their nations are exalted, not by righteousness, but by armies, navies, and dollars or sovereigns.

Verse 2 is very obscure to us from our ignorance of the facts underlying its allusions.  In fact, it has been explained in exactly opposite ways, being taken by some to enumerate three instances of prosperous communities, which yet are not more prosperous than Israel, and by others to enumerate three instances of God’s judgments falling on places which, though strong, had been conquered.  In the former explanation, God’s favour to Israel is made the ground of an implied appeal to their gratitude; in the latter, His judgments on other nations are made the ground of an appeal to their fear, lest like destruction should fall on them.

But the main points of the passage are the photograph of the crimes which are bringing the judgment of God, and the solemn divine oath to inflict the judgment.  The crimes rebuked are not the false worship of the calves, though in other parts of his prophecy Amos lashes that with terrible invectives, nor foul breaches of morality, though these were not wanting in Israel, but the vices peculiar to selfish, luxurious upper classes in all times and countries, who forget the obligations of wealth, and think only of its possibilities of self-indulgence.  French noblesse before the Revolution, and English peers and commercial magnates, and American millionaires, would yield examples of the same sin.  The hardy shepherd from Tekoa had learned ’plain living and high thinking’ before he was a prophet, and would look with wondering and disgusted eyes at the wicked waste which he saw in Samaria.  He begins with scourging the reckless security already referred to.  These notables in Israel were ‘at ease’ because they ‘put far away the evil day,’ by refusing to believe that it was at hand, and paying no heed to prophets’ warnings, as their fellows do still and always, and as we all are tempted to do.  They who see and declare the certain end of national or personal sins are usually jeered at as pessimists, fanatics, alarmists, bad patriots, or personal ill-wishers, and the men whom they try to warn fancy that they hinder the coming of a day of retribution by disbelieving in its coming.  Incredulity is no lightning-conductor to keep off the flash, and, listened to or not, the low growls of the thunder are coming nearer.