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The Background and Meaning of Amos 5:17B
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
“‘… for I will pass through the midst of you,’ says Yahweh”
In commenting on this verse, most scholars have understood Amos's image of Yahweh passing through the midst of the people Israel as an allusion to his passing through Egypt. They make reference in this regard to Exod 12:12:
For I will pass through (we ʿābarû) the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1986
References
1 See, among others, Harper, William Rainey, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Amos and Hosea (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1905) 127Google Scholar; Hammershaimb, E., The Book of Amos: A Commentary (New York: Schocken, 1970) 86Google Scholar; Mays, James L., Amos: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969) 98–99Google Scholar; Mitchell, H. G., Amos: An Essay in Exegesis (Boston: Bartlett, 1893) 134.Google Scholar
2 Wolff, Hans W., Joel and Amos (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 249Google Scholar. He cites Crenshaw (see below, n. 16). See also J. De Waard and Smally, W. A., A Translator's Handbook on the Book of Amos (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1979) 113–14.Google Scholar
3 Some prefer to emphasize the Wisdom tradition influencing Amos instead. Cf. Terrien, S., “Amos and Wisdom,” in Bernhard W. Anderson and Walter Harrelson, eds., Israel's Prophetic Heritage (New York: Harper, 1962) 108–15Google Scholar; see also Wolff, Hans W., Amos the Prophet: The Man and His Background (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973).Google Scholar
4 Bentzen, A., “The Ritual Background of Amos 1:2–2:16,” OTS 8 (1950) 85–99.Google Scholar
5 Brueggemann, Walter, “Amos IV 4–13 and Israel's Covenant Worship,” VT 15 (1965) 1–15.Google Scholar
6 Cf. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 33–34, 253–57, and below, n. 35 on “The Day of Yahweh.”
7 Reventlow, Henning Graf, Das Amt des Propheten bei Amos (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962).Google Scholar
8 Würthwein, Ernst, “Amos-Studien,” ZAW 62 (1949/1950) 10–51.Google Scholar
9 Neher, André, Amos: Contribution à l'Étude du Prophétisme (Paris: Vrin, 1950) 36.Google Scholar
10 Miller, Patrick D. Jr, Sin and Judgment in the Prophets: A Stylistic and Theological Analysis (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982).Google Scholar
11 Tromp, N., “Amos 5:1–17: Towards a Stylistic and Rhetorical Analysis,” OTS 23 (1984) 56–84.Google Scholar
12 The use of the term “epic” in this article follows Frank Moore Cross's usage in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973) 6.Google Scholar
13 Childs, Brevard S., Exodus: A Commentary (London: SCM, 1974) 184Google Scholar. J = 11:1–8; 12:21–23, 27b, 29–34, 37–39; D = 12:24–27a; 13:3–16; E = 12:35–36. See also Noth, Martin, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981) 268–69.Google Scholar
14 The date of J/E is still a topic of discussion; see Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions, 228–47.
15 This raises the interesting question of what the source is for P's use of ʿābar for the divine visitation. The connection may be the ritual association of ʿābar with the massôt feast of the league cult (cf. Joshua 5) in covenant renewal or it may originate with Amos. The significance of this is suggested later in this article. The Chronicler, interestingly, places both Josiah's covenant renewal and his Passover (“No Passover like it had been kept in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet” (2 Chr 35:18) in the same eighteenth year of his reign.
16 Crenshaw, J. L., “Amos and the Theophanic Tradition,” ZAW 80 (1968) 203–15.Google Scholar
17 The others are 5:14; 4:12c; 1:2–2:8; 9:4, 8; 5:18–20; and 8:8.
18 1:2; 4:13; 5:8–9; 9:5–6.
19 4:6–11; 1:14; 2:7.
20 Cf. Weiser, Artur, The Old Testament: Its Formation and Development (New York: Association Press, 1961).Google Scholar
21 Crenshaw, “Theophanic Tradition,” 206. Only in a footnote does Crenshaw allude to ʿābar as a covenant term.
22 There is a textual problem with vs 18. I follow the common emendation of the text from hā ʿēgel to kā ʿēgel.
23 Miller, Patrick D. Jr, “Sin and Judgement in Jeremiah 34:17–19,” JBL 103 (1984) 611–13.Google Scholar
24 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 266 n.
25 See McCarthy, Dennis, Treaty and Covenant (Rome: Biblical Institute, 1978).Google Scholar
26 The translation is from Hasel, Gerhard F., “The Meaning of the Animal Rite in Genesis 15,” JSOT 19 (1981) 61–78Google Scholar. He notes that the Aramaic verb for “cut up,” gzr, is equivalent to Hebrew krt, used for cutting a covenant. For complete text and translation see Fitzmyer, Joseph, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967).Google Scholar
27 See McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant, and Hasel, “Animal Rite.”
28 Hasel, “Animal Rite,” 68.
29 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 266 n.
30 As H. H. Rowley has said, “It is hard to see how God could be exposed to sanct ions,” and explained the situation as an anthropomorphism (Worship in Israel: Its Form and Meaning [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967] 30)Google Scholar. Others try to explain how Yahweh's self-curse might work; cf. Westermann, Claus, Genesis 12–50 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975).Google Scholar
31 Hasel's study is a great help in clearing up this problem. He calls the events in Genesis 15 a “covenant ratification sacrifice.” In his concentration on the animal-cutting aspect of this covenant ritual, however, he never fully differentiates it from the act of passing through. Thus he can claim that “Gen 15:7–21 contains covenant-making in which Yahweh binds himself to Abram in the passing through the animals” (“Animal Rite,” 70).
32 The Joshua passage is reminiscent of the mythical battle of Yahweh with Rahab the sea monster, the older Baal cycle from Ugarit, and their associations with Exodus. But the word used in Ps 89:10 and Isa 51:9 is not kārat. See Cross, Canaanite Myth, 112–44.
33 A similar episode occurs in 1 Kgs 19:11 without covenant associations. Its dependence on the covenant episode in Exodus 34 is likely, however, for the point seems to be likening Elijah to Moses and modifying the storm-type view of theophany.
34 The P stratum in Exodus 12, e.g., might be profitably reevaluated in the light of this evidence and the tradition history and function of the Passover/Massot festival. See n. 15.
35 Cf. the pillar of smoke and fire traditions in Exod 13:21; 33:9, 10; Deut 31:15.
36 The relationship of the “Day of Yahweh” to traditions of holy war has been noted by Rad, Gerhard von, Old Testament Theology (2 vols.; New York: Harper & Row, 1965) 2. 119–25. The initiation of holy war is also an important feature of Joshua 3–4 and so, perhaps, ʿābar theophany. Cf. Brueggemann, “Amos IV 4–13,” 2, on Amos 4:12c mentioned above, which with 5:17b completes the same pattern.Google Scholar
37 See above, in the discussion on The Setting in Amos.
38 This rehearsal may also be a transformed version of what would typically begin a covenant ceremony, namely a recitation of the magnolia dei.
39 Cf. Brueggemann, “Amos IV 4–13.”
40 Cf. Cross, Canaanite Myth. The discussion in chaps. 4 and 5 is especially useful.
41 My thanks to Saul Olyan of the University of Winnipeg for his encouragement and helpful suggestions and to Professor Frank Moore Cross of Harvard University for whose course, “The History of the Religions of Israel,” this paper was written.