1. D. B. Guralink, ed., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (New York: Warner, 1987), 357.

2. W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J A. Beker, 2 vols. (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961, 1967), 1:232.

3. Ibid., 1:233.

4. Ibid., 1:250.

5. J. Bright, A History of Israel, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 269–74.

6. W. Kaiser, A History of Israel from the Bronze Age Through the Jewish Wars (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1998), 357–64.

7. J. Day (“Baal,” ABD, 1:548) supports the view that sacred prostitution was part of the Baal cult, though nothing is said of this in the Ugaritic epic myths about Baal. K. van der Toorn (“Prostitution,” ABD, 5:510–13) presents some of the arguments that dispute the biblical connection between Baalism and prostitution.

8. G. A. F. Knight, Hosea (London: SCM, 1960), 13, thought he was a baker, based on Hos. 7:4–7; H. W. Wolff, Hosea (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 79–80, thought he was a Levite. Neither option is convincing. The fact is, we just do not know.

9. Hosea usually does not tell where he was when he was delivering his sermons, or who he was speaking to, so it is not wise to put a lot of weight on this point. The theme of his messages can be identified without knowing exactly where he was in the nation of Israel.

10. J. L. Mays, Hosea (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 3, 26, also suggests she could have been a common harlot.

11. E. J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament (London: Tyndale, 1960), 253, maintains that if this was a real marriage, it would have destroyed Hosea’s credibility.

12. See D. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah (WBC; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), 10–12.

13. L. Wood, The Prophets of Israel (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 279.

14. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 11.

15. H. H. Rowley, “The Marriage of Hosea,” Men of God (New York: Nelson, 1963), 66–97, surveys a variety of approaches commentaries take.

16. F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Hosea (AB; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980), 71–73, 315–16, downplay the use of known literary structures identified by form critics because Hosea’s use of these is so unusual. W. Brueggemann, however, Tradition for Crisis (Richmond: John Knox, 1968), 55–90, illustrates the use of the covenant lawsuit in Hosea’s messages.

17. See G. V. Smith, An Introduction to the Hebrew Prophets: The Prophets as Preachers (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 5–25, for a study of the role of prophetic persuasion in the process of theological and social transformation.

18. See the extensive discussion of traditions used by Hosea in Brueggemann, Tradition for Crisis, 26–54.

19. See G. V. Smith, Introduction to the Hebrew Prophets, 32–45, for a discussion of how the prophets legitimated their messages through the use of past authoritative tradition.

20. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, xxxi–xlii, gives a long list of categories of curses, many of which are related to judgments in Hosea’s sermons.

21. A. A. Macintosh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Hosea (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997), lxiv, gives many examples of these.

22. See some of the emendations of 4:4 in E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 359.

23. W. R. Harper, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Amos and Hosea (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1905), clix–clxiii, discusses the various different types of later additions to Hosea. G. Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), 1–25, describes various theories concerning the composition of Hosea and hypothesizes two later redactors who added positive information to Hosea’s words.

24. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 59, recognize the impossibility of proving there were later redactors.

25. L. Gilkey, “The Concept of Providence in Contemporary Theology,” JR 43 (1963): 171.

26. J. D. Hunter, American Evangelicalism: Conservative Religion and the Quandary of Modernity (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1983); R. Quebedeux, The Worldly Evangelicals (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978).

27. H. Cox, The Secular City (New York: Macmillan, 1965).

28. L. I. Sweet, “The 1960s: The Crisis of Liberal Christianity and the Public Emergence of Evangelicalism,” Evangelicalism and Modern America, ed. G. Marsden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 33.

29. Ibid., 34.

1. Wolff, Hosea, 12, and Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 25, argue for an early date for this material.

2. The positive words of hope in 1:10–2:1 are sometimes identified as the words of a later redactor, but it is customary for Hosea to abruptly place paradoxical words of hope next to prophecies of judgment. The thematic connections between the original names of the children and the new names in the future require a close connection for the audience to see the great reversal that God will accomplish. See Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea, 68–72, who assigns these verses to a second deuteronomistic redactor after the exile. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 36, gives seven connections between Hos. 1:2–9 and 1:10–2:1 that indicate these two sections go together. G. I. Emmerson, Hosea: An Israelite Prophet in Judean Perspective (Sheffield: JSOT, 1984), 15–16, maintains these verses are a part of Hosea’s preaching.

3. See the Introduction for the political, social, and religious background of this period.

4. See the earlier discussion and critique of these options in the Introduction.

5. Y. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, trans. M. Greenberg (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960), 370–71.

6. Harper, Amos and Hosea, 207, takes the first approach, while G. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 1974), 323, calls the second the proleptic view.

7. We do not know if Gomer’s father was Diblaim or if Diblaim was the village where she was raised.

8. T. McComiskey, The Minor Prophets, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992, 1995, 1998), 1:12, but Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 162, 167, argue convincingly against this proposal.

9. D. A. Garrett, Hosea, Joel (NAC; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997), 56.

10. M. Butterworth, “,” NIDOTTE, 3:1093–95.

11. RSV, NEB, and NASB have a similar translation as NIV.

12. Stuart, Hosea, Jonah, 31, follows W. Kuhnigk, who suggested that nśʾ (to lift up, forgive) was confused with nšʾ (to reject). T. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:25, and R. C. Ortlund, Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 53, argue for “to take away.”

13. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 5, 194, inappropriately continue the negatives of 1:6 into 1:7 and thus reverse the promises to Judah into curses by translating “nor for the state of Judah will I show pity or save them.”

14. Wolff, Hosea, 25, relocates these verses beside 2:23–25, where these names reappear, while Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea, 55, 68–76, sees these verses as a redactional addition by a second exilic editor. These verses are repeatedly tied to the names of Hosea’s children in 1:2–9; thus there is an inner unifying cohesion within its structure (see Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 36, for some of these connections).

15. Mays, Hosea, 32. A second point of this title may be a purposeful contrast between “the living God” and Baal, the Canaanite fertility god who was so popular among those in Hosea’s audience.

16. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 208–9, and Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 39, follow this approach, but neither concept is usually expressed this way because “the land” usually refers to Israel, not the land of captivity or the place of the dead.

17. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:30. This view seems to have fewer problems. Macintosh, Hosea, 31–32, surveys seven approaches to this problem and prefers to relate this line to the growing of vegetation.

18. See M. Butterworth, “,” NIDOTTE, 3:1093–95; “Mercy, Compassion,” NIDNTT, 2:593–601.

19. See M. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 1:292–96; W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 1:250–58.

20. See the discussion of Paul’s use of Hosea in T. Schreiner, Romans, (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 527–30.

1. Wolff, Hosea, 33, suggests “during the last years of Jeroboam II, i.e., around 750.”

2. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 218–19; Macintosh, Hosea, 45; and Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 75, argue against a legal court procedure, while Mays, Hosea, 35; Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 45; and Wolff, Hosea, 33, argue for it. Although we see legal talk reminding us of what happens in court, it seems that this is not a formal divorce proceeding in a court. These are the preliminary arguments that present the evidence for a case, but the purpose is primarily redemptive—to save the marriage rather than end it.

3. Mays, Hosea, 38, and D. A. Hubbard, Hosea, (TOTC; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1989), 73, argue for this interpretation, although there is little to confirm what prostitutes or the Baal cult functionaries looked like. Wolff, Hosea, 34, thinks these might refer to tattoos or cuts on the body from a cultic ceremony.

4. C. H. Gordon, “Hos 2:4–5 in the Light of New Semitic Inscriptions,” ZAW 54 (1936): 277–80, found this practice of shaming a wife in a Nuzi tablet, so it may have existed in Israel (though there is no proof that this early Mesopotamian custom was ever used in Israel). The reference to this practice in Jer. 13:22–27 and Ezek. 16:37–39 at least suggests that the practice was well known, if it was not commonly practiced.

5. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 49.

6. Wolff, Hosea, 36; Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 237–38.

7. This contrast becomes clearer when one realizes that the name Baal means “lord, owner, master.” God will show that he is their Master and the Lord of nature and history.

8. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 88–91, has an excellent discussion of the various positive and negative ways the desert theme is used in the Old Testament.

9. See Rev. 15:3–4 for a similar joyous singing of the Song of Moses.

10. I do not agree with Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea, 54–55, 86–90, who attributes most of this salvation oracle to a later redactor. G. I. Emmerson, Hosea: An Israelite Prophet in Judean Perspective (Sheffield: JSOT,1984), 27–35, makes a detailed study of this section and concludes that there is nothing here that proves that this material did not come from Hosea.

11. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 278, maintain that “the eschaton is the wedding day,” but it is hard to see this as the original wedding; it is more like a recommitment to the original covenant partner.

12. C. J. H. Wright, An Eye for an Eye: The Place of Old Testament Ethics Today (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1983), 19, connects these three aspects in Israelite theology.

13. See Isa. 11:6–8 and Ezek. 34:25–30, where similar secure conditions are described.

14. Wolff, Hosea, 52, shows from comparisons with human weddings in Israel that this verse is not pointing to the engagement, but to the consummation events; thus he translates Hos. 2:19, “I will make you my own” (46).

15. yadaʿ (to know) can refer to cohabitation of a married couple (see, e.g., Gen. 4:1).

16. This is consistent with the use of Jezreel in Hos. 1:11 and presents a sharp contrast to the negative meaning of Jezreel in 1:4.

17. G. Yee, “Hosea,” The Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. C. A. Newsom and S. H. Ringe (London: SPCK, 1992), 195; T. D. Setel, “Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea,” Feminist Interpretations of the Bible, ed. L. M. Russell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 86, sees Hosea as the “first to use objectivized female sexuality as evil.”

18. Yee, “Hosea,” 199–200.

19. Setel, “Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea,” 92–93.

20. F. van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Imagination of Power and the Power of Imagination: An Intertextual Analysis of Two Biblical Love Songs: The Song of Songs and Hosea 2,” JSOT 44 (1989): 75–88.

21. See R. C. Ortlund, Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology, 177–85, for an extended critique of van Dijk-Hemmes’s article.

22. Y. Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet: Hosea’s Marriage in Literary-Theological Perspective (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 33–40.

23. See Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 124–33, for an extended critique of this approach to Hosea.

24. P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), discuss the process of developing a worldview through social contact with others.

25. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 58, sees that God imposes this new covenantal relationship.

26. Ortlund, Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology, 49, points to this idea as the basic theological problem Israel faced.

27. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 76, 79, also sees the mother of the story (Gomer) as symbolic of the Canaanite culture of Hosea’s day.

28. J. D. Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991).

29. D. F. Wells, No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).

30. H. R. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951).

1. I disagree with Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 64, who does not think the woman in 3:1–3 is Gomer. Such a proposal destroys the analogy between God and his people. God is not saying he will leave Israel and take a new wife. The fact that this woman is an adulterous woman (3:1) identifies her with Gomer.

2. Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea, 57–63, doubts that Hosea is the author of 3:1–5 (others only question 3:5), but Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 292–93, reject this view.

3. The “raisin cakes” were some kind of sweet food made from dried grapes. They were something of a delicacy and apparently were eaten at religious ceremonies at the pagan temples (Jer. 7:18; 44:19).

4. Some suggest she sold herself into slavery or that she sold herself to a local temple as a prostitute. See Wolff, Hosea, 61.

5. “You shall dwell with me” is better than the NIV’s “You are to live with me,” although Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 301, make a good case for “you must wait for me” because of the prepositional phrase “for me.”

6. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 66; Mays, Hosea, 58, calls this love that imprisons a “strange tactic.”

7. The last line has no verb, so some insert “not live” from the preceding phrase, thus implying that others will not live with her and Hosea will not live with her either (see Wolff, Hosea, 56). This contradicts the first statement that “she will dwell with me”; therefore, it seems best to see the last line as a contrast to his statement that “she will not be a prostitute or belong to other men.” The literal “and I will be to you” probably means “I will be yours.” See Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 102.

8. Some object to the reference to David because it is part of Judah’s eschatology, not Israel’s; they claim it was added by a later Judean editor (Wolff, Hosea, 63). But Amos had no trouble talking to Israelites about the restoration of the Davidic kingdom (Amos 9:11–15). We do not believe the Davidic tradition is solely the property of Judah, for David made a covenant with the northern tribes (2 Sam. 5:1–3). In fact, the men of Israel felt that David belonged more to them than Judah in 2 Sam. 19:43. Ahijah even promised Jeroboam I the covenant God promised to David if he would serve God (1 Kings 11:30–38). At times the “house of David” may be a specific reference to the government in Jerusalem, but not all general references to David are from people in Judah.

9. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 1:250.

10. P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC; Waco: Word, 1982), 204, emphasizes how important love is to the corporate life of the church if it is to function as a fellowship of believers.

11. D. E. Garland, Colossians, Philemon (NIVAC; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 262–66, spends a great deal of space discussing submission but only a short final paragraph on love.

1. Macintosh, Hosea, 194; Wolff, Hosea, 111; Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 100; and Mays, Hosea, 86, all relate these events to this devastating war when Assyria took control of Syria, Israel, and Judah.

2. C. Westermann, Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech, trans. H. C. White (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967), 199–201, finds similar legal procedures in Isa. 1 and 3. See also H. B. Houffmon, “The Covenant Lawsuit in the Prophets,” JBL 78 (1959): 285–95.

3. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 335–36, shy away from a legal understanding of the text because it does not fit an ideal form of a lawsuit, while Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 107–8, dismisses this comparison with the lawsuit.

4. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 73–74, outlines the parts of each segment in detail.

5. H. Wildberger, “ ʾmn, firm, secure,” Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, ed. E. Jenni and C. Westermann, 2 vols. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997): 1:134–57; R. W. Moberley, “,” NIDOTTE, 1:427–33.

6. D. A. Bear and R. P. Gordon,“,” NIDOTTE, 2:211–18.

7. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 110, emphasizes both aspects.

8. It is difficult to understand what the NIV translation “for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest” means. The people were blindly following their evil priests, they were not bringing charges against them. By changing one vowel to make “your people” into “with you” and understanding the comparative “like” in the NIV as a dittography of the pronominal suffix “you” on the preceding word one gets the understandable “but with you is my contention, O priest.”

9. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 345, think the objector in Hos. 4:4a is a priest.

10. The Hebrew of 4:7b actually says, “I will change their glory into disgrace,” which Macintosh, Hosea 141; Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 119; and McComiskey, The Minor Prophets, 1:62–63 (and RSV) keep, but most others (including NIV and NASB) follow the “emendation of the scribes” and other versions in order to read, “they exchanged their Glory for something disgraceful.”

11. The NIV reads part of Hos. 4:11 with 4:10, hiding the change to a new topic in vv. 11–14. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 71, and others follow this same approach, but Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 121, wisely rejects this reconfiguration and properly translates the end of 4:10 as “for they have abandoned keeping faith with Yahweh.” Although 4:10 only has “keeping,” in Deuteronomy this verb is always associated with the positive act of maintaining one’s relationship with God.

12. J. Day, “Baal,” ABD, 1:548, supports the view that sacred prostitution was part of the Baal cult, though nothing is said of this in the Ugaritic epic myths about Baal. In a later article on “Prostitution” (ABD, 5:510–13), K. van der Toorn presents arguments that dispute the biblical connection between Baalism and prostitution.

13. See W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1956), 75–76, for a fuller description of the pagan ritual of Baalism. Wolff, Hosea, 86–87, refers to Herodotus’s account of a similar cult of prostitution in Babylon some years later.

14. See Amos 5:5 for a similar warning to the Israelites.

15. The NIV translates the last line in Hos. 4:18 as “their rulers dearly love shameful ways,” but the word for rulers is actually the word “shields.” Mays, Hosea, 76, translate it “shameless,” and Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 72, prefers “insolence.” Most ancient readers would probably not take the reference to shields as a symbol of their rulers. Since God is called a shield (Gen. 15:1; Ps. 3:3; 7:10; 18:30), Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 139, proposes that this is a symbol of or appellation of one of their gods.

16. See Ortlund, Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology, 137–52, for a discussion of the New Testament usage of the marriage symbolism between Christ and the church. If the church is the bride, then it is natural to think of unfaithfulness to the bridegroom as prostitution.

17. Even here, however, the process of indoctrination in a cult is often subtle; see Mary Alice Chrnalogar, Twisted Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000).

18. Getting permission from (or at least informing) the church council might be a wise step before attempting this kind of sermon.

19. J. MacArthur, Church Leadership (Chicago: Moody, 1989), 11. This fact was verified by one of my students, who was called to serve a church only to find out that half of his church council had little or no interest in spiritual things.

20. G. Barna, Today’s Pastors (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1993), 58. He also quotes one pastor from a church in Alabama who said, “I don’t think any pastor truly committed to the gospel could look at America today and claim we’ve revolutionized this country.”

21. Ibid., 71.

22. J. Hunter, Evangelicalism (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987), 19–50, deals with these theological changes. For example, only 66 percent of college students and 68 percent of seminary students agreed that “the only hope for heaven is through personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ” (35–36). The collection of essays edited by G. Marsden in Evangelicalism and Modern America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984) also outlines some of the changes taking place within that movement.

23. W. James, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New York: Meridian, 1955).

24. M. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1:43–44, quotes James as saying, “On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is ‘true.’ ” This is not a strong or biblical endorsement of the foundation of all faith.

25. J. Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998), 23, points to the criticisms by O. Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994).

26. A. Fernando, The Supremacy of Christ (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998), 112–13.

27. J. MacArthur, Ashamed of the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway, 1993), xii–xvii, sees many negative examples of pragmatism in the church.

28. J. Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 17–26, deals with the goal of preaching.

1. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 149, rejects this hypothesis because it does not fit certain expectations. He objects to the idea in Hos. 5:10 that Judah is the aggressor, but it would not be odd for Judah to try to take back some of its territory after the Assyrians defeated her enemies. No one can date the appeal to avoid this conflict with Assyria in 5:13, but this may have happened anytime during these battles or at the end of the war, when Hoshea paid tribute to the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:3).

2. The Heb. text is not clear, so several educated guesses are possible. Several commentaries favor a reference to the town “Shittim,” but no reading is without problems.

3. Wolff, Hosea, 98–99. One problem is that we do not know which city of Mizpah (in Gilead or Benjamin) Hosea is referring to.

4. As McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:78, concludes, the “pride of Israel” in this context does not refer to God himself, but to things like the nation’s history, wealth, territory, and institutions.

5. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 92, prefers to translate the word “shackles” rather than “discipline,” which makes a nice contrast with snare and net in Hos. 5:1.

6. Wolff, Hosea, 110–12, builds on, but adjusts various points in Alt’s hypothesis of a counterattack. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 102–6, also sees this as Judah’s counterattack, though there is no reference to any such attack in Kings or Chronicles.

7. P. M. Arnold, “Hosea and the Sin of Gibeah,” CBQ 51 (1989): 447–60, includes a critique of Alt’s views and proposes his own approach, based on a different geographic location of the cities in 5:8. Arnold believes both Hos. 5:8 and Isa. 10:27–32 trace the progress of this attack into Judah.

8. Wolff, Hosea, 114.

9. Deut. 19:14; 27:17 as well as Prov. 22:28; 23:10 warn against taking other people’s land by moving boundary stones.

10. The word translated “idols” in NIV is unclear. ṣw could refer to something “worthless” (Wolff, Hosea, 104), “filth” (Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 410), “command, policy” (Garrett, Hosea., Joel, 152), “blah” (Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 99). If the word carries the idea of something that is empty or worthless, Hosea is probably referring to Israel’s policy to follow this path of war rather than to her sin of idolatry.

11. ʾš has been translated “moth, pus, maggot, decay, sickness.” The parallelism argues against moth and for one of the other alternatives. See the discussion in Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 412; Wolff, Hosea, 115.

12. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 105, thinks this verse may refer to Hoshea’s submission and payment of tribute to Assyria immediately after the assassination of Pekah, the king who got Israel into this war (2 Kings 15:29–30; 17:3–4). But if Hosea is referring to events at the end of this war, it is surprising that he does not also mention Judah’s mistake of calling on Assyria. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:85, prefers a reference to Menahem in Hos. 5:13.

13. J. R. Clinton, Leaders, Leadership and the Bible (Atlanta: Barnabas Resources, 1993), gives many examples of these and other biblical leaders.

1. Mays, Hosea, 92, believes it stands apart from 5:10–14 as well as 6:1–3.

2. Wolff, Hosea, 116; and Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 415, see the connection because of the repetition of the same verb “I will go” in 5:14 and 15.

3. Mays, Hosea, 92, follows this approach.

4. G. Yee, Composition and Tradition in the Book of Hosea, 157–58, does not believe Hosea wrote this section but assigns it to Redactor 2. Wolff, Hosea, 116–17, believes this penitential song was sung by the priests, not Hosea; but Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 107, contends that its close literary connection to the preceding verses supports the idea that Hosea spoke these words.

5. “On the third day” is used in Luke 24:7 and 1 Cor. 15:4 in reference to the resurrection of Jesus, but it is hard to see any messianic reference in this verse. Some do suggest an analogy between the two situations (see H. K. McArthur, “On the Third Day,” NTS 18 [1971–1972]: 81–86).

6. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 420; Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 108; and Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 158, see a resurrection in Hos. 6:2, but Mays, Hosea, 92, and Wolff, Hosea, 117, prefer a revival from an injury. The New Testament and the early church fathers do not use this verse as a proof text for the resurrection of Jesus until Tertullian’s Against Marcion.

7. The Hebrew ʾor means “light” except in those few cases where there is a thunderstorm. It that context lightning is being described (Job 37:3, 11, 15). “Upon you” in the NIV has been added and is not in the Hebrew.

8. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 110, sees God’s justice as “inevitable and all-encompassing.” It is what brought destruction on the nation in the Syro-Ephraimite war. Mays, Hosea, 97, interprets the sun positively. The prophets preached the light of God’s way in all its clarity, but the people rejected the light of his Word.

9. R. M. Riss, A Survey of 20th Century Revival Movements in North America (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1988), mentions revivals before the Reformation and during the Reformation (1515–1590), the Puritan revivals in England, the Great Awakening in America, and nineteenth-century revivals; the book also gives a detailed summary of twentieth-century revivals.

10. T. Phillips, The Welsh Revival: Its Origin and Development (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989), 2.

11. J. Bright, The Coming Revival: America’s Call to Fast, Pray, and “Seek God’s Face” (Orlando: New Life, 1995), 79–80.

12. H. T. Blackaby and C. V. King, Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God (Nashville: LifeWay, 1990), 33, illustrate this from the life of George Mueller.

13. I. H. Murray, Revival and Revivalism (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 359.

14. Some calls to revival include fasting as well (e.g., 2 Chron. 20:3–4; Joel 2:15). Bright, The Coming Revival, 101ff., gives practical help on fasting, based on Bill Bright’s own forty-day fast.

15. Phillips, The Welsh Revival, 13.

1. Wolff, Hosea, 137; Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 130; and Mays, Hosea, 114, date Hos. 8:1 to just after 733 B.C. and connect it with the attack by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III.

2. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 433, 435, think this event was during the transition from Jeroboam II to Menahem, when several kings were assassinated (2 Kings 15).

3. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 111, interprets ʾdm as “dirt, soil,” as does D. J. McCarthy, “Berit in Old Testament History and Theology,” Bib 53 (1972): 110–21. Macintosh, Hosea, 236, list other views: Harper thinks this refers to “mankind,” and Ridderbos prefers the person “Adam.” Note that Gilead in Hos. 6:8 and Shechem in 6:9 are places.

4. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:98–100, is one example of this division.

5. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 112, interprets the harvest as a sign of God’s abundant blessings. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 166, sees the harvest as a punishment, but interprets Hos. 7:1–2 as a promise of restoration.

6. Commentators are forced to emend some words and make educated guesses concerning how these words fit together. The oven and baker images make an unusual and difficult comparison, but the burning heat of the oven seems to offer the central analogy for Hosea.

7. Wolff, Hosea, 111; Mays, Hosea, 104; and Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 117, think this section specifically describes the assassination of Pekah by Hoshea in 733 B.C. (see 2 Kings 15:30).

8. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 446, believe a group of priests (Hos. 6:9) assassinate the king and his princes, but the text does not say this. They do not take the baker as a metaphor but think the king’s baker is at the head of this plot (451).

9. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:104, thinks Hosea refers to sexual unfaithfulness.

10. This may refer to bread that is burnt on one side and not cooked on the other, or to bread that is not kneaded before it is placed in the oven. If the baker neglects the bread, it will be rejected as inedible.

11. The NIV repoints “like a report” to read “when I heard.” Wolff, Hosea, 107, emends the last line to read “according to the report of their wickedness,” while Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 115–16, has “I will punish them sevenfold for their evil.”

12. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:111–12.

13. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 123; Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 473, who are followed by Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 172.

14. The “gather together” in 7:14 is possible, but “cut themselves” (cf. NIV note), a possible reference to a Baal ritual (1 Kings 18:28), may be what Hosea is talking about (see Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 475).

15. M. McCloskey, Tell It Often—Tell It Well (San Bernardino, Calif.: Here’s Life, 1985), 92, believes on biblical grounds that we must challenge the present philosophies that control the way many people think.

16. Ibid.

17. Michael Novack, Belief and Unbelief (New York: MacMillan, 1965), 35.

18. J. Edwards, “Man’s Natural Blindness in the Things of Religion,” The Works of President Edwards (New York: Carter and Brothers, 1864), 4:26.

1. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:119, thinks Hosea is describing the enemy, who will swoop down like an eagle and destroy the people.

2. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 181, prefers a reference to a temple because that is the meaning of “house of the LORD” in Hos. 9:4, but 9:8 and 15 demonstrate that Hosea can use this phrase in several different ways.

3. God chose earlier kings and sent prophets to anoint them (1 Sam. 10:1; 16:13; 1 Kings 11:29; 2 Kings 9:1).

4. Hosea 8:4b probably refers to the destruction of the idols made of silver and gold, not to the destruction of the Israelites. See Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 481, 493, who translate the phrase “so that it will be cut off.” This idea should not just be omitted as a gloss, as Mays, Hosea, 118, suggests.

5. Mays, Hosea, 120, believes this refers to Hoshea’s payment of a large tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III. See ANET, 284, for the Assyrian record of Hoshea’s tribute.

6. NIV has only “sacrifices.” This is a difficult text but the word “loved” (which NIV translates “given to me”) modifies the word “sacrifices.” Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 501, 510, suggest the translation “sacrifices of my loved ones they sacrificed,” while Wolff, Hosea, 133, translates the clause, “sacrifices they love.”

7. Wolff, Hosea, 156.

8. The NIV’s “Let Israel know this” (9:7b) is left as an unconnected independent sentence. It is perhaps better to see these words as an introduction to the rest of v. 7, which is a quotation of what other people think about Hosea.

9. Through several emendations Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 139, 146, turns Hos. 9:8a into Hosea’s question of his audience: “Is Ephraim a watchman? Is God’s people a prophet?” This radical approach is unnecessary and ill-advised. The text makes good sense as the prophet’s defense of himself.

10. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 534, and McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:145–46, think this refers to persecution of Hosea.

11. Mays, Hosea, 133, indicates that the word for “shame” (bšt) was used as a derogatory name for Baal. For example, note the change from Ish-baal to Ish-bosheth. The term translated “vile” is šiqquṣim, another way of describing an idol as an “abomination, detestable thing.”

12. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 542, and Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 200, think that the loss of glory refers to the loss of God because v. 11a is interpreted in light of v. 12b. I interpret v. 11a in light of v. 11b.

13. Hosea 9:13 is a difficult, cryptic text and widely emended in almost every translation.

14. Wolff, Hosea,166; Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 202, may pick this up from the reference to child sacrifice in Ps. 106:36–38.

15. Mays, Hosea, 134–35, and McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 152; but Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 544, appropriately argue against this view.

16. See the discussion of this curse in D. Krause, “A Blessing Cursed: The Prophet’s Prayer for Barren Womb and Dry Breasts in Hosea 9,” Reading Between the Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 191–202, who connects this passage with Gen. 49:25.

17. F. Schaeffer, Christian Manifesto (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway, 1981), 91, 121.

18. J. Ellul, Perspectives on Our Age (New York: Seabury, 1981), 6, goes on to explain how the Moscow Trials of 1934–1937 totally turned him against communism because they showed that the government was a corrupt, totalitarian state.

19. See the brief treatment of it in C. Colson, Loving God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 61–70; or J. Dean, Blind Ambition (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976).

20. R. D. Culver, Toward a Biblical View of Civil Government (Chicago: Moody, 1963).

1. Wolff, Hosea, 173, believes Hoshea’s revolt against Pekah at the end of this war provides the setting for this chapter.

2. Wolff, ibid., 172, does not explain who is opposing him and his followers.

3. BDB, 132, lists a separate root meaning “luxuriant,” based on an Arabic word, but no other Hebrew usages of this root fit this meaning. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 549, think Hosea is describing what God did (“He made Israel, the vine luxuriant”), but this seems an impossible reconstruction.

4. See Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 204–7, for a somewhat similar approach to interpreting this difficult verse.

5. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 160.

6. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 553.

7. I believe this relates primarily to Israel’s relationship to God, but McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:164, thinks this refers to unfaithfulness to treaties with the Assyrians.

8. The main verb in the first line is “destroy,” not “float away” (as in the NIV), so the line can be translated, “Samaria and her king are destroyed.”

9. Wolff, Hosea, 178.

10. The written Hebrew text has “two eyes,” which McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:173, keeps, but most others follow the spoken text, which has “two iniquities.”

11. See Wolff, Hosea, 188, for these and other suggestions. Even if one of these identifications is correct, information about the battle is unknown.

12. Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality, 89–92.

13. R. Perkins, Looking Both Ways: Exploring the Interface Between Christianity and Sociology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 156–66, believes reification leads to exclusivity, parochialism, confrontationalism, pride, absolutism, and self-contradiction by modern Christians in the church. For example, not long ago Christians claimed that the Bible supported racism and slavery.

1. Mays, Hosea, 152, thinks this message should be dated to Hoshea’s rebellious act of going to Egypt for help (2 Kings 17:4), but there is little evidence in this chapter to allow one to date it.

2. D. A. Smith, “Kinship and Covenant in Hosea 11:1–4,” HBT 16 (1994): 41–53, believes the kinship terminology of sonship was based on the idea of adoption into God’s family. In Ezekiel 16 Israel is pictured as a young girl; many different analogies were usable to describe different aspects of God’s relationship with his people.

3. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 175, and Wolff, Hosea, 190, plus NIV and RSV emend the Hebrew text “they called” to “I called,” based on the LXX; others correctly keep the Hebrew text as it is. This change also requires a second change in the Hebrew from “them” to “me” at the end of the second line. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:184, keeps the plural verb in Hos. 11:2a but thinks this refers to the prophets who called the people back to God.

4. The Heb. text of 11:7b is problematic, with quite diverse renderings in different translations and commentaries. Is this calling on God or another god?

5. A. J. Heschel, The Prophets, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 1:48, sees Hosea as revealing the cardinal emotional pathos of God that is a fundamental part of his relationship with his people. See also J. L. McKenzie, “Divine Passion in Osee,” CBQ 17 (1955): 287–99.

6. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 574, 589, choose to interpret the negative “I will not” as an asseverative “certainly,” which asserts God’s determination to carry out his judgment; most other commentators reject this option.

7. D. M. Beegle, Scripture, Tradition, and Infallibility (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 237.

8. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 1:250.

9. McCloskey, Tell It Often—Tell It Well, 144–45.

1. J. Limburg, Hosea-Micah (Interp.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), 43, thinks this chapter addresses people in Judah after the fall of Israel, but Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 188, takes the references to alliances with Egypt and Assyria (Hos. 12:1) to indicate this chapter should be dated to Hoshea’s reign, when he sent for help from Egypt (2 Kings 17:3–4).

2. The image is comparable to the psalmist who laments that he is surrounded by enemies wanting to kill him (Ps. 22:12, 16; 118:10–12).

3. The RSV emends the text to say “Judah is still known by God,” by using the LXX, Wolff, Hosea, 205, has “Judah still goes with God,” while Mays, Hosea, 159, translates “Judah still roams with God” (a positive sense).

4. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 593, 603, believe Hosea is referring to the worship of the gods, while Wolff, Hosea, 210, rejects that position.

5. D. J. McCarthy, “Hosea XII.2: Covenant by Oil,” VT 14 (1964): 215–21.

6. Wolff, Hosea, 206, removes the title Judah in Hos. 12:2 and replaces it with Israel.

7. P. R. Ackroyd, “Hosea and Jacob,” VT 10 (1960): 245–59.

8. Commentaries make an unusual amount of emendations in this verse and come up with quite different results because of these changes, which “correct” this problematic passage.

9. Wolff, Hosea, 206, thinks that the angel overcame Jacob in12:4a. Since Jacob is the subject of the verbs in 12:4b, he must be the subject of the verbs in the first half of the verse.

10. W. Kaiser, “Inner Biblical Exegesis As a Model for Bridging the ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ Gap: Hos 12:1–6,” JETS 28 (1985): 33–46, thinks the weeping is referring to Jacob and Esau weeping when they meet.

11. Mays, Hosea, 164, draws this lesson from the typology of Jacob.

12. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 237.

13. The Hebrew word for “merchant” is a wordplay on “Canaan”; thus Hosea is suggesting that they act like Canaanite merchants.

14. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 193, turns the second half of Hos. 12:8 into a divine condemnation of the rich instead of their boast, but his emendations (based on the LXX) should not be accepted.

15. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 621, see a strong contrast between these two events.

16. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 246.

17. Mays, Hosea, 172, thinks Hosea attributes the terrible state of Israel at his time to God’s death sentence.

18. Wolff, Hosea, 219, translates “those who sacrifice men kiss calves” and thinks this refers to human sacrifices. Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 632, translate differently but also think this refers to human sacrifice. The syntax of this phrase does not support this interpretation.

19. B. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel (London: SCM, 1962), 17–30.

20. A recent Candid Camera experiment showed 5 out of 6 kids not telling the truth about touching a real unloaded gun that was purposely left in their playroom with the other toys.

21. M. S. Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), tells many stories that illustrate this problem. I am thankful to my student Tom Rakow for giving me a copy of this book.

22. Ibid., 87–108.

23. Ibid., 106.

1. Hillers, Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1964), 54–56, demonstrates the common use of being attacked by a wild animal to express a curse (see also Deut. 32:24; Jer. 2:14–15; 48:40; Hos. 5:14).

2. The NIV passive “you are destroyed” in Hos. 13:9 catches the meaning but is not a literal translation (“it destroys/has destroyed you”), which Wolff, Hosea, 221, emends to “I will destroy you.”

3. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 260–61, properly translates the verbs as futures (not as NIV, “I gave”). Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 206, translates the verb similar to the NIV and thinks Hosea is thinking about God’s past giving of Saul as king, even though it was against his desires.

4. Wolff, Hosea, 228, sees a divine promise of life in this verse, but this interpretation is unlikely. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 263–64, ties this birth into the Baal fertility religion, but nothing is said of Baalism here.

5. There is much speculation about who the brothers are. Any other nation (Ammon, Moab, Edom, Judah) could be compared as a brother, particularly if there was a treaty relationship between Israel and that other nation. Wolff, Hosea, 222, changes the word “brothers” to “reeds” (the two spellings are close), while Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 625, change “brothers” to “wild ass.” The Hebrew text is fine as it is.

6. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 208, believes it refers to agricultural wealth being lost, based on several curses in Deut. 28 and 32, while Mays, Hosea, 183, prefers the military explanation.

7. Mays, Hosea, 182, and Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 207, interpret this as a hopeless statement.

8. McComiskey, The Minor Prophets, 1:223–24, and Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 639, take this as a promise of hope.

1. Wolff, Hosea, 234, thinks the disastrous fall of Samaria has already happened, but Mays, Hosea, 185, seems to be closer to the date when he suggests that it was spoken “in the final months of the northern kingdom’s defeat by Shalmaneser V.”

2. Wolff, Hosea, 231, follows R. Gordis, “The Text and Meaning of Hosea 14:3,” VT 5 (1955): 88–90, who thinks “good” means “word.”

3. Literally, their “turning” from God, a wordplay off the word “return” in Hos. 14:1.

4. The Hebrew text does not have “cedar” (as in NIV “cedar of Lebanon”), just “Lebanon,” but the reference to the deep roots suggests that Hosea is perhaps thinking of the famous “cedars of Lebanon.” Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 646, maintain Hosea is thinking of the crocus and olive trees of Lebanon. This is an acceptable, if not better alternative to the NIV.

5. The word “cedar” in NIV is also missing in 14:6. Here it makes more sense to think of the fragrance from Lebanon olive trees.

6. The NIV “again” apparently represents the word “return,” which appears again in this verse. It would be better to translate the first line, “The ones who dwell in his/its shade will return.”

7. Mays, Hosea, 184,189, emends the text to “my shade,” meaning God’s shade, since God does compare himself to a tree in 14:8.

8. Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 275, suggests that this may refer to the Gentiles, who will come to Israel in the eschaton (cf. Gen. 12:1–3), but Hosea has made no reference to this idea in the context of this passage.

9. McComiskey, Minor Prophets, 1:236.

10. W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2:465, believes that seeking God, humility, softening the heart, acknowledgement of sin, and turning from sin must come before forgiveness is possible.

1. The Heb. word torah has frequently been translated “law” and consequently the idea is sometimes viewed in a legalistic way. Although it can have this connotation, the idea is drawn from the concept of the “teachings, instructions” that were given by God in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. These revelatory teachings formed the foundation for all of Israel’s theology, so Ps. 119:97 can talk about the psalmist’s love for God’s instructions and Paul (Rom. 7:14) refers to God’s “law” as spiritual.

2. P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Doubleday, 1966), recognize that each group’s view of reality is socially constructed by the traditions, experiences, and culture of that group.

3. V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 18–50 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 236–49, traces Jacob’s experiences at Bethel, the former city of Luz.

4. J. H. Hayes, Amos, The Eighth-Century Prophet: His Times and His Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1960), 16–27, places Amos later, around 750 or later. H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 274–75, dates Amos 6:2 after Tiglath-Pileser III defeated Hamath in 738 B.C., but this text can be explained without supposing that Amos (or a redactor) preached (or edited) this message in Judah at this late date. J. D. W. Watts, “The Origin of Amos,” ExpT 66 (1954–55): 109, speculated that Amos 8–9 were written by Amos in Judah after the fall of Samaria in 722/721 B.C., but the background of Amos does not fit such a late date.

5. S. H. Paul, A Commentary on the Book of Amos (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 1–2.

6. N. Avigad, “Samaria (City),” The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society & Carta, 1993), 4:1300–10; J. D. Purvis, “Samaria,” ABD, 5:914–21; G. E. Wright, “Samaria,” The Biblical Archeologist Reader, vol. 2, ed. E. F. Campbell and D. N. Friedman (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), 248–57.

7. B. Lang, “Social Organization of Peasant Poverty in Biblical Israel,” JSOT 24 (1982): 48–58, believes that rent capitalism was the primary system that led to the problem Amos condemned. The urban property owners apportioned land to peasants at such high rents that the poor farmer was kept in continual poverty.

8. P. Craigie, “Amos the nōqēd in Light of Ugaritic,” Studies in Religion 2 (1982): 29–32.

9. Paul, Amos, 212.

10. Y. Yadin, Hazor II: An Account of the Second Season of Excavation, 1956 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1960), 24–26, 36–37.

11. G. V. Smith, Amos (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1998), 18–27, contains additional information on the nature of the Hebrew text and Greek translation of Amos, its style, and various structural methods of arranging the oracles in the book.

12. Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction, 89–91. This process of absolutizing conditional promises is a reification. Reification happens when people do not see parts of social reality as human creations based on social relationships, but give them an independent status separate from human relationships. Thus the blessings of the covenant are seen as an absolute fact, not based on one’s relationship to God.

13. H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 106–13, traces the redactional history of the book through six editorial stages that stretch from 750 to 450 B.C. Paul, Amos, 16–24, and G. V. Smith, Amos, 25–27, 65–68, 110–14, 357–58, present evidence to support the unity and authenticity of Amos’s oracles. G. F. Hasel, Understanding the Book of Amos (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 91–99, surveys the different views on this issue.

14. See B. K. Smith, “Amos,” Amos, Obadiah, Jonah (NAC; Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1995), 128–30, for a discussion of Amos’s intercession.

15. G. V. Smith, An Introduction to the Hebrew Prophets: The Prophets as Preachers (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 5–24, discusses the rhetorical aspects of communication theory illustrated in prophetic preaching.

16. K. Koyama, Water Buffalo Theology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 19), 91.

17. J. Naisbitt, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (New York: Warner, 1982).

18. G. Barna, The Barna Report: What Americans Believe (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1991), 83–85.

19. Ibid., 292.

20. W. J. Bennett, “Commuter Massacre, Our Warning,” Wall Street Journal (Dec. 10, 1993).

21. R. Eckersley, “The West’s Deepening Cultural Crisis,” The Futurist (Nov./Dec. 1993), 10.

22. M. J. Harris, “Elder Fraud,” Money (Nov. 1995), 145–50.

23. R. Winslow, “Hypocritical Oath: Study Finds Doctors Lied on Resumes,” Wall Street Journal (July 3, 1995), B8.

24. D. Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 57.

25. C. Colson, A Dance with Deception: Revealing the Truth Behind the Headlines (Dallas: Word, 1993), 27.

26. Ibid., 67.

1. Paul, Amos, 36, believes this earthquake “was interpreted as a fulfillment of some of his prophetic oracles, and authenticated his being accepted as a true prophet.”

2. D. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah (WBC; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), 298, believes that Amos “perceived a revelation” that had no hint of visual content.

3. In the Old Testament, it is only used one other time—to describe Mesha, king of the Moabites, who had to pay a large tribute of sheep to the Israelites (2 Kings 3:4).

4. Y. Yadin, Hazor II: An Account of the Second Season of Excavations, 1956 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1960), 24–26, 36–37, dates this earthquake to 760 B.C.

5. A. Bentzen, “The Ritual Background of Amos I.2-II.16,” OtSt 8 (1950): 85–99.

6. This statement relies on traditions about David’s bringing the ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6–7), Solomon’s dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8), and various psalms (Ps. 46; 47; 48; 99).

7. R. A. Simkins, Creator and Creation (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), traces both the biblical and ancient Near Eastern people’s view of how the gods/God controls nature.

8. M. R. Miles, “Augustine,” Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. E. Furguson (New York: Garland, 1990), 121–26.

1. S. H. Paul, “Amos 1:3–2:3: A Concatenous Literary Pattern,” JBL 90 (1971): 401–3.

2. G. V. Smith, Amos, 64–65, outlines this stylistic pattern of short accusations, lengthy punishment clauses, and a final messenger formula in oracles 1 and 2, 5 and 6. Oracles 3 and 4, plus 7 have a long accusation, short punishment, and no final messenger clause. Oracle 8 is unique.

3. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 140–43, does not see this as a unified rhetorical piece but finds later redactional additions. Paul, Amos, 16–26, presents strong arguments against this position.

4. D. Christensen, Transformations of the War Oracle in Old Testament Prophecy (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1975), 1–15.

5. F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1989), 6–8, believe the first four visions (Amos 7:1–9:10) plus chs. 4–6 were spoken before this war oracle. I see chs. 4–6 as the prophet’s attempt to legitimate his claims in chs. 1–2, and I do not connect the visions with his original calling.

6. D. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 310, believes the numbered sequence simply refers to many sins while M. Weiss, “The Pattern of Numerical Sequence in Amos 1–2: A Reconsideration,” JBL 86 (1967): 416–23, believes Amos is referring to seven sins, a typological number of completeness.

7. The word “wrath” is not in the Hebrew (it merely reads “I will not turn it back”), but the parallel terminology in Isa. 9:8–10:4 and Jer. 23:20 explains that “it” refers to God’s anger. In a similar phrase God says that he “will spare them [Israel] no longer” (Amos 7:8; 8:2).

8. Archaeologists have found correspondence from Shamshi-ilu, the ruler of Bit-Adini from 780–752 B.C. (see Paul, Amos, 53). The Valley of Aven, probably the Lebanon Valley, represents the southern part of Syria while Beth Eden represents the north, so Amos is saying the whole country will fall, from south to north.

9. I. Mendelsohn, Slavery in the Ancient Near East (New York: Oxford, 1949).

10. The cooperation among these nations in selling slaves is also mentioned 150 years later in Joel 3:4–8.

11. M. Fishbane, “The Treaty Background of Amos 1:11 and Related Matters,” JBL 89 (1970): 313–18, believes this does refer to a political treaty, but this seems unlikely.

12. Earlier the Ammonites agreed to let the Israelites live in Jabesh-Gilead, but the Ammonites demanded that the Israelites had to let them gouge out their right eyes first (1 Sam. 11:1–2). In one text the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III brags that “he slit the wombs of the pregnant women, he gouged out the eye of the infants, he cut the throats of their strong men” (see M. Cogan, “ ‘Ripping Open Pregnant Women’ in Light of an Assyrian Analogue,” JAOS 103 [1983]: 755–57).

13. The Greek translation could not make sense of this passage and thought Amos was condemning the Moabites for offering sacrifices to a demon, but this translation cannot be trusted here.

14. The Mesha Stone, lines 12–13, refers to this temple.

15. G. E. Wright, “The Nations in Hebrew Prophecy,” Enc 26 (1965): 225–37; also J. Mauchline, “Implicit Signs of a Persistent Belief in the Davidic Empire,” VT 20 (1970): 288–90.

16. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 290, 308.

17. J. Barton, Amos’s Oracles Against the Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980), 42–61; see also G. H. Jones, “An Examination of Some Leading Motifs in the Prophetic Oracles Against the Nations,” an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, 1970.

18. ANET, 34–36, 159–210, 217–21, 412–26.

19. R. F. Drinan, Cry of the Oppressed: The History and Hope of the Human Rights Revolution (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), 23.

20. Ibid.

21. C. Lacy, The Conscience of India (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), 231.

22. J. J. Davis, Evangelical Ethics: Issues Facing the Church Today, 2d ed. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1993), 207–28.

23. R. L. Holmes, On War and Morality (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1989), 183–213, has a whole chapter on the topic of “The Killing of Innocent Persons in Wartime.”

24. S. P. Huntington, “The Military Mind: Conservative Realism of the Professional Military Ethic,” War, Morality, and the Military Profession, ed. M. M. Wakin (London: Westview, 1986), 35–56.

25. J. G. Murphy, “The Killing of the Innocent,” War, Morality, and the Military Profession, ed. M. M. Wakin (London: Westview, 1986), 341–64.

26. G. V. Smith, The Prophets As Preachers, 19–22, discusses aspects of persuasion in the prophets.

27. S. Toulmin, The Use of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1958), 97–104.

28. Motivational theory is discussed in D. McClelland, Human Motivations (Glenview: Scott, Foresman, 1985).

1. Wolff, Amos, 140, and J. L. Mays, Amos: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 41, do not believe the Judah oracle was originally included in Amos’s speech, but think a later redactor has added it. Hayes, Amos, 101–3, and Paul, Amos, 20–24, reject this perspective.

2. T. J. Finley, Joel, Amos, Obadiah (WEC; Chicago: Moody, 1990), 159, believes this is the only case where this word means idols, but Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 302, maintain that there is no case where kzb means “idol, god.” In most cases it refers to the teachings of the false prophets.

3. It is unlikely that the giving of a single sandal in Ruth 4 to confirm a transaction has anything to do with the pair of sandals mentioned in this verse.

4. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 308–10, connect these sins to illegal court activity, but people were not “sold” in court. Selling is used in the context of collecting unpaid debts that were promised and did not usually require separate court action.

5. Most commentators conclude that the Hebrew š’p, which can mean to be eager, pant, is an alternate spelling of šwp, to trample, crush, which makes better sense.

6. In light of the next phrase D. Hubbard, Joel and Amos (TOTC; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1989), 142, thinks the rich are treating the poor like dirt in the court, but that may be too specific.

7. G. V. Smith, Amos, 120–21, and Paul, Amos, 81, both find inadequate information to suggest a judicial interpretation because a word like “judgment, justice” is not found here as it is in Amos 5:12 (cf. also Deut. 16:19; Prov. 17:23; Isa. 10:2).

8. Hubbard, Joel and Amos, 142, thinks these women are daughters-in-laws but naʾarah usually refers to a servant.

9. Paul, Amos, 83–85, provides ancient Near Eastern examples of the same abuse in cultures surrounding Israel, so apparently this was a common practice that the Israelites adopted. See J. Naveh, “A Hebrew Letter from the Seventh Century BC,” IEJ 10 (1960): 129–39.

10. The emphatic Hebrew personal pronoun ʾanoki (I myself) appears twice to focus on what God did. This contrasts with the third person plural verbs that emphasize what the Israelites are doing in 2:6–8.

11. Some like Samuel were Nazirites for life, but others were Nazirites only for a specified period of time. The Nazirites would not touch the fruit of the vine, a dead body, or cut their hair (Num. 6:1–8). See M. Weiss, “ ‘And I Raised Up Prophets from Amongst Your Sons’: A Note About the History and Character of Israelite Prophecy,” I. L. Seeligmann Volume: Essays in the Bible and Ancient World, ed. A. Rofé and Y. Zakovitch, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: E. Rubenstein, 1983), 1:257–74.

12. Paul, Amos, 94, has a full listing of options, but none are without problems. He rejects the earthquake interpretation, which we prefer.

13. G. V. Smith, Amos, 108, 129.

14. This correlation between unintended and intended sins is represented in the difference between the law for dealing with unintentional homicide and premeditated murder (Ex. 21:12–14). The offering laws also distinguish between what is required of the one who unintentionally sins and the one who rebels against God (Num. 15:27–31).

15. T. S. Eliot, “The Idea of a Christian Society,” Culture and Christianity (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949), 10.

16. W. Stringfellow, “The Church’s Neglect of the Word of God,” Sojourners 15 (1986): 36–39.

17. G. Barna, The Barna Report: What Americans Believe (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1991), 289.

18. M. Bellah, Baby Boom Believers (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1988), 55.

19. B. Moeller, “The Sex Life of America’s Christians,” Leadership 16 (Summer, 1995): 30–31, based this information on the findings in the book Sex in America: A Definitive Study by R. Michel, J. Ganon, E. Laumann, and G. Kolata in 1994.

20. D. Rice, Shattered Vows: Exodus from the Priesthood (Belfast: Blackfast, 1990), 3.

21. A. W. R. Sipe, A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990), 74.

1. See the outline of the book in the Introduction to Amos.

2. Wolff, Amos, 93, 183, makes the wisdom connection, while Finley, Amos, 177, follows the covenant-lawsuit approach of M. O’Rouke Boyle, “The Covenant Lawsuit of the Prophet Amos: III.1–IV.13,” VT 21 (1971): 338–62.

3. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 387, provide a grammatical outline and comparison of each line of Amos 3:3–8 to show both the similarities and differences in this section.

4. Paul, Amos, 106–7.

5. B. K. Smith, “Amos,” 70–71, emphasizes that election involves choice and an intimate relationship.

6. G. V. Smith, Amos, 143–46, and Paul, Amos, 102, see this as an unexpected and surprising answer.

7. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 324, and Paul, Amos, 109, translate the verb “meet” rather than “agree.” It seems that people must surely meet before they walk together, but the togetherness idea suggests agreement. People who meet often do not agree and thus do not walk together. Both of these commentaries also reject the view that this is referring to an appointment.

8. Many commentaries (J. Niehaus, “Amos,” 1:378) translate me’onah as “den,” but it is the “dwelling place,” likely the hiding place in the forest, based on the analogy of God’s description of the lion in Job 38:39–40. Animals do not hunt from their dens but from a favorite hiding place.

9. Ezek. 33:3 illustrates the role of the watchman.

10. Hayes, Amos, 126, and Hubbard, Joel and Amos, 148, think the main purpose of this verse is to defend the prophet’s status and credibility before a protesting audience. Certainly this verse legitimates what Amos says, but I believe Amos is more concerned about persuading his audience that the message is God’s plan, rather than defending his own authority.

11. This issue of Israel’s eschatological hope is addressed in Amos 9:11–15.

12. G. L. Bahnsen, “The Concept of Self-Deception in Presuppositional Apologetics,” WTJ 57 (1995): 1–31.

13. Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality, 89–92.

14. R. Perkins, Looking Both Ways: Exploring the Interface Between Christianity and Sociology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 156–66, believes reification leads to exclusivity, parochialism, confrontationalism, pride, absolutism, and self-contradiction by modern Christians in the church. For example, not long ago Christians claimed that the Bible supported racism and slavery.

15. See books like O. Roberts, God’s Formula for Success (Tulsa: Healing Waters, 1955); Gordon Lindsay, God’s Master Key to Prosperity (Dallas: Christ for the Nations, 1960); or K. Hagin, How God Taught Me About Prosperity (Tulsa: Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1985).

16. B. Barron, The Health and Wealth Gospel (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1987), 66–67.

17. Gordon Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels (Costa Mesa: The Word for Today, 1979), 4.

18. Jerry Savelle, Living in Divine Prosperity (Tulsa: Harrison House, 1982), 27, 91–92, 178–79.

19. H. Schlossberg, Idols of Destruction (Nashville: Nelson, 1983), 88.

20. For a more balanced and healthy view of wealth, see J. Barnett, Wealth and Wisdom: A Biblical Perspective on Possessions (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1987).

1. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 402–3, see a progression from the destruction of the shrine at Bethel (3:14) and their homes (3:15), and then the exile of the people (Amos 4:2–3)—the similar structure of accusation and punishment uniting these oracles.

2. M. O’Rouke Boyle, “The Covenant Lawsuit of the Prophet Amos,” 338–62.

3. Hebrew law requires two witnesses in capital cases before a case can be prosecuted (Deut. 17:6; 19:15).

4. The LXX has “Assyria” instead of “Ashdod,” but Ashdod is a more difficult reading and likely the original reading.

5. G. V. Smith, Amos, 163; Paul, Amos, 115.

6. Finley, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, 188, notes that the second word can refer more specifically to “extortion, bribery,” but the context here seems to point to a more general semantic range of meaning like “oppression,” which may have involved several different methods of gaining financial advantage over others.

7. Finley, ibid., 189, does not believe these possessions came from warfare, while Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 407, think that part of it may have come from military victories.

8. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 330.

9. Ibid, 331. Stuart connects these punishments to covenant curses in Deut. 28:31, 43, 52 and Lev. 26:19.

10. Archaeological excavations of Samaria have discovered both large and small homes, many pieces of ivory from these wealthy homes, and a five-foot-wide inner wall and thirty-foot-wide outer casemate wall. See J. Crowfoot, K. Kenyon, and E. Sukenik, Samaria-Sabaste I: The Buildings of Samaria (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1942), 9–20.

11. Hayes, Amos, 134–35, prefers Damascus, but the Hebrew word has an š rather than a ś, which is normal for the name Damascus; moreover, Damascus usually has a double m sound, which is not the case here. And since there is no evidence that “damask” silk was made at this time, the best solution is to accept the third alternative.

12. Paul, Amos, 120, and G. V. Smith, Amos, 166–69, prefer this approach.

13. J. Crowfoot and G. Crowfoot, Samaria-Sebaste II: Early Ivories from Samaria (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1938), contains photographs and a description of these ivories. Some are displayed in the New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, ed. E. Stein, 4 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993), 4:1305.

14. S. Paul, “Amos III:15—Winter and Summer Mansions,” VT 28 (1978): 358–60, refers to the summer and winter homes of Barrakkab. Ahab also had two homes (at Jezreel in 1 Kings 21:1 and at Samaria in 21:18; 22:39).

15. The Targum and Calvin thought the cows refer to leaders, while J. Williams, “A Further Suggestion About Amos IV:1–3,” VT 29 (1979): 206–11, and J. D. W. Watts, “A Critical Analysis of Amos 4:1ff.,” SBL Seminar Papers, 1972, 2 vols. (n.p., 1972), 489–500, relate this term to pagan cultic practices.

16. S. M. Paul, “Fishing Imagery in Amos 4:2,” JBL 97 (1978): 183–86.

17. For a full discussion of the various proposals that have been made, see Paul, Amos, 130–34.

18. J. B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1954), 152, fig. 440.

19. D. Gowan, “The Book of Amos,” 378, believes that every society will be held accountable for oppression and how it deals with the poor and needy.

20. For a survey of biblical statements about possessions see, G. A. Getz, A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions (Chicago: Moody, 1990).

21. L. T. Johnson, Sharing Possessions: Mandate and Symbol of Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 40.

22. Ibid., 15.

23. D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Prayers from Prison (London: Collins, 1959), 300.

24. M. Luther, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, trans. T. Graebner (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, n.d.), 32.

25. Ibid., 43.

1. Paul, Amos, 138, thinks Amos is adapting a “priestly Torah.”

2. Gilgal was near Jericho, at the north end of the Dead Sea. It was the place where Joshua set up the twelve stones taken by the children of Israel from the Jordan River when they crossed into the Promised Land (Josh. 4:19–20; 5:1–10).

3. J. Niehaus, “Amos,” 396–97, indicates the bread was to be eaten by the priests, though unleavened bread was burned in the thank offering (Lev. 2:11; 6:17).

4. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, xxxii–xl, and Wolff, Joel and Amos, 213, describe these covenant curses.

5. Paul, Amos, 149.

6. J. L. Crenshaw, Hymnic Affirmations of Divine Justice (Missoula: Scholars, 1975), attributes this hymn to a later editor, but Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 286, and G. V. Smith, Amos, 190–92, argue that Amos is quoting a hymn from his own time.

7. H. J. Kraus, Theology of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 94–97.

8. D. Peterson, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 19.

9. E. Underhill, Worship (New York: Harper, 1936), 77.

10. Peterson, Engaging with God, 16.

11. R. E. Webber, Worship Is a Verb (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1985), 19–20.

12. H. P. Simonson, ed., Selected Writings of Jonathan Edwards (New York: F. Unger, 1970), 97.

1. C. Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms, trans. K. R. Crim and R. H. Soulen (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 261, describes the different kinds of laments.

2. G. Stahlin, “κοπετός,” TDNT, 3:836–41.

3. G. V. Smith, Amos, 206–9.

4. J. de Waard, “The Chiastic Structure of Amos 5:1–17,” VT 27 (1977): 170–77 and N. J. Tromp, “Amos 5:1–17: Toward a Stylistic and Rhetorical Analysis,” OtSt 23 (1984): 72–73, identify the parts of the chiasm but neither were able to integrate 5:13 into this structure.

5. A. V. Hunter, Seek the Lord: A Study of the Meaning and Function of the Exhortations in Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Zephaniah (Baltimore: St. Mary’s Seminary, 1982), 61–65, surveys these alternative approaches.

6. Hayes, Amos, 155, believes Samaria is the addressed because the virgin terminology is elsewhere used of cities (Jer. 18:13; 31:4, 21) not countries, but most think that Amos is addressing the whole nation of Israel.

7. 7. See J. J. Schmitt, “The Virgin of Israel: Referent and Use in Amos and Jeremiah,” CBQ 53 (1991): 365–87.

8. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 345, connects this consequence to the curse in Deut. 28:62: “You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number.”

9. Hubbard, Joel and Amos, 165, also finds no message of hope in this passage.

10. Paul, Amos, 161–62, finds this approach justified by Jeremiah’s explanation that God will have compassion and change his plans if people repent of their evil (Jer. 18).

11. For a defense of this translation, see G. V. Smith, “Amos 5:13: The Deadly Silence of the Prosperous,” JBL 107 (1988): 289–91.

12. Mays, Amos, 83, 95; Wolff, Joel and Amos, 215–17; and Crenshaw, Hymnic Affirmations of Divine Justice, 5–24, suggest that these verses have been added by a later editor because of their advanced theology; but T. McComiskey, “The Hymnic Elements of the Prophecy of Amos: A Study of Form Critical Methodologies,” in A Tribute to G. Archer, ed. W. C. Kaiser and R. Youngblood (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 105–28, defends the position that this hymn has been put here by Amos.

13. Hubbard, Joel and Amos, 170, sees this as a secondary purpose of this passage, but it is just as likely that Amos is contrasting a true biblical view of God with a humanly created and socially constructed image of God.

14. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 453–54, suggest that all the hymns in Amos 4:13; 5:8–9; 9:5–6 may have come from a single, well-known hymn.

15. Paul, Amos, 168.

16. J. Niehaus, “Amos,” 419, illustrates the common tendency to trust in strong walls from the Annals of the Kings of Assyria, 35–36 (by Tiglath-Pileser III) and 293 (by Ashurbanipal II).

17. See A. R. Diamond, The Confessions of Jeremiah in Context: Scenes of Prophetic Drama (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986); M. S. Smith, The Laments of Jeremiah and Their Contexts: A Literary and Redactional Study of Jeremiah 11–20 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1990).

18. J. I. Durham, Exodus (WBC; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), 432–33, makes the point that Moses goes through the emotional responses of pleading for mercy, anger, reasoning, taking control of the situation, and seeking forgiveness for the people.

19. A. Resner, “Lament: Faith’s Response to Loss,” Restoration Quarterly 32 (1990): 129.

20. Ibid., 132.

21. R. Davidson, The Courage to Doubt (London: SCM, 1983), 16.

22. Ibid., 17.

23. W. M. Soll, “The Israelite Lament: Faith Seeking Understanding,” Quarterly Review 8 (1988): 79–85.

24. W. Brueggemann, “The Costly Loss of Lament,” JSOT 36 (1986): 60–63.

25. S. P. McCutchan, “Illuminating the Dark: Using Psalms of Lament,” The Christian Ministry 24 (1993): 14.

26. E. Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 38–88. W. Brueggemann, “The Formfulness of Grief,” Int 31 (1977): 267–74, makes positive and negative comparison between laments and Ross’s approach.

1. See G. V. Smith, Amos, 238–40, for other possible views on the background of the woe oracle and several proposals about the origin of the Day of the Lord concept.

2. The “day of the LORD” is any time God miraculously intervenes in the course of history, particularly when God gives marvelous victories over enemies in holy war (Judg. 7; Isa. 9:4).

3. G. von Rad, “The Origin of the Concept of the Day of Yahweh,” JSS 4 (1959): 97–108, emphasized the military setting and A. J. Everson, “The Day of the Lord,” JBL 93 (1974): 329–337, noted the emphasis on the theophany.

4. Hubbard, Joel and Amos, 179, follows Everson and makes this connection by suggesting that the worship is at an event celebrating that coming Day of the Lord. J. Hayes, Amos, 171, goes to the extreme of suggesting this was the third day of the Feast of Booths. Such suggestions hypothesize more than is necessary to interpret the text.

5. H. H. Rowley, Worship in Ancient Israel: Its Forms and Meaning (London: SPCK, 1965), 144–75, surveys various ways of interpreting the prophets’ reaction to temple worship but concludes that this was not rejection of all ritual.

6. M. Weinfield, Social Justice in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1995).

7. Harper, Amos, 136–37, and Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 531–32, survey numerous approaches to this verse.

8. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 352–53, and B. K. Smith, “Amos,” 114, believe that the Israelites did not offer regular sacrifices in the desert.

9. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 352, also translates the verb in a past tense.

10. Paul, Amos, 188, 194; Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 529.

11. R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Religious Institutions (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), 444–46, provides background on the worship of Molech.

12. Hayes, Amos, 178, accepts this view and believes Amos is describing a procession celebrating the enthronement of Yahweh.

13. See G. V. Smith, Amos, 245, 255, or Paul, Amos, 194–97, for a further discussion of these issues.

14. P. D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), 113–17, notes the standard distinction between God’s love and deliverance of his people and the warrior’s destruction of his enemies.

15. G. von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel, trans. M. J. Dawn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 41–49.

16. C. Sherlock, The God Who Fights: The War Tradition in the Holy Scriptures (Lewistown, N.Y.: Mellen, 1993), 141–225, has an extensive treatment of the key prophetic texts on holy war.

17. T. Longman and D. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 91–135.

18. G. V. Smith, Amos, 256–57.

19. E. Underhill, Worship, 79.

20. E. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 130–33, identifies feminine images of God with Sophia but later speaks positively of the integration of Egyptian Isis goddess language into Jewish monotheism. In spite of this she warns of “ditheism” and says that “goddess-language is employed to speak about the one-God of Israel.”

21. S. Cyre, “Fallout Escalates Over ‘Goddess’ Sophia Worship,” CT 38 (April 1994): 74.

22. Ibid.

23. T. Finger, “In the Name of Sophia: Seeking a Biblical Understanding of Holy Wisdom,” CT 38 (November 1994): 44.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., 45.

26. L. D. Lafebure, “The Wisdom of God: Sophia and Christian Theology,” Christian Century 111 (October 1994): 951.

27. Ibid., 954.

28. Origen, On First Principles 1.2.1–2.

29. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.3.

1. See Paul, Amos, 210–12, for a survey and full bibliography of texts and articles on these funeral banquets.

2. H. M. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos: Studies in the Preaching of Amos 2,7B–8; 4,1–13; 5,1–27; 6,4–7; 8,14 (VTSup 34; Leiden: Brill, 1984), 127–42, imports (through his comparative studies) the worship of the dead and pagan deities into Israelite funeral feasts, but Jeremiah and Amos say nothing about these. M. Pope, Song of Songs (AB; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), 210–29, hypothesizes all kinds of bizarre sexual behavior, but the prophets never attack that kind of behavior when they mention these funeral banquets.

3. Wolff, Amos, 270, objects to this reference to Zion and thinks it was added later, but there is no reason why Amos should not critique his own people, demonstrating that they are no better than the people in the northern kingdom, where he is ministering (see Amos 2:4–5).

4. Hayes, Amos, 183, concludes that Amos is referring to the Assyrians because he dates Amos later in a period when Israel is weak and Assyria is strong. Since the book of Amos pictures Israel as strong, I do not accept Hayes’s dating. It is better to apply all of the second half of 6:1 to Israel, not Assyria.

5. Wolff, Amos, 274–75, but Paul, Amos, 203, shows that this timing just does not fit.

6. Hubbard, Joel and Amos, 190. This runs contrary to Amos’s habit elsewhere because he normally introduces the speakers (see 4:1; 5:14; 6:13; 8:5; 9:10).

7. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 357–59, connects these verbs to the idea of divination, but this does not fit here.

8. The participle in the first part of 6:3 could refer to “you” but more likely to “they, those who,” since the subject is undefined. The finite verb in the second half of 6:3 is a second-person verb and must be translated “you.” The subjects of the participles in 6:4–6 are also undefined and best translated as a relative clause “the ones who . . . ,” not “you” as NIV. For details, see G. V. Smith, Amos, 273.

9. J. B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1958), fig. 122, has a picture of a mural where the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal is banqueting on a couch with ivory inlays at the junctions of the legs.

10. J. and G. Crowfoot’s Samaria-Sebaste II: Early Ivories from Samaria contains photographs of these ivories, while the Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4:1039, has a plate of a few ivories.

11. G. V. Smith, Amos, 204, interprets ḥšb in its most frequent sense of “to think, consider.” See also D. N. Freedman, “But Did King David Invent Musical Instruments?” BR 1 (Summer 1985): 50–51.

12. G. V. Smith, Amos, 262.

13. Usually the Israelites burned only the bodies of criminals (Lev. 20:14; 21:9; Josh. 7:15, 25). But if in a large battle or a plague after a battle many died, it might be necessary to burn the remains for sanitation purposes.

14. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 283.

15. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 364.

16. The Hebrew modal use is discussed in GKC, 112m, x, or B. K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winnona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 508, par. 31.4e.

17. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 577, divide the Hebrew word “with oxen” into two separate words “with oxen the sea,” while the NIV implies that the oxen are plowing on the cliff mentioned in the first line.

18. T. E. Fretheim, Exodus (Interp; Louisville: John Knox, 1991), 32–35, draws out the ironic contrasts between Pharaoh’s fears, which are alleviated by killing innocent male babies, and the midwives’ fear, which is alleviated by their fear of God and their commitment to preserving life.

19. J. White, The Golden Cow (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1979), 25.

20. E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC; Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 264–66, sees these instructions for Israel’s kings as a contrast to the sources of security that were so important to the other kings that surrounded Israel. The threat of such influences on Israelite thinking is evident in the people’s request for a king like the other nations (1 Sam. 8:5).

21. Cited in K. Lysons, “The Seven Deadly Sins Today: vii. Pride,” ExpT (98 (1987): 178.

22. Ibid., 179.

23. B. Mitchell, “The Sin of Pride,” Theology 90 (1987): 426, emphasizes both the horizontal and vertical aspects of pride.

24. Ibid., 429. This is evident in 2 Thess. 2:4, where the Antichrist exalts himself to take the seat of God.

25. D. E. Gowan, “Amos,” 400, reflects on the attitudes of wealthy people today.

26. A. C. Lane, “Sin, Pride, and Shame: A Short Historical Response to Douglas Thorpe,” Koinonia 3 (1991): 67.

27. R. Sider, “Our Selective Rage,” CT 40 (August 12, 1996): 14.

1. J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962), 122–239, also refers to minor categories of “symbolic perception” and “literary visions.” See also B. O. Long, “Reports of Visions Among the Prophets,” JBL 95 (1976): 353–65.

2. Pritchard, ANET, 76, 109–10, 560–63, 624–31.

3. B. K. Smith, “Amos,” 128, points out that the Gezer Calender lists the third and fourth months of the year as the “second crop,” similar to this passage.

4. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 739; G. V. Smith, Amos, 300.

5. rib baʾeš is translated “judgment of fire” in the NIV, but D. R. Hillers, “Amos 7:4 and Ancient Parallels,” CBQ 26 (1964): 222–23, divides the Hebrew consonants differently (rbb ʾš) and gets a better reading of “rain of fire” (see Gen. 19:24; Ezek. 38:22). Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 370, and Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 745, follow Hillers’s suggestion.

6. The NIV translates the verbs as past, “dried up the great deep and devoured the land,” but it is too late to intercede if the land has already been devoured. It seems better to translate “dried up the great deep and was about to devour the land.”

7. For a discussion of prayer in the Old Testament, see S. E. Balentine, Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: The Drama of Divine-Human Dialogue (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993); P. D. Miller, They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); or K. N. Jung “Prayer in the Psalms,” Teach Us to Pray, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 19–57.

8. R. W. L. Moberly, At the Mountain of God (Sheffield: JSOT, 1983), 57.

9. For a specific treatment of prayers in different sections of the New Testament, see M. M. B. Turner, “Prayer in the Gospels and Acts,” D. C. Peterson, “Prayer in Paul’s Epistles,” and “Prayer in the General Epistles,” plus E. Y. L. Ng, “Prayer in Revelation,” in Teach Us to Pray, 58–135.

10. L. J. Kuyper, “The Suffering and Repentance of God,” SJT 22 (1969): 258.

11. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 298.

12. J. T. Willis, “The ‘Repentance’ of God in the Books of Samuel, Jeremiah, and Jonah,” HBT 16 (1994): 158.

13. H. Van Dyke Parunak, “A Semantic Survey of NḤM,” Bib 56 (1975): 512–32.

14. E. Bradford, Intercessory Prayer: A Ministerial Task (Boonton, N.J.: Simpson, 1991), 17.

15. J. Calvin, “Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah,” Calvin’s Commentaries 8 (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1850), 111.

16. A. Murray and C. H. Spurgeon, The Believer’s Secret of Intercession, ed. L. G. Parkhurst (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1988), 38.

17. The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God, ed. C. Pinnock et al. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1994).

18. Ibid., 7.

19. Ibid., 26.

20. R. Olson, “Has God Been Held Hostage by Philosophy?” CT 39 (Jan. 9, 1995): 30–31.

21. D. G. Bloesch, God the Almighty (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1995), 257.

1. Hayes, Amos, 199, does not see Amos 7:7–17 as a unit but puts 7:1–9 together with 8:1–9:15, while Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 368–69, more understandably puts 7:1–8:3 together, but this disconnects 8:4–14 from the vision in 8:1–3.

2. B. Landsberger, “Tin and Lead: The Adventures of Two Vocables, JNES 24 (1965): 285–96, and W. Holladay, “Once More ‘ʾanak = TIN,’ Amos 7:7–8,” VT 20 (1970): 292–94. More recently Paul, Amos, 234, and Gowan, “Amos,” 406, prefer the translation “tin.”

3. Paul, Amos, 234, catalogues several different ways people have tried to solve this enigma. It is unclear why Amos does not use the usual term for plumb line, which symbolizes God’s testing of his people in 2 Kings 21:13; Isa. 28:17; 34:11; Lam. 2:8, but maybe the technical vocabulary for instruments used in building in Israel is different from the vocabulary used in Judah.

4. Paul, Amos, 234, sees it as a metal of softness and perishability, while Hayes, Amos, 205, compares this wall to the analogy in Jeremiah. After considering all the possibilities, H. G. M. Williamson, “The Prophet and the Plumb-line: A Redactional-Critical Study of Amos vii,” OtSt 26 (1990): 121, concludes that God had a plumb line in his hand.

5. R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technologies (Leiden: Brill, 1964), 124–70, thinks this term refers to tin, but admits it can easily be confused with lead.

6. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 373, interprets “I will set a plumb line” as a wordplay between ʾanak (tin) and ʾanaq (mourning) because there is a need for a wordplay here, since there is a wordplay in the fourth vision. This increases the parallelism between the two visions, but there is little to support his suggestion.

7. Hayes, Amos, 231–32, guesses that this takes place at the fall festival when the king is present at the temple, but this is just speculation.

8. E.g., Mays, Amos, 136, since Gad is called both a prophet and seer of David (2 Sam. 24:11).

9. H. H. Rowley, “The Nature of Old Testament Prophecy in Light of Recent Studies,” The Servant of the Lord (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), 120–201, holds that the term is negative, while D. Petersen, The Roles of Israel’s Prophets (JSOTSup 17; Sheffield: JSOT, 1981), 56–57, believes this is a technical term for a Judean court prophet.

10. Rowley, “The Nature of Old Testament Prophecy,” 120–21.

11. S. Cohen, “Amos Was a Navi,” HUCA 32 (1962): 175–78; in an odd variation of this Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 376, translates, “No, I am a prophet though I am not a professional prophet,” by taking the first negative as an absolute denial, but not the second parallel negative.

12. For a full discussion of the many different proposals for interpreting Amos 7:14, see G. V. Smith, Amos, 322–25, or Paul, Amos, 244–47.

13. T. J. Wright, “Amos and the Sycamore Fig,” VT 26 (1976): 362–68.

14. Paul, Amos, 251, emphasizes the “uncleanness” of the land where Amaziah will die. He will become contaminated and polluted by living and dying in an “unclean” place. This was a great indignity for a priest.

15. T. C. Oden, Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline (St. Louis: Concordia, 1995), 58.

16. E. Brunner, The Divine Imperative (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1947), 558–59.

17. J. White and R. Blue, Healing the Wounded: The Costly Love of Church Discipline (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1985), 21.

18. T. LaHaye, If Ministers Fall, Can They Be Restored? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 111–19.

19. K. A. Lawton, “The Suffering Church,” CT 40 (July 15, 1996): 54–59, catalogs numerous modern examples of persecution of church members and their leaders.

20. Cited in ibid., 59. For a full but disturbing account of some examples of martyrdom, see J. Hefley and M. Hefley, By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960).

1. The NIV does not use the word “end” in Amos 8:2 but translates the Hebrew word qeṣ (end time) as “ripe” to help clarify the wordplay with the vision of “ripe fruit” in 8:1 (see comments on 8:1–3). This has the negative effect of showing less connection with the idea of “the end” in 8:10.

2. G. V. Smith, Amos, 245, supports this understanding.

3. See B. D. Rahtjan, “A Critical Note on Amos 8:1–2,” JBL 83 (1964): 416–17. The Gezer Calendar, a secular ninth-century B.C. agricultural calendar, refers to the summer with the spelling qṣ, which suggests the possibility that the two words may have been spelled and pronounced exactly the same at Amos’s time. Paul, Amos, 254, draws on the spellings of words on ostraca found at the city of Samaria to confirm this point. See ANET, 320, for a translation of the Gezer Calendar.

4. There is some ambiguity about the place where this disaster will take place. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 798, believe the language could refer to either the king’s palace or the temple; Paul, Amos, 254, prefers the palace; while Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 379, suggests the temple.

5. A. Baumann, “,” TDOT, 6:82.

6. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 799, suggest that the scattering of bodies implies the desecration of graves and the scattering of bones, but this is not necessary.

7. H. B. Huffmon, “The Social Role of Amos’ Message,” The Quest for the Kingdom of God: Studies in Honor of George E. Mendenhall, ed. H. B. Huffman, F. A. Spina, and A. R. W. Green (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 109–16; B. Lang, “The Social Organization of Peasant Poverty in Biblical Israel,” JSOT 24 (1982): 58–59.

8. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 384.

9. Less likely are the suggestions by Paul, Amos, 260, who prefers to interpret this verse in light of Amos 6:8, where God abhors the pride of Jacob, or Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 808, who suggest that this is a shortened form of the full oath where God swears by himself against the pride of Jacob.

10. This may have been fulfilled in the eclipse on June 15, 763 B.C., which is recorded in ancient Near Eastern documents (see Paul, Amos, 262–63).

11. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 385.

12. A. Biram, Biblical Dan (Jerusalem: IES, 1994); “An Israelite Altar at Dan,” BA 37 (1974): 106–7.

13. Some have played with the idea that ʾšmt (in construct form), “shame, guilt,” may refer to Ashima or Asherah. See the full discussion of these options in Paul, Amos, 269.

14. In the excavation at Beer Sheba, stones that belonged to an altar have been found. See Ze’ev Herzog, “Tel Beersheba,” The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 1:167–73, which shows a reconstruction of this altar.

15. D. J. A. Clines, Job 1–29 (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1989), 319.

16. See S. E. Balentine, The Hidden God: The Hiding of the Face of God in the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1983).

17. T. Garrett and R. Klonoski, Business Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986), 1, claims that laws describe only the minimal regulations necessary for public order.

18. Ibid., 3

19. See ibid., 100–108, where the authors discuss the issue of price fixing and the alternatives of government controls on prices.

20. M. Velasquez, Business Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988), discusses Union Carbide’s problem (p. 3), Johns-Mansville’s problems over asbestos (p. 47), Ford and Chrysler (pp. 118, 168), plus General Electric (p. 205).

21. R. Green, The Ethical Manager (New York: Macmillan, 1994), 56–65, surveys these approaches to ethics.

22. S. Briscoe, How to be a Motivated Christian (Wheaton: Victor, 1987), addresses a number of other factors that should motivate Christians (gratitude, duty, a sense of privilege, compassion, and a team spirit).

23. K. D. Bruner, Responsible Living in an Age of Excuses (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 83–190, focuses on the need to be responsible and therefore to take control of life. The desire to avoid pitfalls, make wise choices, and enjoy the benefits of success are a few of the motivators that cause people to act responsibly.

24. C. H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 9–10, notes that to many people today, everything is to be tolerated except intolerance.

25. J. Hick and P. F. Knittner, eds., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987).

26. Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy, 149–80, gives a whole chapter to the latter question.

27. E. Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), 221, feels God would be irrationally punishing these people simply on the basis of the accident of where they were born, which was beyond their control.

28. J. A. T. Robinson, In the End, God (London: Clarke, 1950); see esp. the discussion in ch. 9. Those interested in seeing the historical development of many of these ideas back in the early church and through the centuries can read D. P. Walker, Hell in Decline (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1964).

29. Western Report (July 8, 1991).

30. L. Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News: Confronting the Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ Teaching on Hell (Wheaton: Victor, 1992), 121–87.

31. P. Giesbrecht, Where Is God When a Child Suffers? (Hannibal: Hannibal Books, 1988), 11–66.

32. P. Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), makes some logical sense, but most people want more than that when tragedy strikes.

33. E. Achtemeier, “The Famine for the Word,” Faith and Mission 2 (1985): 64.

34. Ibid., 65

1. Paul, Amos, 274. He guesses this event took place on a Hebrew holiday because the place is full of worshipers, but this is not required.

2. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 334, changes the vocalization of the verb to “he smote,” while Harper, Amos and Hosea, 188, prefers “I smote,” but the text does not need to be changed.

3. Gowan, “Amos,” 421, sees a loss of security because they cannot go to the temple.

4. Obadiah, the person in charge of Ahab’s house, hid a hundred prophets of God in caves in the Carmel ridge because Jezebel was trying to kill all the good prophets (1 Kings 18:4).

5. Although some think the hymn was added by a later redactor and is out of place in this section, the consistent use of hymns in Amos in order to remind the listener about the true nature of God seems appropriate and a fitting means of supporting the prophet’s claims about future judgment. See Hayes, Amos, 218.

6. G. V. Smith, Amos, 366.

7. Commentators are not sure if the good grain falls through the sieve in this example and the straw and stones are thrown away, or if the good grain remains in the sieve with the dirt and chaff falling through. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 394, and others argue for the first interpretation.

8. D. Turner, Escape from God: The Use of Religion and Philosophy to Evade Responsibility (Pasadena, Calif.: Hope, 1991), 4.

9. B. Russell, cited in ibid., 110.

1. W. A. G. Nel, “Amos 9:11–15—An Unconditional Prophecy of Salvation During the Period of the Exile,” OtSt 2 (1984): 81–97, believes this section was added in the exilic period.

2. Harper, Amos, 194, raises linguistic arguments as well, but Paul, Amos, 289, has demonstrated the weakness of this kind of evidence.

3. G. Hasel, Understanding the Book of Amos (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 116–20, provides a list of authors on each side of these arguments.

4. G. V. Smith, Amos, 279–80, expands this line of argumentation to show that Israel did have a Davidic hope. See, e.g., Hosea’s promise to the Israelites of one king in the tradition of David (Hos. 1:11 and 3:5).

5. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 916–17, believe David’s dynasty fell when the kingdoms were divided in 930 B.C. after the death of Solomon (see 1 Kings 11–12).

6. J. Mauchline, “Implicit Signs of Persistent Belief in the Davidic Empire,” VT 20 (1970): 291, takes the “booth” to be royal imagery that refers to the Lord’s presence in the city, but this seems unlikely. Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 398, and H. N. Richardson, “Skt (Amos 9:11): ‘Booth’ or ‘Succoth’?” JBL 92 (1973), 375–81, suggest that this word refers to the city of Succoth, but most reject this hypothesis.

7. G. B. Gray, The Book of Isaiah (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912), 289, takes this to be a messianic text, but Amos is less specific, for he does not mention a throne or the one sitting on the throne (as Isaiah does).

8. Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 916, support this interpretation.

9. This small temporary tent (God’s perspective of the nation) is in stark contrast to the palace-fortresses that the people of Israel were so proud of elsewhere in Amos.

10. W. Kaiser, “The Davidic Promise and the Inclusion of the Gentiles (Amos 9:9–15 and Acts 15:13–18): A Test Passage for Theological Systems,” JETS 20 (1977): 97–112, pays special attention to the variations between the pronouns in “their breaches/broken places” and “his ruins.” For an alternate view that takes the pronouns seriously, see Hayes, Amos, 224–25, who believes “their breaches” refers to breaches in the Davidic alliance by rebellious cities and “his ruins” refers to those who oppose “his authority,” i.e., that of the new Davidic king.

11. The application of this passage to the New Testament situation was made easier because the early church leaders were following the LXX in reading “humankind” rather than “Edom.”

12. R. H. Stein, Playing by the Rules (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 17–60, gives an understandable explanation of the basic rules of interpretation, following the approach of E. D. Hirsch.

13. Finley, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, 324, identifies this as the “millennial kingdom,” but that information is totally unknown to Amos and all the other Old Testament prophets (the thousand-year reign is only mentioned specifically in Rev. 20).

14. See Isa. 34:1–8; 63:1–6; possibly Obad. 15–21. Note M. W. Woudstra, “Edom and Israel in Ezekiel,” CTJ 3 (1968): 21–35, who offers examples of passages where Edom seems to stand for all the nations.

1. G. V. Smith, “Persuasive Rhetoric in Divine Inspiration,” Didaskalia 8 (1997): 60–74, pays special attention to the persuasive qualities of Micah 3. Jeremiah 26:17–19 testifies that this sermon caused Hezekiah to change his ways and fear God.

2. Manasseh is not mentioned by name in Micah 1:1, probably because Hezekiah had not died. The setting of Micah 6–7 seems to reflect an evil period after Hezekiah’s reform when the prophet was very disappointed about the fruits of his own ministry.

3. Micah’s first message (1:2–7) came sometime before 722/721 B.C. and the fall of the northern nation of Israel. This prophecy was probably during the time of Ahaz in Judah, close in time to the fall of Israel.

4. J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller, Israelite and Judean History (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 421–33, discuss this war and its ramifications in great detail.

5. ANET, 284, gives Sargon’s boastful account of his conquest of Israel.

6. J. Bright, A History of Israel, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 286–88, describes some of the problems with untangling these events.

7. C. S. Shaw, The Speeches of Micah: A Rhetorical-Historical Analysis (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 56–67, reviews various theories about the date of 1:8–16 (701, 711, and 734 B.C.) and then proposes an early date at the beginning of Jotham’s reign. R. L. Smith, Micah-Malachi (WBC; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1984), 5, dates 1:10–16 with Sennacherib’s march to Jerusalem in 701 B.C., but it seems better to interpret this as a reference to earlier military conflicts in the Shephelah (the low Judean hills) in 720 or 711, and a warning about a future threat to Jerusalem (fulfilled in 701 B.C. and finally 586 B.C.).

8. Bright, History of Israel, 298–309, hypothesizes two campaigns by Sennacherib, but this view is widely questioned. See B. Childs, Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis (London: SCM, 1967), R. E. Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), or D. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992), 351–58, for a full explanation of the problem and possible solutions.

9. Some prefer to place these chapters in the time of Ahaz, while others put part or all of this section into an exilic setting (esp. 7:8–20). See L. C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 250–52, for a survey of opinions.

10. M. Broski, “The Expansion of Jerusalem in the Reign of Hezekiah and Manasseh,” IEJ 24 (1974): 21–26.

11. H. W. Wolff, Micah the Prophet (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 17–25. Wolff also considers it significant that one of the elders of Israel remembered Micah’s words (since he was thought to be one of them) at the time of Jeremiah.

12. See R. R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 32–51, 58–59, for a description of these terms. Peripheral prophets did not support the people in power, argued for radical change in society, and emphasized the injustices in the present political and social system.

13. See comments on chapter 7 for this and other interpretations of the first-person references in that lament.

14. See 4:1–5 for a discussion of its relationship with Isa. 2:1–4.

15. Baalism was strong in Judah during the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh.

16. W. Rudolph, Micha-Nahum-Habakuk-Zephanja (KAT; Gutersloh: Mohn, 1975), 25, and Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 241–52, believe that Micah did not write the positive passages in Micah 4:1–8; 5:6–8; 7:8–20. J. L. Mays, Micah: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), 23–33, attributes the positive statements in 2:12–13 and all of chs. 4–7 to someone other than Micah. Both of these approaches ignore many of the factors that bring coherence to the book. For a detailed study of points of coherence, see D. G. Hagstrom, The Coherence of the Book of Micah: A Literary Analysis (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988).

17. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 244–45; J. Limburg, Hosea-Micah (Interp; Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), 162; Mays, Micah, 26.

18. R. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, 3d ed. (Dallas: Word, 1990), 39–64, has a whole chapter dealing with Scripture passages on this topic.

19. A. Kuyper, Christianity and the Class Struggle (Grand Rapids: Piet Hein, 1950), 27, 50.

20. J. Calvin, The Sermons of M. Iohn Calvin upon the Fifth Booke of Moses Called Deuteronomie, (London: Middleton, 1583), 770, from a sermon on Deut. 22:1–4.

21. N. Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 23–42. He identifies a high degree of differentiation and value generalization as aids to the development of an ethos of self-sufficiency that employs peripheral people to gather surplus for the core wealthy people.

22. R. C. Chewning, Biblical Principles and Economics (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1989), has edited a series of papers and responses that are helpful.

23. D. C. Jones, “Economics in Theological Perspective,” Biblical Principles and Economics, 111.

1. See the extensive discussion of the structure in Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 257–64, and his review of the way others deal with these issues; also J. T. Willis, “The Structure of the Book of Micah,” SEÅ 34 (1969): 5–42; Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 45–59.

2. Mays, Micah, 25, 28, 42, 47, and Wolff, Micah, 46, 51, eliminate this problem by concluding that the universal statements (1:2) and some of the references to Samaria (Mic. 1:5b–7) are later additions (because Micah is not concerned with idolatry in his other messages). But J. Willis, “Some Suggestions on the Interpretation of Micah i.2,” VT 18 (1968): 378–79, shows how 1:2 fits in this context. Though some question his words about Samaria in 1:5b–7, they are consistent with the preaching of Hosea, who wrote before Micah. Even if one excludes any knowledge of Hosea, Micah was an adult when Samaria fell and certainly he knew about the idolatry there.

3. D. Vetter, “,” THAT, 4031:400–, believes this verb is used to describe prophetic revelations.

4. Archaeologists think Tell el-Judeideh, just a short distance from Mareshah, is the site of this town.

5. J. Oswalt, Isaiah 1–39 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 5–13.

6. This is not a new universal eschatological theme introduced in the Exile, as Wolff (Micah, 41, 51) suggests, for theopany language and events go back to God’s appearance at Sinai in Ex. 19; historical events in Judg. 5:4; 2 Sam. 22:8–16; hymnic literature in Ps. 77:17–20; 114:3–8; and the prophets Nahum (Nah. 1:2–6) and Habakkuk (Hab. 3:3–15). J. T. Willis, “Some Suggestions on the Interpretation of Micah i.2,” 377, believes that the references to the nations are actually the Hebrews listening to Micah. B. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 617, seems to agree with Willis.

7. Sometimes the heavens and the earth are witnesses (Deut. 31:28; 32:1) but not in this case.

8. W. Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 31–32, notes similarities between the response of nature here and at Mount Sinai in Ex. 20:18–21.

9. Mays, Micah, 42, connects this to the hymn used in Nahum 1 (see Judg. 5:4; 2 Sam. 22:10; Ps. 68:8 as possible sources). It is likely that Nahum and Micah used the same earlier tradition from one of these texts. G. Stansell, Micah and Isaiah: A Form and Tradition Comparison (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988), 9–34, compares the use of the theophany in Mic. 1:2–4 in a negative context, with the use in positive contexts in Isa. 3:13–15; 30:27–33; 31:4.

10. See G. V. Smith, An Introduction to the Hebrew Prophets: The Prophets As Preachers (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 5–46, for a discussion of various aspects of the process of persuading people to transform their thinking and behavior.

11. Not the pagan high places where false gods were worshiped.

12. Micah uses the “rhetoric of entrapment,” similar to Amos 1–2, to set his audience up before he brings the bad news to them in Mic. 1:5–6. See R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 142–46, or the discussion of Amos’s method of entrapment in G. V. Smith, Amos (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1998), 52–132.

13. Micah 1:5 begins with a Heb. phrase that shows a connection between the sins in 1:5–6 and the theophany in 1:2–4.

14. Josephus wrote: “And when Hyrcanus had taken that city, which was not done til after a year’s siege . . . he demolished it entirely . . . he took away the very marks that there had ever been such a city there” (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 13.10.3, in The Works of F. Josephus, trans. W. Whiston [Philadelphia: Winston, n.d.]).

15. On the meaning of this word, see J. P. van der Westhuisen, “The Term ʾetnan in Micah,” OTWSA (1973): 54–61.

16. Hillers, Micah, 20–21, has this interpretation. Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 33, and Barker, “Micah,” 53, believe the money was used to pay for cult prostitutes and that it will have that use again. Also see W. G. E. Watson, “Allusion, Irony and Wordplay in Micah 1, 7,” Bib 65 (1984): 103–5, for a discussion of the meaning of some of the difficult words in 1:7.

17. See similar reflections in D. J. Simundson, “Micah,” 7:544–45.

18. See J. I. Durham, Exodus (WBC; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), 89–210, for a discussion of some of these themes in the Exodus events.

19. P. Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), deals with this problem of making sense of things after a tragedy strikes. For a discussion of key Old Testament passages, see Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. J. L. Crenshaw (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).

1. Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 46–47, discusses these options. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 266–69, finds two paragraphs in 1:2–9 (vv. 2–5 and vv. 6–9).

2. This follows the general analysis of B. Renaud, La formation du livre de Michee: Tradition et actualisation (Paris: Gabalda et Cie, 1977), 37, but organizes the material in a different way.

3. See GKC, par. 106n; Shaw, Speeches of Micah, 56–67, reviews various possible dates and ends up dating this passage early in the time of Jotham.

4. The fact that the people of Judah are still in Gath suggests the date is before 711 B.C., when the Assyrians took it. See Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 242. Wolff, Micah, 49, prefers a date not later than 722 B.C.

5. ANET, 287–88.

6. T. Longman III, “Lament,” Cracking Old Testament Codes, ed. D. B. Sandy and R. L. Giese, (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1995), 197–213, gives a good introduction to the lament. See also the article by C. Westermann, “The Role of the Lament in the Theology of the Old Testament,” Int 28 (1974): 20–38.

7. C. Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms, trans. K. R. Crim and R. N. Soulen (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 261, describes the different kinds of laments.

8. G. Stählin, “κοπετός,” TDNT, 3:836–41.

9. “Because of this” in 1:8 is usually taken to refer to what is said before it, but does it make much sense that Micah wails the destruction of Israel’s idols (1:6–7)? Micah 1:9 and 12 pick up the theme of the coming of God in judgment from 1:3, which may be the connecting reason that “this” refers to.

10. B. K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 573, 34.5.1a, describe the possible uses of the cohortative form.

11. The location of some of these towns is unknown, and most have not been excavated.

12. The Hebrew written text (ketib) has “I will roll myself,” but the spoken text (qereʾ ) and Mur 88 (one of the Qumran group) have the imperative “(you) roll yourself,” which is more fitting in this context. The NIV follows the spoken text.

13. The comparison between ṣʾnn and yṣʾh is a little stretched, but there is some overlap in sounds between the two words.

14. Mays, Micah, 58; Wolff, Micah, 62; but see Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Joel, Micah, 155. Archaeologists have found several pagan temples in the excavation of Lachish; see The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 911.3:897–They found a Middle Bronze Canaanite Fosse temple that was in use from 1550–1250 B.C. and a Canaanite acropolis temple. From the united monarchy of Israel there was a cultic area near a solar shrine.

15. The prophetic perfect verb refers to a future event as if it is already complete.

16. See A. R. Diamond, The Confessions of Jeremiah in Context: Scenes of Prophetic Drama (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986), and M. S. Smith, The Laments of Jeremiah and Their Contexts: A Literary and Redactional Study of Jeremiah 11–20 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), for a discussion of the interpretation of these laments.

17. J. I. Durham, Exodus, 432–33, makes the point that Moses goes through the emotional responses of pleading for mercy, anger, reasoning, taking control of the situation, and seeking forgiveness for the people.

18. A. Resner, “Lament: Faith’s Response to Loss,” Restoration Quarterly 32 (1990): 129.

19. Ibid., 132.

20. R. Davidson, The Courage to Doubt (London: SCM, 1983), 16.

21. Ibid., 17.

22. W. M. Soll, “The Israelite Lament: Faith Seeking Understanding,” Quarterly Review 8 (1988): 79–85.

23. W. Brueggemann, “The Costly Loss of Lament,” JSOT 36 (1986): 60–63.

24. S. P. McCutchan, “Illuminating the Dark: Using Psalms of Lament,” The Christian Ministry 24 (1993): 14.

25. E. Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 38–88. W. Brueggemann, “The Formfulness of Grief,” Int 31 (1977): 267–74, makes positive and negative comparisons between laments and Ross’s approach to grief.

1. Wolff, Micah, 74–75, thinks Micah is preaching in his home town of Moresheth Gath before the elders in the gate about the evil ways of the civil and military authorities, but this is just a hypothetical guess. It seems more likely to place Micah in Jerusalem.

2. Wolff, ibid., 83, suggests this.

3. A. S. van der Woude, “Micha ii.7a und der Bund Yahweh mit Israel,” VT 18 (1968): 388–91. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 294, seems to take this approach also.

4. C. Westermann, Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech, trans. H. C. White (Philadelphia: Westminister, 1967), and W. Janzen, Mourning Cry and Woe Oracle (BZAW; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1972), 40–80.

5. Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 48.

6. See G. V. Smith, Amos, 238–39, on the background of the woe oracle.

7. A. Graffy, The Prophet Confronts His People: The Disputation Speech in the Prophets (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1984), and D. F. Murray, “The Rhetoric of Disputations: Re-examination of a Prophetic Genre,” JSOT 38 (1987): 95–121, describe this form of speech.

8. According to Prov. 4:14–16, God does not want us to stay up nights planning evil actions against others (cf. Ps. 36:4).

9. Isa. 5:8–10 has a similar group of people in mind.

10. No land could be lost to a family for more than forty-nine years, according to the laws in Lev. 25. See J. A. Fager, Land Tenure and the Biblical Jubilee (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993); J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1992), 425–50.

11. Mays, Micah, 64; for an extensive discussion of property rights see J. A. Dearman, Property Rights in the Eighth-Century Prophets: The Conflict and Its Background (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988).

12. R. Smith, Micah-Malachi, 25, believes that one of the rich landowners will sing this song, but this is unlikely. The NIV translation suggests someone else is taunting them. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 639, thinks those who defeat Judah will mock the rich landowners.

13. There is repeated alliteration of the s and d consonants in this saying to give it a little extra flair.

14. The NIV uses the verb “divided” in the phrase “my people’s possession is divided up,” which is based on reading the verb mwr (to change, exchange) as mdd (to measure, divide), following the Old Greek translation of this word, which seems like an unnecessary textual emendation. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 640, also keeps the present Hebrew text.

15. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 292–96; Mays, Micah, 67–69; Wolff, Micah, 81–82.

16. The first imperative is plural, so it appears that there were other prophets with Micah (Hillers, Micah, 36). There is no other mention of other prophetic support for Micah in other passages, though one might assume that Micah and Isaiah encouraged one another.

17. Wolff, Micah, 81, thinks it “refers to a passionate, zealous manner of speech in which spittle sprays forth,” a disparaging term for prophecy. See also R. Hess, “,” NIDOTTE, 3:97.

18. The final line can be interpreted with the NIV (“disgrace will not overtake us”) as a statement by the false prophets, but the Hebrew text seems to have Micah saying, “Shame will not be removed.” Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 292 n. 40, emends ysg to yśg to get “overtake.” The NASB and Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 159, keep the Hebrew text and see this as a reply by Micah.

19. E. A. Neiderhiser, “Micah 2:6–11: Considerations on the Nature of Discourse,” BTB 11 (1981): 104–5, also sees Micah 2:6b as Micah’s rebuttal and does not emend the Hebrew.

20. Although it is true that all people filter their view of God in light of their own experience and what they have been taught, every view must ultimately be evaluated as an adequate or inadequate portrayal of all the revelation in Scripture. P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 129–47, discuss this process of internalizing the worldview of the society in which a person lives. The danger is that people internalize the misunderstandings of one’s culture instead of allowing God’s Word to redefine reality as he sees it.

21. See the various attempts to get at an acceptable translation in the commentaries. Many emend the text, while others try to explain the present text by finding later redactions. See Mays, Micah, 67, or the suggestions of H. G. M. Williamson, “Marginalia in Micah,” VT 47 (1997): 360–64, for further discussion of these problems.

22. Commentors like J. L. Mays, Micah, 69, see those living without a care as “averse to war,” but this is not as good a translation as “those returning from war.”

23. Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 44, accepts this view but Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 646, properly rejects it.

24. E. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC; Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 243–49, discusses the implications of this text.

25. Mays, Micah, 67, prefers “dignity,” but Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 297, sees the land as the glorious heritage God gave his people.

26. See the excellent discussion of this theological theme in W. Kaiser, “The Promise Theme and the Theology of Rest,” BibSac 130 (1973): 135–50, or G. von Rad, “There Remains a Rest for the People of God: An Investigation of a Biblical Conception,” The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, trans. E. W. T. Dickens (New York: Oliver and Boyd, 1966), 94–103.

27. This concept is associated with the worship of idols in Jer. 19:13; Ezek. 22:15; 36:25, so one can see how detestable this oppression is to God.

28. For some odd reason the idea “spirit/wind” is omitted in the NIV, though in Micah 2:6 and 3:8 it is included.

29. There is a nice wordplay between šqr (false, lies) and škr (beer).

30. E. J. Bush, “Last Commandment, First Sin,” Christian Ministry 26 (1995): 34.

31. V. P Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 190.

32. G. H. Jones, 1 and 2 Kings, 2 vols. (NCBC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 2:353–54, shows that people at Mari and Ugarit had similar customs in relationship to the sale of land, but there was a totally different approach in Babylonia.

33. D. T. Olsen, “The Beginning Is the End: The Coveting Commandment and the Sermon on the Mount,” Princeton Seminary Bulletin 2 (1990): 159.

34. Ibid., 160.

35. D. A. Hagner, Matthew 1–13 (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1993), 116.

36. A. J. Malherbe, “The Christianization of a TOPOS (Luke 12:13–34),” NovT 38 (1996): 123–35.

37. See F. Buchsell, “ήυμός, ἐπιήυμία, ἐπιήυμέω,” TDNT, 3:167–72. He contrasts Greek views of this desire (which is a lack of rationality) and the biblical perspective (which sees this as sin).

38. Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, 19–46.

39. J. Stapert, “It’s About Greed,” Perspectives 10 (1995): 4–5.

40. Ibid., 5.

41. R. C. Roberts, “Just a Little Bit More: Greed and the Malling of Our Souls,” CT 40 (April 8, 1996): 30.

42. P. Brasfield, “Fame, Fortune, and Greed: Ed McMahon and the American Dream,” Other Side 27 (Jan.–Feb., 1991): 40–42.

43. Roberts, “Just a Little Bit More,” 30.

44. C. K. Lysons, “The Seven Deadly Sins: Avarice,” ExpT 97 (1986): 241–42.

1. A. S. van der Woude, “Micah in Dispute with the Pseudo-Prophets,” VT 19 (1969): 244–69, thinks these words are the lies and deceptions mentioned in 2:11.

2. Mays, Micah, 4–5, 28, but this destroys the balanced pattern of negative and positive parts in each section.

3. Shaw, Speeches of Micah, 75–76, reviews the postexilic evidence (it has vocabulary similar to Jer. 50:8 and Isa. 52:12), but these words are not limited to exilic usage. Also one must ask why an editor would take a verse from an appropriate context (Mic. 4:1–8) and add it here where it does not fit as well.

4. R. Smith, Micah-Malachi, 28.

5. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 301. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 652, has a fairly complete survey of the different ways interpreters have struggled to make sense of these verses.

6. Shaw, Speeches of Micah, 91–96, surveys the options of dating this to 722, 715, 701, but his own suggestion that it be put way back in the time of Menahem (2 Kings 15 at 738 B.C.) seems unlikely.

7. Waltke and O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 581–88, give examples of places where the infinitive absolute intensifies the verbal root; thus God says “I will surely gather.”

8. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 300, translates this line “bleating in fear of men,” but there is no word for “fear” in this text. The NIV adds to the verse “the place” and then translates the verb ḥwm as “will throng” rather than the more usual translation “be excited, agitated, noisy.” Although this word can mean “confusion” as Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 653, maintains, this idea does not provide hope and seems to ignore the strong leadership of God at this time.

9. This may refer to God’s breaking out of the city of Jerusalem against the Assyrians in 701 B.C. Kimchi has this same general idea but applies it to Zedekiah’s breaking out of Jerusalem in 597 (Jer. 52:1–7). See W. McKane, “Micah 2:12–13,” JNSL 21 (1995): 84–85.

10. Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 45, thinks “the breaker” is the Messiah himself, but this finds in these words more than Micah seems to say (where is “breaker” used for the Messiah in earlier passages?). This approach opts for an eschatological interpretation of this promise rather than a historical one for Micah’s audience.

11. J. T. Willis, “The Structure of the Book of Micah,” SEÅ 34 (1969): 26, and G. Brin, “Micah 2, 2–13: A Textual and Ideological Study,” ZAW 101 (1989): 118–24.

12. J. N. Oswalt, “Judgment and Hope: The Full-Orbed Gospel,” TrinJ 17 (1996): 201, illustrates this specifically in the writings of Isaiah.

1. Wolff, Micah, 117, and Mays, Micah, 95, think Micah 4:1–8 is postexilic from the Persian period because of its dependence on Isaiah and the reference to the temple standing.

2. J. T. Willis, “The Structure of Micah 3–5,” ZAW 81 (1969): 199, believes the purpose of 4:1–8 is to encourage Israel to trust God in a time of great distress. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 246–48, dates 4:11–5:15 to the Assyrian crisis in 701 B.C. but dates 4:1–10 later because of late vocabulary and a reference to Babylon (see discussion of these points in the commentary).

3. The five points of contrast of Willis, “The Structure of Micah 3–5,” 196, are: (1) ch. 3 refers to the imminent future of Jerusalem, while ch. 4 refers to the distant future; (2) in 3:12 Zion is to be destroyed, but in 4:1 it is exalted; (3) the “heads” are condemned in 3:9, 11, but in 4:1 the mountain of Zion is the “head” (chief) of the mountains; (4) the unjust judges of 3:11 will be replaced with God’s just judgment between nations in 4:3; and (5) in 3:10 Jerusalem is a city of bloodshed, but in 4:2–3 Zion is a place where God teaches all people and they beat their swords into plowshares. Willis’s chiastic structural analysis of chs. 4–5 is given in a chart on page 212. See Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 68–83, for a discussion of different ways of looking at the structure of chs. 4–5.

4. Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 40, lists these words: my people, answer, prophet, divination, head, ruler, hear, justice, Jacob, Israel.

5. Shaw, Speeches of Micah, 121–22.

6. G. V. Smith, “Persuasive Rhetoric in Divine Inspiration,” Didaskalia 8 (1997): 60–74.

7. J. R. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word As Title in the Old Testament,” VT 29 (1969): 1–10. This word is used as early as Ex. 18:25 to refer to the leaders of the tribes of Israel who helped Moses administer justice during the desert journey.

8. Mays, Micah, 78, and Shaw, Speeches of Micah, 110, strongly support this military background, but probably the same person functions as the leader in all areas of life (military, family, judicial).

9. K. W. Whitelam, The Just King (Sheffield: JSOT, 1979), deals with the different people who helped carry out justice in Israel. V. H. Matthews and D. C. Benjamin, The Social World of Ancient Israel:1250–587 B.C.E. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993), 121–31, deal with the role of the elder, while 159–74 describe the monarch.

10. The Heb. text is unclear in the next to the last phrase in Micah 3:3. Based on the parallelism, the NIV and most commentators suggest that prś (to spread out) be read as prs (to divide, break) and that the relative kʾšr (as, like that) is a copyist’s error of metathesizing the middle two letters and should be kšʾr (like flesh). Both of these minor changes help to make sense of the problematic clause in this context and are accepted by almost everyone.

11. Similar grotesque imagery is used of oppression in Ps. 14:4; 27:2; Prov. 30:14.

12. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 307, and Mays, Micah, 79, believe this refers to the abuse of the poor. The identity of the oppressed is not clarified here, but probably includes both poor and those with money.

13. The verb tʾh can mean to wander about (Gen. 21:14), stagger (of drunks in Isa. 28:7), or mislead (Mic. 3:12; 9:15).

14. The false prophets sometimes did give negative messages; they were not positive about everything. Especially when they were not paid, they could be negative.

15. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 312.

16. R. Smith, Micah-Malachi, 34, calls it “a kind of call narrative,” while Mays, Micah, 84, believes it has the basic elements of a call story.

17. Wolff, Micah, 105.

18. Ibid. Although ngd means “to declare” in many contexts, it is not always a neutral term of informing people but can move over to the idea of “to confront.”

19. Isa. 3:1–3 lists the hero, warrior, judge, prophet, soothsayer, elder, captain of fifty, man of rank, counselor, skilled craftsman, and clever enchanter as some of the leaders in Jerusalem whom God will judge.

20. Jer. 22:13–14 complains of a similar problem in the reign of Jehoiakim a hundred years later (cf. also Hab. 2:12).

21. Mays, Micah, 89, thinks that this refers to the priest making judicial decisions (see Deut. 17:10–13) in parallel with the problems of the judges, but this is not described as “teaching” in those contexts.

22. See D. J. Reimer, “,” NIDOTTE, 3:744–69; G. Schrenk, “δική, δίκαιος, δικαιοσύνη, δικαιόω,” TDNT, 2:174–78, 188–90, 195, 204.

23. W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 1:240, supports this position from the studies of Cremer, Weber, and Pedersen.

24. J. R. Clinton, Leaders, Leadership and the Bible (Atlanta: Barnabas Resources, 1993), gives many examples.

25. Wolff, Micah the Prophet, 152.

26. J. O. Sanders, Spiritual Leadership (Chicago: Moody, 1994), 154–55. Other perils he identifies are pride, popularity, self-perceived infallibility, indispensability, and depression.

27. W. Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1989), 160, connects the traits of constancy, congruity, reliability, and integrity as keys to giving people confidence in a leader.

28. For a survey of biblical statements about these selfish desires, see G. A. Getz, A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions (Chicago: Moody, 1990).

29. D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Prayers from Prison (London: Collins, 1959), 300.

30. Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality, 89–92; see comments in the Contemporary Significance section of Hosea 10:1–15.

31. R. Perkins, Looking Both Ways: Exploring the Interface Between Christianity and Sociology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 156–66, believes reification leads to exclusivity, parochialism, confrontationalism, pride, absolutism, and self-contradiction by modern Christians in the church. For example, not long ago Christians claimed that the Bible supported racism and slavery.

32. P. Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), and P. Giesbrecht, Where Is God When a Child Suffers? (Hannibal: Hannibal Books, 1988) struggle with these questions.

1. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 676, describes fourteen contrasts; J. T. Willis, “The Structure of Micah 3–5,” ZAW 81 (1969): 196, mentions several; E. Nielson, Oral Tradition (Chicago: Allenson, 1954), 92–93, also emphasizes these connections between chs. 3 and 4.

2. Mays, Micah, 29, 95, and Wolff, Micah, 21–22, 114–18, take this position because (1) Jeremiah 26:17–19 remembers Micah as a prophet of doom, (2) his calling in Micah 3:8 is to announce to Judah its sins, (3) 4:1–8 assumes the exile when the temple was rebuilt, and (4) the people are not at war. Hillers, Micah, 51–52, and E. H. Scheffler, “Micah 4:1–5: An Impasse in Exegesis?” Old Testament Essays (Pretoria, South Africa: Univ. of South Africa, 1985), 52–53, refute all of these points: The text does not say Micah only spoke words of judgment against Judah, and Jeremiah only refers to one sermon of Micah’s. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 244, sees only 4:6–8 as a late exilic addition.

3. Hillers, Micah, 53, makes this point.

4. A. S. van der Woude, “Micah in Dispute with the Pseudo-Prophets,” 244–60.

5. E. Cannawurf, “The Authenticity of Micah IV 1–4,” VT 13 (1963): 26–33; Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 170–75; Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 243; H. Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12 (CC; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 83–96.

6. R. Smith, Micah-Malachi, 36, sees this as referring to eschatological events.

7. Micah and all the other prophets think this new era will take place at the geographic location of Jerusalem (and that is how we should interpret the meaning of this verse), but as Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 327, reminds us, Jesus seems to downplay any specific geographic location for later worship when talking to the woman at the well in John 4:21–24.

8. Mays, Micah, 96–97, and several other commentaries suggest a connection between this streaming of people to Jerusalem and the streams of living water that will flow from Jerusalem (Ps. 46:4; Ezek. 47; Joel 3:18), but I see no connection.

9. Hillers, Micah, 51, thinks this word of Yahweh is a prophetic word since it is used in that sense elsewhere, but there is no mention of prophets here, only direct instruction from God himself.

10. I do not see these as symbolic of a modest lifestyle but of an ideal situation with plenty of food and security. W. Brueggemann, “ ‘Vine and Fig Tree’: A Case Study in Imagination and Criticism,” CBQ 43 (1981): 188–204, correctly sees this as a different ideal from those coveting more land (Mic. 2:1–4) or those who work only for the sake of getting more money (3:9–11).

11. Wolff, Micah, 123–24, questions whether this is a reference to the limping or lameness of Jacob (as B. Renaud has suggested), for there is no mention of Jacob. He prefers to connect this text to Ezek. 34, where the gathering of Israel is described, but that text never mentions the lame.

12. Wolff, Micah, 123, suggests the translation of śym here in Micah 4:7 and in 1:6 as “transform.”

13. Mays, Micah, 101, says “The dispersion will not be transformed into a mighty nation in order to resume a political career that is the expression of their own power and will.”

14. See the fuller discussion of God’s kingship in G. V. Smith, “The Concept of God/the Gods As King in the Ancient Near East and the Bible,” TrinJ 3 (1982): 18–38.

15. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 678, strongly supports this approach because Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled in Christ; the prophets speak of the new age under the symbols of the old; Old Testament prophecies have heavenly realities behind their symbols; Christ’s coming has done away with the old reality; and the prophets supercharge their old symbols with hyperbole. These points may help one do a systematic theology of prophetic issues, but they do not help one understand what God reveals to Micah or what Micah means as he addresses his audience.

16. E. D. Hirsch Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1967), stresses that the only valid principle is to base an interpretation on the meaning given by the original author. R. H. Stein, Playing by the Rules: A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), gives a popular explanation of the Hirschian approach to the process of interpreting Scripture.

17. Some may divide these into the literal hermeneutic of dispensationalism and the figurative approach of covenant theology, but adherents to both of these systems take some verses literally and some figuratively. See the contrasting articles from both sides of this question in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. J. S. Feinberg (Westchester: Crossway, 1988), 263–307, where B. Waltke and W. Kaiser explain their contrasting approaches to prophecy.

18. See J. N. Oswalt, Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1–39 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 177–85, who quotes Calvin’s claim that it is impossible to separate the sign from the truth.

19. Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 168. A somewhat similar approach is used by M. Luther—see Luther’s Works, ed. H. C. Oswald (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1975), 18:238, who thinks “this mountain became very famous because of Christ.” Later in Micah 4:6–7 Luther sees God as restoring a small Jewish remnant after the Babylonian exile but then strangely twists the reference to these people becoming a strong nation into a reference to the church.

20. J. O. Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 163–70, describes some of the ways different theologians have tried to explain the decrees of God.

21. G. W. Bromiley, “The Decrees of God,” Basic Christian Doctrine, ed. C. F. Henry (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), 42–48, shows that some relate the decrees only to issues of election, while others use the term in a broader sense.

22. E. Clowney, “Declare His Glory Among the Nations,” Declare His Glory, ed. D. M. Howard (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1977), 95–108.

23. J. Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993).

24. My parents, who were Gospel Missionary Union missionaries in Colta, Equador, during their retirement years, have referred to towns where all the people were Christians.

25. J. I. Durham, “šālōm and the Presence of God,” Proclamation and Presence: Old Testament Essays in Honor of G. H. Davies, ed. J. R. Porter and J. I. Durham (Richmond: Knox, 1970), 292.

1. Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 72–87, surveys and analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of each and then gives his own views.

2. Hillers, Micah, 64; J. T. Willis, “The Structure of Micah 3–5,” ZAW 81 (1969): 198–212; Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 181; Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 339–41.

3. Wolff, Micah, 136, and Mays, Micah, 104, are influenced strongly by the reference to going into exile in Babylon, which happened about 120 years later; but Isaiah’s prophecy to Hezekiah (Isa. 39) indicates that the prophets already knew before 701 B.C. that God was going to give Judah into the hand of Babylon. Shaw, Speeches of Micah, 157, places these events back to the reign of Pekah and the Syro-Ephraimite war in 734–732 B.C., but why would Micah give the evil King Ahaz such wonderful promises of hope?

4. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 333; Mays, Micah, 105; and Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 61, point to the inadequacy of the earthly king, while Wolff, Micah, 139, and Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 178, think the king is God. If Micah 4:1–8 and 4:9–5:4 are intended to encourage the people of Jerusalem with some thread of hope during Sennacherib’s attack, it seems that Micah would be focusing their attention on trusting God and building up the people’s trust in the good King Hezekiah—not ridiculing him.

5. The idea of many nations gathering against God’s people is common to Zion tradition (see J. J. M. Roberts, “The Davidic Origin of the Zion Tradition,” JBL 92 [1973]: 329–44).

6. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 696, reports that this was commonly done; also, enemy nations plundered a nation’s gold that was consecrated to its gods/God.

7. Mays, Micah, 107, points out these contrasts.

8. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 341, translates “gashing yourself,” and Wolff, Micah, 129, 131, translates the verb from this root “gash yourself.” The RSV “Now you are walled about with a wall” is based on the emendation of the root gdd (troop) to gdr (wall), based on the Old Greek.

9. Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 181; Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 63.

10. Mays, Micah, 115, and Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 63, think this refers to the humiliation of Zedekiah, who was tortured after the fall of Jerusalem about 120 years later, but it makes more sense to see it as a reference to Hezekiah (as Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 341, suggests).

11. K. Barker, “Micah,” Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, 95, also suggests it may refer to Zedekiah, who was blinded by Nebuchadnezzar’s soldiers (2 Kings 25:7; Jer. 52:10–11) or even to Christ (Matt. 27:30), but Hezekiah seems more likely.

12. See Kaiser, Micah-Malachi, 64.

13. This may be a hint that both Judah and the northern nation of Israel will return. I do not follow Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 706, who claims that “the prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost” but believe there is much more to this prophecy than what happens in Acts 2.

14. Wolff, Micah, 147, and Mays, Micah, 119, see the name Assyria as a code word for Judah’s enemies and not a specific reference to Sennacherib’s forces, which are invading the land at the time.

15. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 347, compares it to Judg. 16:23–24 and Jer. 21:13.

16. Hillers, Micah, 68–69, does this because of the preceding plural verbs.

17. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 348, has a solution that makes good sense. We do not follow Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 709, who sees this fulfilled in the messianic era, when God’s people are attacked. The reference to Nimrod and Assyria suggests that Micah is not just using code words for Israel’s enemies but referring to real people at that time.

18. Hillers, Micah, 71, relies on the views of Wolfe and McKeating for this interpretation.

19. Barker, “Micah,” Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, 103.

20. Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 188, and Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 355.

21. This is the view of Wolff, Micah, 157, and Mays, Micah, 123.

22. See the contrasting approaches in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, 263–307; esp. the two chapters on the “Kingdom Promises” by W. Kaiser and B. Waltke. R. Saucy and M. Woudstra also give two different approaches to the question of “Israel and the Church,” 221–62.

23. T. McComiskey, “Micah,” 7:430.

24. I do not follow Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 709, who sees the prophecy about the seven or eight leaders fulfilled “in the church: Christ raised up elders and gifted people to protect it against evil people.”

25. E. Hoffmann, “Hope, Expectation,” NIDNTT, 2:238–46.

26. W. Zimmerli, Man and His Hope in the Old Testament (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1968).

27. I have a tract in Hebrew and English that uses these verses in Micah to demonstrate to Jewish people that the Messiah whom Micah spoke of has already come in the person of Jesus Christ.

28. P. E. Little, Know Why You Believe (New York: Pyramid, 1973), 60–62, says that “fulfilled prophecy is one of the evidences of the supernatural origin of the word of its prophets (Jer. 28:9).”

29. B. Narramore, An Ounce of Prevention (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973), 97–109, talks about the need for parents to discipline children. He opposes the approach of A. S. Neill, Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing (New York: Hart, 1960), 114, who insists that “to impose anything by authority is wrong.”

30. J. Kessler, Ten Mistakes Parents Make with Teenagers (Brentwood, Tenn.: Wolgemouth & Hyatt, 1988), 57–63, provides some helpful hints to parents about allowing teenagers to develop their own identity.

31. J. O. Balswick and J. K. Balswick, The Family: A Christian Perspective on the Contemporary Home (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 231–44, deal with the issue of power and control within a marriage.

32. B. L. Shelley, The Gospel and the American Dream (Portland: Multnomah, 1989), 174, quotes from this speech and then notes how far this secular view of reality has drifted from the biblical perspective.

1. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 356; Mays, Micah, 124–25. Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 68, believes “this unit proclaims future hope for Israel in spite of YHWH’s destruction of her own weapons.” Wolff, Micah, 153, thinks this passage is related to an excommunication ceremony at the temple (Lev. 17:10; 20:3, 5–6), but this is primarily based on just one common word, “I will cut off.” Excommunication is the cutting off of people, not cities, fortifications, horses, or idols, which are the objects mentioned in this passage.

2. Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 74, lays out the connections hypothesized by Renaud, while Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 258–60, briefly lays out E. Nielsen’s and his own chiastic structure but without much evidence or explanation.

3. J. T. Willis, “The Authenticity and Meaning of Micah 5.9–14,” ZAW 81 (1969): 353–68, lists thirty-one arguments scholars have given for a preexilic date at the time of Micah and thirty-nine reasons scholars have given for an exilic date. Mays, Micah, 124, sees it as exilic but connects the message to the 701 B.C. Assyrian crisis.

4. J. M. Ward, Hosea: A Theological Commentary (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 147.

5. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 360, depends on T. Gaster, “Notes on the Minor Prophets, JTS 38 (1937): 163–65.

6. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 721; L. R. Fisher, “The Temple Quarter,” JSS 8 (1963): 32–41.

7. Wolff, Micah, 160; Mays, Micah, 127; Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 360.

8. See A. Cody, “When Is the Chosen People Called a Gôy?” VT 14 (1964): 1–6.

9. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 722.

10. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 361, sees an application to Micah’s audience and to us today because both groups need to know if they are depending on false hopes.

11. W. Klassen, Love of Enemies (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), focuses mainly on the ideal of peace, but he fails to adequately deal with Israel’s military tradition. He sees God’s commands to destroy the Canaanites as “aberrations which come from weakness and failed to draw upon that faith in Yahweh which is the cornerstone of Hebrew faith” (39).

12. R. J. Regan, Just War: Principles and Cases (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Univ. of America, 1996). A dialogue of four different views on this issue is found in War: Four Christian Views, ed. R. G. Clouse (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1991).

13. E. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 130–33, identifies feminine images of God with Sophia but later speaks positively of the integration of Egyptian Isis goddess language into Jewish monotheism. In spite of this, she warns of “ditheism” and says that “goddess-language is employed to speak about the one God of Israel.”

14. S. Cyre, “Fallout Escalates over ‘Goddess’ Sophia Worship,” CT 38 (April 1994): 74.

15. Ibid.

16. T. Finger, “In the Name of Sophia: Seeking a Biblical Understanding of Holy Wisdom,” CT 38 (Nov. 1994): 44.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid., 45.

19. L. D. Lafebure, “The Wisdom of God: Sophia and Christian Theology,” Christian Century 111 (Oct. 1994): 951.

20. Ibid., 954.

21. Origen, On First Principles 1.2.1–2.

22. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.3.

1. The content and structure of biblical lawsuits are discussed in G. E. Wright, “The Lawsuit of God: A Form-Critical Study of Deuteronomy 32,” Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. B. W. Andersen and W. Harrelson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 26–67; J. Limburg, “The Root and the Prophetic Lawsuit Speeches,” JBL 88 (1969): 291–30; G. W. Ramsey, “Speech-Forms in Hebrew Law and Prophetic Oracles,” JBL 96 (1977): 45–58. L. Allen also suggests that Micah is using a cultic “entrance liturgy,” an inquiry about whether a person is able to be admitted into the sanctuary for worship (Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 363), but it is doubtful that the questions in Micah 6:6–7 are the questions that would be asked by any priest.

2. R. Smith, Micah-Malachi, 50, and Mays, Micah, 136, find the lawsuit in 6:1–5 and a Torah liturgy in 6:6–8, but Mays believes the two form a rhetorical unit.

3. Shaw, Speeches of Micah, 165–84, based on a similar historical setting of social disorder, but this only suggests that chapters 6–7 come from the same time period, not that they are a literary unit.

4. In light of the judgment in 6:9–16 it is odd that J. M. P. Smith, “Micah,” Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Obadiah, and Joel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1911), 122, thinks that a redactor changed an original judgment speech in 6:6–8 into the present Torah liturgy. J. T. Willis, “The Structure of the Book of Micah,” SEÅ 34 (1969): 35, properly finds the sentence to the lawsuit in 9:13–16.

5. See the survey of opinions in Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah, 249–50, and Wolff, Micah, 170.

6. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 250. I do not follow Lindblom or F. C. Burkitt, “Micah 6 and 7: A Northern Prophecy,” JBL 45 (1926): 159–61, who identify the city in 6:9 and 7:10–11 as Samaria just before its destruction in 722 B.C.

7. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 727, appropriately differs from the NIV section heading (which imagines God addressing Israel), because he sees God asking Micah to arise and present this case in 6:1. Wolff, Micah, 167, takes the unlikely view that the hills are symbols of the nations, who are addressed in 6:1.

8. D. R. Daniels, “Is There a ‘Prophetic Lawsuit’ Genre?” ZAW 99 (1987): 339–60, suggests that the mountains are not called as judges or as witnesses to an earlier covenant, but as entities affected by the behavior of the Israelites. I think both of these last two functions are appropriate, for the hills are invited to “listen” to what God and the people have to say—presumably, for the purpose of verifying its truthfulness.

9. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 365, emphasizes the Lord’s tender pleading in these questions.

10. The Hebrew root pdh can mean “to redeem” by paying a redemption price (Ex. 13:13; 34:20), but also the more general idea “to deliver” when no redemption price is paid.

11. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 730, calls Micah 6:5 a “call to renew covenant,” but it is not clear that “remembering” always or necessarily leads to accepting something or committing one’s self to God. This is what God wanted to happen when the people remembered the Passover and celebrated it with a Passover meal, but there is no indication here that Micah is asking the people to remember things in this participatory way.

12. Hillers, Micah, 78, and Mays, Micah, 137, think that verses 6–7 come from “entrance liturgies” or priestly instruction regarding qualifications for coming into the temple area, but the differences between Psalms 15 and 24 and these verses suggest that this is not the background here. Wolff, Micah, 168, realizes that these verses do not have the expected content of an entrance liturgy.

13. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 371, sees this as contrasting the divine glory and stressing the subordination of humans to God.

14. Mays, Micah, 137. This is similar to Wolff’s comment that “it’s you, not something, God wants” (Micah, 180).

15. Wolff (Micah, 181) focuses only on the merciful and heartfelt love between humans.

16. Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 195.

17. D. W. Thomas, “The Root ṣnʿ in Hebrew and the Meaning of qdrnyt in Malachi 3:14,” JJS 1 (1949): 182–88, concludes that “humble” is a secondary meaning.

18. Hillers, Micah, 75–76, notes that the Targum translation is “discreet.”

19. Wolff, Micah, 188, sees a great deal of discontinuity with Micah 6:1–8, while Mays, Micah, 143–44, and Hillers, Micah, 80, move verse 12 right after verse 9 because they believe the feminine pronouns in verse 12 refer to the city in verse 9. Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 95, sees unifying factors between vv. 1–8 with 9–16, based on repeated vocabulary (“listen” and “voice” in vv. 1 and 9; “in order that/therefore” ends vv. 5b and 16b). Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 377, believes the covenant curses in 6:13–16 also help connect 6:1–16. Finally, I agree with Willis that the covenant lawsuit in 6:1–8 is incomplete without accusations or a verdict. Thus, the accusations in vv. 9–12 and the verdict in vv. 13–16 are needed to complete the lawsuit.

20. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 736, 738, and Hillers, Micah, 80, combine the end of 6:9 with the first word of verse 10, change the word divisions, and come up with “the assembly of the city,” but this is unnecessary and assumes major corruptions in this text.

21. This requires one to change the Hebrew hʾš (possibly “the fire” or “the man”). If it is a verbal expression, it could be hyš (“is there”) or hʾš (“can I forget,” from the root nšʾ, “to forget”). The most literal translation might be, “Are there yet, in the houses of wickedness, treasures of wickedness?” but this does not fit well with the next line.

22. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 375; Wolff, Micah, 185–86; Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 736, 738.

23. The verb comes from ḥlh (“to be sick”) rather than ḥll (“to begin”), although Wolff, Micah, 187, and Waltke, “Micah,” Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, 143, prefer “to begin.”

24. D. R. Hillers, Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1964), 28–29.

25. In 6:14b there is confusion over yšḥ (“hunger, emptiness”), which NIV translates “empty,” while NASB has “vileness”; Kaiser, “Micah,” Micah-Malachi, 75, prefers “dysentery.” H. G. M. Williamson, “Marginalia in Micah,” VT 47 (1997): 367–68, suggests a new translation of 6:14c—“though you plant a protective hedge, you will not make (it) secure”—based on an Aramaic translation of swg (“to hedge, fence”), also used in Song of Songs 7:3.

26. B. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel (London: SCM, 1962), 17–30.

27. R. Chandler, Racing Toward 2001 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 33.

28. T. Garrett and R. Klonoski, Business Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986), 1, claim that the law describes only the minimal regulations necessary for public order.

29. Ibid., 3

30. Ibid., 100–108 (on the issue of price-fixing and the alternatives of government controls on prices).

31. M. Velasquez, Business Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988), discusses the Union Carbide problem (3), Johns-Mansville’s problems over asbestos (47), Ford and Chrysler (118 and 168), plus General Electric (205).

32. R. Green, The Ethical Manager (New York: Macmillan, 1994), 56–65, surveys these approaches to ethics.

1. Mays, Micah, 31, 151, 153; Hagstrom, Coherence of the Book of Micah, 96–99.

2. Hillers, Micah, 90; Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 393; Barker, “Micah,” Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, 127; Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 745, 754, all take a communal approach only for Micah 7:8–20, believing 7:1–7 is by the prophet himself (or some righteous individual).

3. See Hillers, Micah, 89, and J. T. Willis, “The Structure of the Book of Micah,” 35.

4. The feminine singular suffix in 7:11 may refer to Jerusalem as “your walls,” but one cannot overlook that “to you” in 7:12 is masculine.

5. J. T. Willis, “A Reapplied Prophetic Hope Oracle,” Studies in Prophecy (VTSup 26; Leiden: Brill, 1974), 69 and footnote 1 for a list of others who follow this interpretation. It is based on the many references to places in Israel (not Judah), the use of Israelite traditions, and because 6:1–7:6 (especially 6:16) may also be from Israel. Thus the city or community in view is Samaria, not Jerusalem.

6. Wolff, Micah, 218–19; Mays, Micah, 158–61; and Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 252, 393, put it in the early postexilic period, think the enemy is Edom, and conclude that Jerusalem’s walls (7:11) are about to be rebuilt by Nehemiah.

7. Wolff, Micah, 215; Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 393. J. T. Willis, “A Reapplied Prophetic Hope Oracle,” 65–66, makes the connection to certain psalms, but unwisely emends the Hebrew text in verse 15, thus making all of vv. 14–17 a prayer for help.

8. God had to remind Elijah that he was not the only one left, for there were still seven thousand who had not bowed to worship Baal (1 Kings 19:18).

9. Wolff, Micah, 206.

10. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 387, sees it as a prayer of confidence, while Mays, Micah, 152, concludes that this is a punishment statement.

11. The verb bʾh (to come) can be seen as a feminine participle “is coming” (Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 383 n. 5), but it probably is a prophetic perfect, a usage that sees a future action as already completed. English cannot convey both of these ideas at once.

12. Wolff, Micah, 218; Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 394; Mays, Micah, 159. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 754, also thinks this prophecy looks beyond the Assyrian crisis to anticipate the ultimate fall of Jerusalem to Babylon. I do not accept Waltke’s dating of this chapter because the kind of wickedness in Micah 6–7 appears to fit better the evil present during the time of Manasseh, not Hezekiah.

13. Hab. 2:6–20 also describes God’s defeat of the wicked Babylonians after their defeat of Judah.

14. The beginning of Micah 7:12 can be translated “that day” (there is no “in,” as in the NIV) or more likely “it is a day.” The DSS Mur 88 text does read the more usual “in that day,” but it is probably not the more original text.

15. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 397, and Mays, Micah, 161, believe the rebuilding of the walls refers to the time of Nehemiah (445–433 B.C.), while Hillers, Micah, 91, connects these promises to Mic. 2:12 and 4:1–2 and calls them an “eschatological vision.” Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 756, however, claims that the “prophecy finds its fulfillment in the church, composed of all nations.”

16. The Heb. gdr is a stone wall without mortar and usually refers to stone fences on a farm (1 Sam. 24:4; Isa. 5:5) rather than city walls. Ezra 9:9 uses this term to describe a “wall in Judah and Jerusalem.” This could refer to Nehemiah’s wall, but F. C. Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 130–31, is right to suggest that this does not refer to a city wall but a boundary marker, for there never was a wall around all of Judah. We disagree with Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 396, who thinks that “it is apparently the literal walls of Jerusalem that are meant here.”

17. It is odd that the Babylonian exile is not mentioned if this passage was actually written in postexilic times, as so many claim. Although an argument from silence, it probably points to the fact that the Babylonian exile had not been experienced when this prophecy was given.

18. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 757, and Mays, Micah, 162, believe those who come will be Jewish exiles, but Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 397–98, sees a broader reference to the ideal geographic horizons of the messianic kingdom. Allen sees the problem with the usual exilic interpretation, but if his solution is the intention of Micah, why does he talk about it as “coming to you from,” language that applies to the movement of people from one place to another. Since Allen sees Micah 7:13 as referring to what Christians might call the Last Judgment, it is odd that 7:12 is not related to that same era of history.

19. Mays, Micah, 164, appropriately sees this as a reference to an area overgrown with thickets and scrub tree, a negative place when compared to a fertile pastureland.

20. Later Jer. 50:19 and Zech. 10:10 also lift up these areas as ideal pasturelands, which the nation will inherit again when God establishes his kingdom.

21. Mays, Micah, 163–65; Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 392; Wolff, Micah, 212, all change the text and see this as the continuation of Micah’s prayer; but Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 759, keeps the Hebrew text and sees this as an oracle of salvation.

22. C. Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms, 267.

23. For a full discussion of the development of this theme, see C. J. Labuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1966).

24. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 397.

25. Waltke, “Micah,” The Minor Prophets, 762.

26. Waltke, ibid., 760, says: “The exodus Christ affords the church—bringing them out of a world of sin and judgment and setting them on their heaven-bound journey through the wilderness—is a far greater wonder. The wondrous Passover, the baptism into the Red Sea whereby they put Egypt behind them and set out for the Promised Land, the heavenly manna, and the water from the rock—all typify Christ and his salvation (1 Cor 10:1–4; 2 Cor. 5:17).”

27. F. R. Tillapaugh, The Church Unleashed (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1978), contrasts these two approaches to church life and ministry.

28. Ibid., 48.

29. P. Tournier, Escape from Loneliness (London: SCM, 1962), discusses the general feelings of loneliness present in society by looking at some of its causes. His final chapter on “The Spirit of Fellowship” (159–89) is esp. important.