M. Daniel Carroll R. The Book of Amos . Nicot

This worthy addition to the NICOT series is a detailed and productive read. Daniel Carroll R. (hereafter, Carroll) has decades of research and published works behind this volume. In the introduction, he sets out his historical and literary approaches for readers, while also providing them with some conclusions that he has reached. In this way, readers know where Carroll has placed his emphases and can anticipate the kinds of questions that he will eventually address. A first conclusion is that the book essentially originated during the reign of Jeroboam II, circa 765–750 BCE. A second conclusion is that a close literary and synchronic reading demonstrates rhetorical and thematic connections running throughout the Hebrew text. These two positions place the commentary in a dialogical role with major strands in modern research, where portions of the book are understood as the result of later editorial work and the influence of Assyrian activity from the time of Tiglath Pileser III is seen as influential, either on Amos himself or later editors. Whatever conclusions readers finally draw on the editorial development of the book, Carroll’s presentation of the communicative properties of its Hebrew text as a coherent, rhetorically integrative prophetic address bears careful consideration. One may return time and again to a particular text to see how he portrays it integrated into the context and come away with either a new perspective or additional questions.Interpreters have options to consider when identifying more precisely the audience that Amos addressed as Israel, Isaac, and Jacob, especially if some of those names occur in texts judged later than Amos himself. Carroll concludes that these terms refer to the northern kingdom of Israel. Judah and Zion are also Amos’s audience, at least secondarily when they are explicitly addressed, but “the presence of Judah in the book is minimal” (p. 116 n. 4). Carroll means that Judah (and also Jerusalem and Zion) occurs infrequently in the book compared with Israel and related terms. Still, given 1:2 and 9:11–15 as bookends to the oracles, the related question of Zion theology’s influence must be asked. For Carroll, questions of influence on the book and on the historical Amos are essentially the same question. In discussing Amos’s criticism of religious sanctuaries, he states that the “only legitimate national sanctuary is in the South” but that this conviction does not make the Judahite Amos a “narrow” nationalist (p. 124).The book of Amos repeatedly castigates those who have oppressed and mistreated poorer segments of society. Carroll is particularly interested in defining these deleterious practices, those who perpetrate them, and what may have prompted their severity. The attention paid to this subject and the value that Carroll attaches to the prophetic critique for modern consideration are strong points of the commentary.We can illustrate further Carroll’s approach by some attention to Amos 1:1, while asking different questions. In his careful way, he notes its difficult syntax, which, along with its length and unusual biographical details (for a superscription), may indicate the expansion of an earlier heading, concluding that it is of uncertain date and that nothing in it precludes an early association with the prophetic scroll. The royal synchronism of Uzziah and Jeroboam II indicates the “parameters” of the prophet’s work (p. 34). These conclusions may be correct. But what if the superscription is later than the eighth century, perhaps considerably so, and is part of a broader hermeneutical scheme of interpreting multiple prophetic texts? The “Israel” of 1:1, then, is probably not just the northern kingdom, any more than the royal synchronism in the verse refers solely to the northern kingdom. Although Amos prophesied there (exclusively?), the superscription addresses the heirs of both kingdoms, who would have understood themselves as Israelites. Carroll rightly indicates that there are numerous thematic, biographical, and lexical connections between Amos 1:1 and 7:10–17. These are also the two passages in the book that are unequivocally editorial, informing readers about the prophet. Are they not, then, plausible reasons to see the two texts as related and intended to reinforce one another in the presentation of Amos? And is the reference to Jeroboam in 1:1 perhaps more than a chronological reference for readers? In all the prophetic superscriptions, there are only two references to a northern king and both of them are to Jeroboam (the other is Hos 1:1). These two references are possibly a coincidence in marking the books of Amos and Hosea, but they are more likely further evidence of a broader reading strategy regarding Israelite prophecy. In the case of Amos, the conflict narrative of 7:10–17, with its report to Jeroboam about dangerous prophecy, is artfully inserted in a collection of Amos’s visions, specifically after the third, to expand on its conclusion that Yhwh will rise against the “House of Jeroboam” with the sword (7:9). The superscription, with its corresponding biographical details and reference to Jeroboam, primes readers to see these prophecies as emblematic of the prophet’s work and the subsequent fate of Israel, and perhaps even to point them also to Hosea’s prophecies on a common subject.Hosea 1:1 lists Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, along with Jeroboam. It is possible that the reference to Jeroboam is intended to limit the time frame of Hosea’s work in Israel, but this seems unlikely, given the four Judahite kings. As with Amos 1:1, the reference to Jeroboam seems at least to have the role of highlighting elements in the book itself. In 1:2 Yhwh “initially” speaks through Hosea and then names the prophet’s first son as Jezreel (1:4–5), a sign of judgment to come on the “House of Jehu” for previous blood shed at Jezreel. Probably this is a response to Jehu’s coup narrated in 2 Kgs 9–10, and more particularly takes into account the prophecy in 2 Kgs 10:28–31 and 15:12 that Jehu’s dynasty would be seated to the fourth generation. Thus, “Jeroboam,” the “House of Jehu,” and “Jezreel” reinforce one another in introducing Hosea’s prophecy, and they may also serve readers as intertextual links to data in the Former Prophets.When read together, Amos 1:1 and Hos 1:1 reinforce each other in seeng prophecy at work, pointing to the cataclysmic events in Israel that unfolded from the reigns of Jeroboam and Uzziah (cf. Isa 1:1; 6:1). Neither Amos nor Hosea is named in 2 Kings, but the three books can be (editorially) connected. After all, Yhwh reveals his work to his “servants, the prophets” (Amos 3:7; cf. Hos 6:5; 2 Kgs 24:2; Jer 7:25; Dan 9:6).While these last comments diverge from Carroll’s cautious approach, they serve to illustrate the kinds of questions he does and does not engage. In conclusion, it is a pleasure to acknowledge his expertise and to recommend the volume for all serious inquiries about Amos

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