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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 2, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 34.

Schedule for the Week Ending September 6, 1913

Sunday August 31 Hosea 1, 2, 3, 4 Monday September 1 " 5, 6, 7, 8 Tuesday " 2 " 9, 10, 11 Wednesday " 3 " 12, 13, 14 Thursday " 4 Joel 3; Amos 1, 2 Friday " 5 Amos 3, 4 Sabbath " 6 " 5, 6, 7

We begin our readings for the week with the book of Hosea, and read to Amos 7 inclusive. Hosea’s name means salvation. He was the last of the great prophets of the northern kingdom. Some of the chronologists place him as far back as 785, others about 748, believing that his first three chapters were written then, chapters 4-14 about 734. He predicts very strongly the coming captivity of the tribes, warns his people against an alliance with Egypt, points out the sad moral conditions and degeneration and decay of the nation. His own painful and pathetic personal history is used to symbolize Jehovah’s separation from His people. He points out the gross iniquity of priests and princes, and yet his closing words are full of beautiful remonstrance and tender exhortation, with rich promises of blessing from God as the result of repentance. He is said to be “the most subjective and individual of the prophets. Many of his passages are odes or dirges. In tragic pathos he is unexcelled.”

Joel, who lived nearly eight hundred years before Christ (some place it a little later), evidently preceded Hosea. There are some marked coincidences between his prophecy and that of Amos. The calamities which came upon Judah and Jerusalem at that time are typical of far greater calamities which would come upon the world when the great day of the Lord is near. There are three things of import in this book,—the signs of our Lord’s coming, among which are the army of pests, the great preparations that will be made in the last days for the universal war which is to take place, and God’s promise in the outpouring of His Spirit.

The name “Amos,” which means burdened, well expresses the spirit of the book. It shows the great burden of the prophet regarding not alone the condition of God’s people, but that of other nations. God chose him from the lower walks of life, from among the men of Tekoa, a place about six miles from Jerusalem. He prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah king of Judah, and Jeroboam II king of Israel; was accused of treason, and expelled from the northern kingdom, to which his prophecies mainly refer. The book itself will show his predictions. It is full of references to the country and the constant things that a shepherd would meet with in tending his flocks.