[254] The king's. [255] See above, p. 126. [256] δυσσεβίας μὲν ὕβρις τέκος (Æschylus, _Eumen._, 534): cf. _Odyssey_, xiv. 262; xvii. 431. [257] _I.e._ a tribe; Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, I. 335. [258] Judges xix., xx. [259] Duhm was the first to publish reasons for rejecting the passage (_Theol. der Propheten_, 1875, p. 119), but Wellhausen had already reached the same conclusion (_Kleine Propheten_, p. 71). Oort and Stade adhere. On the other side see Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, 398, and Kuenen, who adheres to Smith's arguments (_Onderzoek_). [260] "It is plain that Amos could not have excepted Judah from the universal ruin which he saw to threaten the whole land; or at all events such exception would have required to be expressly made on special grounds."--Robertson Smith, _Prophets_, 398. [261] _Ibid._ [262] צדיק, _righteous_: hardly, as most commentators take it, the _legally_ (as distinguished from the _morally_) _righteous_; the rich cruelly used their legal rights to sell respectable and honest members of society into slavery. [263] By adapting the LXX. So far as we know Wellhausen is right in saying that the Massoretic text, which our English version follows, gives no sense. LXX. reads, also without much sense as a whole, τὰ πατοῦντα ἐπὶ τὸν χοῦν τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐκονδύλιζον εἰς κεφαλὰς πτῶχων. [264] So rightly the LXX. Or the definite article may be here used in conformity with the common Hebrew way of employing it to designate, not a definite individual, but a member of a definite, well-known genus. [265] On the use of Amorite for all the inhabitants of Canaan see Driver's _Deut._, pp. 11 f. [266] The verb עוק of the Massoretic text is not found elsewhere, and whether we retain it, or take it as a variant of, or mistake for, צוק, or adopt some other reading, the whole phrase is more or less uncertain, and the exact shade of meaning has to be guessed, though the general sense remains pretty much the same. The following is a complete note on the subject, with reasons for adopting the above conclusion.