A recent Dutch critic, whose exact scholarship is known to all readers of Stade's _Journal of Old Testament Science_, has said of Amos and Hosea: "These prophecies have a word of God, as for all times, so also especially for our own. Before all it is relevant to 'the social question' of our day, to the relation of religion and morality.... Often it has been hard for me to refrain from expressly pointing out the agreement between Then and To-day."[1] This feeling will be shared by all students of prophecy whose minds and consciences are quick; and I welcome the liberal plan of the series in which this volume appears, because, while giving room for the adequate discussion of critical and historical questions, its chief design is to show the eternal validity of the Books of the Bible as the Word of God, and their meaning for ourselves to-day. * * * * * Previous works on the Minor Prophets are almost innumerable. Those to which I owe most will be found indicated in the footnotes. The translation has been executed upon the purpose, not to sacrifice the literal meaning or exact emphasis of the original to the frequent possibility of greater elegance. It reproduces every word, with the occasional exception of a copula. With some hesitation I have retained the traditional spelling of the Divine Name, Jehovah, instead of the more correct Jahve or Yahweh; but where the rhythm of certain familiar passages was disturbed by it, I have followed the English versions and written Lord. The reader will keep in mind that a line may be destroyed by substituting our pronunciation of proper names for the more musical accents of the original. Thus, for instance, we obliterate the music of "Isra'el" by making it two syllables and putting the accent on the first: it has three syllables with the accent on the last. We crush Yerushalayîḿ into Jerúsalem; we shred off Asshûr into Assyria, and dub Miṣraîḿ Egypt. Hebrew has too few of the combinations which sound most musical to our ears, to afford the suppression of any one of them. FOOTNOTE: [1] J. J. P. Valeton, jun., _Amos en Hosea_, 1894: quoted by Budde in the _Theologische Literaturzeitung_, September, 1894. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. PAGE PREFACE vii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 1 _INTRODUCTION_ CHAP. I. THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE 3 II. THE PROPHET IN EARLY ISRAEL 11 1. FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TILL SAMUEL. 2. FROM SAMUEL TO ELISHA. III. THE EIGHTH CENTURY IN ISRAEL 31 IV. THE INFLUENCE OF ASSYRIA UPON PROPHECY 44 _AMOS_ V. THE BOOK OF AMOS 61