[195] i. 19 f. [196] Cf. Micah ii. 3. חֵלֶק is the word used, and according to the motive given above stands well for the climax of the fire's destructive work. This meets the objection of Wellhausen, who proposes to omit חֵלֶק, because the heat does not dry up first the great deep and then the fields (_Ackerflur_). This is to mistake the obvious point of the sentence. The drought was so great that, after the fountains were exhausted, it seemed as if the solid framework of the land, described with very apt pathos as the _Portion_, would be the next to disappear. Some take הלק as _divided_, therefore cultivated, ground. [197] So for instance, Von Orelli. [198] Chap. iv. [199] See Chap. IV., p. 51. [200] Literally _of the plummet_, an obscure expression. It cannot mean plumb-straight, for the wall is condemned. [201] 2 Kings xxi. 13: _I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet_ or _weight_ (מִשְׁקֹלֶת) _of the house of Ahab_. Isa. xxxiv. 11: _He shall stretch over it the cord of confusion, and the weights_ (literally _stones_) _of emptiness_. [202] John xix. 12. [203] The word _seer_ is here used in a contemptuous sense, and has therefore to be translated by some such word as _visionary_. [204] Literally _eat_. [205] מַמְלָכָה בֵּית--that is, a _central_ or _capital sanctuary_. Cf. הַמַּמְלָכָה עִיר (1 Sam. xxvii. 5), _city of the kingdom_, _i.e._ chief or capital town. [206] 1 Kings xii. 26, 27. [207] _Prophet_ and _prophet's son_ are equivalent terms, the latter meaning one of the professional guilds of prophets. There is no need to change herdsman, בוקר, as Wellhausen does, into נוקד, shepherd, the word used in i. 1. [208] Cf. Wellhausen, _Hist._, Eng. Ed., § 6: "Amos was the founder and the purest type of a new order of prophecy." CHAPTER VII _ATROCITIES AND ATROCITIES_ AMOS i. 3-ii.