Intro to Amos
1 The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. Amos 1:1 (ESV) Let's start with a bit of history. Amos, although in the middle of the prophetic writings in our Bibles, is likeliest the earliest of the writing prophets and is the first of four prophets who wrote during the eighth century BC. Amos, along with Hosea, prophesied in the Northern part, Israel while Isaiah and Micah both prophesied in the Southern part, Judah. We get a few clues as to when this book was written in the first verse, "two years before the earthquake", which may be a reference to the same earthquake that Zechariah mentions (Zech 14:5) and that it was in the days of King Jeroboam and King Uzziah. Being good Biblical scholars, we know that this would have been a time of economic, military, and cultural stability and pros...