What made Amos, a country-man of Tekoa, leave his sheep and his fig-mulberries and the solitary places of his home, to intone rhythmic oracles of Jehovah at some crowded pilgrimage-festival of Bethel, a score of miles north, and in another land? It was not his professional calling; he was a layman, not a "cleric." But the passion of a true prophet burned within him—the passion of social sympathy and keen resentment against social injustice, and the passion of faith in Jehovah as a God demanding the right relation of man to man as the beginning of a right relation to Himself, and a God able to enforce His demand by the events of history.... While he deals primarily with the Israel of his own age, he gives expression to several religious and moral truths that are of permanent significance. Of these the more important are: Justice between man and man is one of the divine foundations of society; privilege implies responsibility; failure to recognize responsibility will surely bring retribution; nations and, by analogy, individuals are under obligation to live up to the measure of light and knowledge granted to them; the most elaborate worship is but an insult to God when offered by those who have no mind to conform to His ethical demands.
—From the Abingdon Bible Commentary.
