James R. Linville, «Visions and Voices: Amos 7–9», Vol. 80 (1999) 22-42

The final chapters of Amos are read synchronically to highlight the relationship between the divine voice, which demands that its hearers prophesy (Amos 3,8), the voice of Amos, and those of other characters. Amos’ intercessions soon give way to entrapping word-plays and these are related to the rhetorical “traps” in Amos 1–2. Divine and prophetic speech defy the wish of human authority that they be silent. The figure of Amos eventually disappears from the reader’s view, but not before the prophet has been used as a focal point for the readers’ projections of themselves into the literary world of the text. As the scenes change from ultimate destruction to restoration, the readers appropriate the prophetic voice themselves, especially in the final verse which ends with a declaration of security uttered by “your God”.

beginning and echoed at the end of the cycle. Yet, the unity is not attained until Amos responds with words of the divine anger, and so Amos is led into the trap of the symbolic visions: the lion roars, Amos speaks. The words seem to consume our character Amos, he no longer expresses his own thoughts. Our prophet, as implied author, has written himself out of the text. Now, only the words of God are left. In 9,7, Israel itself is addressed, but gone are the possessives on the oracle formula. In vv. 7, 8 and 13 we read only "Oracle of YHWH", not "Oracle of my lord YHWH". Still, the reader must give voice to these words but it is a more merciful God with whom the reader may now identify, and presumably, this makes identification an easier task. Amos’ earlier intercession has seemingly attained its goal.

        In my view, the character of the prophet is used as a tool within these few chapters to aid in the reader’s self-identification in the text, to feel the terror of the divine word. Amos is a tool of the writers, and is a role assumed by the reader. He is posited as the implied author and speaker in 1,1-2, but it is the reader who imagines him throughout the rest of the first six chapters. In the vision reports, however, the reader is largely free to imagine this role as one wishes. In chapter seven, though, the persona "Amos" has a concrete presence. The reader is no longer in charge: one must see what Amos sees, and not just quote the divine words. Yet, Amos is not in charge either. His intercession is one of desperation, his proclamation of doom the result of subterfuge, of divine compulsion. The ease at which the readers may have assimilated themselves to the prophetic role in chaps. 1–6 is now rendered problematic. Amos has become more than a "role" for the reader to assume, he has become an embodiment of human pathos and frailty. With this, do the readers confront their own terror at meeting God; on delivering judgment on one’s own; of defying human authority? But having driven home these aspects of the prophetic mission, our alter ego, Amos, is withdrawn from view. But now God is willing once again to turn, to forgive, and to cease.

        Whatever the historical events underlying the book, the final three chapters create an image of human confrontation with the divine in all its terrors. But the producers are not content to leave things with this, and the book is concluded with the suggestion that another aspect of this confrontation must be dealt with. Here the remote oracle formula is gone, gone is the ambivalent "my lord".