The Bible offers us a galaxy of preachers who have succeeded one another over the course of three centuries. The prophets belong to different classes: among them we find courtiers and singers, shepherds and priests, and in their sermons they speak of different things. Amos and Zephaniah on the Universal Judgment; Hosea — about Divine love; Isaiah and his disciples prophesy the coming of the Messiah's Universal Kingdom; Jeremiah teaches about the religion of the Spirit, and Ezekiel is jealous of the temple community with a solemn liturgical ritual. Daniel foretells the future, the coming of the Messiah.

Their books differ from one another, like the writings of the Evangelists. Just as in the four Gospels there is a single image of the God-man, so in the books of the prophets behind the various religious and moral aspects in their sermons there is a single image of the Eternal. The versatility of these amazing people is striking. These are fiery tribunes of the people, forcing the crowd to freeze in silence, these are brave fighters who throw accusations of moral decay at the powers that be.

Prophets appear as irreconcilable enemies of the errors of their society and their era. It would be a mistake to think that the spiritual significance of the prophets was perhaps reduced only to the prediction of the appearance of Christ. If they were talking only about the Messiah, they would belong only to the Old Testament. In fact, the prophets were first of all the forerunners of the Gospel Revelation. In announcing to the world about the coming Messiah, they first of all proclaimed the height of religious and moral revelation, which, although incomparable with the fullness of the Gospel teaching, nevertheless remains vital and important even for you and me. As soon as we open the Bible, we immediately hear a voice directed not to some distant peoples, but to ourselves; They are talking about you and me. These are teachers of faith and morality. Psalms, hymns, prophecies, in which these great God-seers expressed their inner experience, have found a lively response in every believing heart for more than twenty centuries.

The prophets lived in the era of the spiritual awakening of mankind, and in a certain sense of the word, prophetism as a movement was an integral part of people's desire to find a new worldview, to find a higher meaning of life. As we know, all the main features of the preaching of the prophets were contained in the Decalogue of Moses. The Ten Commandments are immutable, something on which all the prophets were based.

The prophets of the first generation, such as Samuel, Nathan, Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha; We also call them prophets, not writers, although we fully admit that they could have written something. They wanted to see in the life of the people the realization of the moral ideals of the Sinai legislation. The demands they made of the people were quite high. In the view of these prophets, Israel was to be united in an ideal society, entirely subordinate to the will of God.

The prophets believed in the possibility of a truly theocratic society, but reality constantly disappointed their expectations. Many, many upheavals and disappointments were needed before this idea of the earthly city gave way to a higher understanding of the Kingdom of God. Deceit, cruelty, bloodshed, violence accompany the rule of the kings of both Judah and Israel. One ruler replaces another, palace coups follow one after another, and almost always they are accompanied by merciless, vicious and bloody reprisals against the overthrown dynasty. According to one historian, in 200 years, Israel had 19 kings, four dynasties, and Judah had one dynasty.

Turning with moral preaching, the prophets constantly emphasized that the truths he {78}proclaimed were not new truths, all this was already known in the Torah.

Достойные преемники пророков первого поколения, Илии и Елисея, появляются спустя почти два столетия. И первое место среди пророков-писателей этого поколения мы отдаем Амосу и Осии.

Пророк Амос происходил из простого народа, он был пастухом в Фекое и был призван на пророческое служение в Ефиле во времена Осии — царя иудейского (791–740 гг.) и Иеровоама II — царя израильского (793–753 гг.). Надо всегда помнить, какие цари и современники при каждом пророке жили, кто сопутствовал его пророчествам, какие пророки жили одновременно. Так, современниками Амоса были пророки Осия, Исаия, Иона и Иоиль.

Пророк Амос

«Амос» означает «несущий ношу». Происходил он из семьи, которая жила в горах Иудеи в Фекое, недалеко от Вифлеема. Фекоя — это один из наиболее укрепленных Иеровоамом городов. Амос был пастухом и разводил сикоморы. Он был призван от своего стада и послан в Северное государство, в Вефиль, святилище, где народ собирался на ежегодный праздник. Он обличал все, что там видел.