In accordance with the conclusions arrived at in Chapter 1, I will not treat thebook of Amos as multilayered and having passed through many stages of redactionbecause, while this is entirely possible, it is also, I believe, impossible toprove. I will simply examine the various oracles identified as probably lateradditions, in order to assess their theological message. It seems to me that,despite the fact that they may span a considerable period of time, there isquite a coherent message in these additions, which differs at some points quitesharply from what we have been able to identify as the theology of Amos and hisimmediate circle. After this, I will go on in the next chapter to ask how, bybeing added to the earlier material, these additions change its meaning, andthus produce the synthetic theology of the book of Amos in itspresent form.

Covenant

We ended the last chapter by looking at the covenant – never named as suchby Amos, yet in all essentials probably one of his discoveries or inventions.Later editors had no reason to avoid the wordbĕrît (תירב),which through the work of the authors of Deuteronomy and the deuteronomisticschool, as seen in the historical books and in the book of Jeremiah, had becomea central concept in Israel’s thinking about the relationship between Godand the nation. Even so, these redactors of Amos did not introduce the word intothe book in its religious sense. Bĕrît is found,however, along with some associated ideas, in two of the oracles against thenations regarded by most scholars as secondary to the original core of five– specifically, the oracles against Tyre and Edom. The oracle againstTyre reads:

1. Thus says the Lord:

2. For three transgressions of Tyre,

3. and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;

4. because they delivered entire communities over to Edom,

5. and did not remember the covenant of kinship.

6. so I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre,

7. fire that shall devour its strongholds. (Amos1:9–10)