Yahweh never visits upon Israel merely sudden and thus necessarily
incomprehensible disaster; before his acts of destruction, Yahweh regularly
sends the prophets as his closest intimates (“servants” as often in the
Deuteronomistic history; cf. 2 Kings 17:13, 23; 21:10; 24:2), those who like
Micaiah son of Imlah (1 Kings 22:19ff.) and Jeremiah (Jer. 23:18, 22) have
access to Yahweh’s “heavenly council” and thus come to know his innermost
intentions and “counsel” (both rendered in Hebrew by sôd). The essential task of these prophets is thus to warn the
people of God of the coming disaster, that is, to move them to repentance and
to a change of disposition, which alone can prompt God to withdraw the coming
disaster. The danger threatening Israel in its sin on the one hand, and the
will to save and preserve Israel on the other, are two sides of one and the
same God. (Jörg Jeremias, The
Book of Amos: A Commentary [trans. Douglas W. Stott; The Old Testament
Library; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998], 54)
