Img. ID: 309103
The description is written by the researcher Alec Mishory.
The prophet Amos was active during the reign of king Jeroboam II. He was from the southern Kingdom of Judah but preached in the northern Kingdom of Israel. Amos wrote at a time of relative peace and prosperity but also of neglect of God's laws. He spoke against an increased disparity between the very wealthy and the very poor. His major themes of social justice, God's omnipotence, and Divine judgment became staples of prophecy. He was admired for the purity of his language, his beauty of diction, and his poetic art, in which he used metaphoric objects to symbolically expand his prophecies. In a stained glass window dedicated to prophet Amos the artist includes a depiction of a plumb line, which stands for righteousness and honesty: "This is what the LORD showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD asked me, "What do you see, Amos?" "A plumb line," I replied. Then the Lord said, "Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer (Amos, 7). Referring to people's greed he mentions sandals: "This is what the LORD says: For three sins of Israel, even four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” (Amos 2, 6). Fruits of the sycamore tree stand for Amos' simple, modest origins: "… Amos answered Amaziah, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees". (Amos 7, 14). A shofar stands for God's wrath: "Hear this word the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel—against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt: …When a trumpet [shofar] sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?" (Amos 3, 1, 6).