The Integrity of the Legal System and the Fate of the Kingdom

Regarding the accusation found in the centerpiece of the book of Amos, the concentrically arranged composition of 5:1-17, it has been rightly stated that the divine anger proclaimed by »Amos« which eventually brought about the downfall of the kingdom of Israel was provoked by purposeful corruption of the legal system and exploitative economic arrangements facilitated by it. Furthermore, the perpetrators are not to be sought among the urban elite in the capital of Samaria alone, as one might surmise from the oracles preceding and following the composition in 3:9-11; 3:12; 4:1-3 and 6:1-7. Neither is the accusation aimed at the royal apparatus of power. Rather, the communal life all over the country is in view. Accordingly, at the end of the day, the legal system and its maintenance by the citizens is the decisive factor for the fate of the kingdom. Proceeding from the assumption that said composition and the ultimate warning it entails were crafted during the last decade of the kingdom of Israel, after the first Assyrian invasion 733 BCE but before the second, this particular orientation is scrutinized in view of the question whether »resistance« proves a useful category in Amos.