Hebrew Amos, possibly "burden-bearer." A shepherd and "dresser of sycamore figs" from Tekoa in Judah (about 10 miles south of Jerusalem), called to prophesy against the northern kingdom of Israel during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II (c. 760 BC). Not a professional prophet — "I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel'" (Amos 7:14-15). Third of the twelve minor prophets canonically; likely earliest chronologically among the writing prophets.
Amos is the prophet of social justice rightly understood. His preaching came during Israel's most prosperous period — wealth, military success, and busy religious activity all flourishing. Yet underneath, the rich were crushing the poor, the courts were corrupt, the religion was hypocritical, and the nation was ripe for judgment. Amos's indictment: "They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals — those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth" (2:6-7). His famous line, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (5:24), was not a call for political revolution but a demand for covenant obedience in business, courts, worship, and daily life. God rejected their feasts, sacrifices, and hymns because their ethics were rotten — a rebuke still relevant for churches that prize worship programs while ignoring the poor and defrauded in their midst. Amos was run out of Bethel by the priest Amaziah for predicting the exile Jeroboam's dynasty would suffer — which happened within a generation when Assyria destroyed Samaria (722 BC). Biblical social justice is what Amos preached: honesty in weights and measures, righteous judgment in court, protection of the poor from exploitation, and genuine worship flowing from covenant obedience. Not Marxist redistribution, not identity politics — covenant justice.