How are the books of Hosea and Amos related? Both prophets ministered in the eighth century B.C. Both spoke into the northern kingdom a message of impending judgment. Yet their messages—to the same target audience—were quite different, at least in emphasis. So how are they related? In the literature on the book of the twelve, known to most more familiarly as the minor prophets, it is has been suggested that Hosea and Amos are related and perhaps never circulated independently. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) has Amos after Hosea, not Joel, as in the Masoretic text (the standard text of the Hebrew). So how shall we their think of their relation?
I suggest that we see them related as root and fruit. Hosea strikes at the corrupt root in Israel, namely, idolatry. The people had played the whore with foreign deities. And Amos strikes at the corrupt fruit of social injustice and oppression. The culturally elite and wealthy walked all over the poor commoner. Now do you see the connection? Root and fruit. Idolatry always has social consequences.
May Hosea and Amos speak anew to us today, those of us who all too easily separate root and fruit.
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