Eugene P. McGarry, «An Underappreciated Medical Allusion in Amos 6,6?», Vol. 90 (2009) 559-563
In the ancient Mediterranean world, olive oil and wine had medicinal as well as culinary and (in the case of olive oil) cosmetic applications. Amos may be playing on the multiple uses of these items when he condemns banqueters for drinking wine and anointing themselves while ignoring the “wound of Joseph”.
An Underappreciated Medical Allusion in Amos 6,6? 563
and oil recorded in later Mediterranean sources was familiar to medical
practitioners in the Iron Age Levant.
Thus, the close association of the banqueters’ drinking and anointing with
their indifference to the “wound of Joseph†in Amos 6,4–6 is not accidental:
the evidence of their indifference — namely, the dissipation catalogued in
6,4-6a — is compactly assessed by the prophet in v. 6b, which caps this
unified passage (31). To return to the problem of translating the final clause in
a manner that honors the connotations of the Hebrew original, the anesthetic
effect of the wine on the banqueters who are consuming it suggests another
solution: “[Alas for those] who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves
with the finest oils, but feel no pain over the wound of Joseph!â€
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SUMMARY
In the ancient Mediterranean world, olive oil and wine had medicinal as well as
culinary and (in the case of olive oil) cosmetic applications. Amos may be playing
on the multiple uses of these items when he condemns banqueters for drinking
wine and anointing themselves while ignoring the “wound of Josephâ€.
(31) Disagreement over the referent of rbv has led some scholars to assign 6,6b to a
later author. H.W. Wolff argues that rbv, like the allusions in 6,2, refers to the advent of
Assyrian control in Syro-Palestine, marked by the fall of Kullani and Hamath and by
Menahem’s submission to Tiglath-Pileser III, all in 738 BCE. Thus Wolff assigns both 6,2
and 6,6b to “the circle of Amos’ disciplesâ€, since Amos 1,1 limits the prophet’s activity to
the reign of Jeroboam II; see H.W. WOLFF, Joel and Amos (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, PA
1977) 124, 273-274, 277. But ROBERTS, “Amos 6.1-7â€, 159-160, suggests that Amos was
still active in 738 BCE, and that the “ruin†of Joseph refers to the burden that Menahem’s
heavy tribute (2 Kgs 15,20) placed on the population of Israel. Hence, Roberts regards 6,1-
7, including vv. 4-6, as a unified oracle. Like Wolff, ANDERSEN – FREEDMAN, Amos, 552,
565-556, restrict Amos’s career to the reign of Jeroboam II. They treat 6,2 as an addition,
but they interpret 6,6b as Amos’s anticipation of a future threat, and so like Roberts, they
too regard 6,4-6 as an integral statement by the prophet. Finally, J.L. MAYS, Amos. A
Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia, PA 1969) 117, also accepts the integrity of 6,4-6. He
seems to interpret rbv as a general reference to the effect of violence upon the poor of
Samaria. Whether the “wound of Joseph†refers to a historical event (Wolff, Roberts) or to
an infirmity of the body politic (Mays, and compare ANDERSEN – FREEDMAN, Amos, 568-
569), I submit that the poetic logic of 6,6 indicates that 6,6b should not be amputated from
the preceding series of clauses.