Texts in Conversation

Amos pictures the Amorites as tall as cedars and oaks whom God destroyed for Israel. Jubilees echoes that image to explain why Gilead’s giant Rephaim vanished, describing the Amorites who replaced them as a people no nation has matched in sin.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE

Amos 2:9

Hebrew Bible
8 They stretch out on clothing seized as collateral; they do so right beside every altar! They drink wine bought with the fines they have levied; they do so right in the temple of their God! 9 For Israel’s sake I destroyed the Amorites. They were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks, but I destroyed the fruit on their branches and their roots in the ground. 10 I brought you up from the land of Egypt; I led you through the wilderness for 40 years so you could take the Amorites’ land as your own.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)

Jubilees 29:11

Pseudepigrapha
10 The places where they lived extended from the land of the Ammonites as far as Mt. Hermon. Their royal centers were Karnaim, Ashtarot, Edrei, Misur, and Beon. 11 The Lord destroyed them because of the evil things they did, for they were very wicked. The Amorites — evil and sinful — lived in their place. Today there is no nation that has matched all their sins. They no longer have length of life on the earth. 12 Jacob sent Laban away, and he went to Mesopotamia, to the eastern country. But Jacob returned to the land of Gilead.
Date: 150-100 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References

#5913
... In their conquests of Sihon and Og, the Amorite kings, Moses and the Israelites, by the Lord’s power, annihilated them and took over their territories (Numbers 21:21-35; Deuteronomy 2:26–3:7; Joshua 12:1-6; Judges 11:14-23). Though Israel won the battle, the accounts stress it was God who gave her the victory; see also Amos 2:9: ‘Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, / whose height was like the height of cedars, / and who was as strong as oaks; I destroyed his fruit above, / and his roots beneath.’ The Amorites came to represent a terrible level of evil. ...
VanderKam, James C. Jubilees: A Commentary (pp. 805-806) Fortress Press, 2018

* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.

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