On the use of prophetic judicial proclamation in Amos and Hosea

Recently it has been proposed that announcements of judgment, like the ones to be found in the minor prophets Amos and Hosea, on principle are to be considered as vaticinia ex eventu. Even the traditions of salvation, employed to reinforce different kinds of reproach, are held to be the work of learned redactors. However, these hypotheses are supported neither by the evidence from the ancient Near East nor by the logic underlying prophetical proclamations of judgment themselves, for sheer announcements of punishment could only be meaningless in times of doom as well as during periods of recovery. Old Testament prophecy of doom is no complete stranger among the religions of the ancient Near East. It owes its uniqueness not to the kind or genus, but only to the complexity of its message.