Chapter 2: Christocentrism --- Jesus, the Prophets, and the Septuagint

Connecting to Chapter 1

Chapter 1’s Scripture analysis identified the central textual question in Amos 7:1: the Masoretic Text reads “the king’s mowings” while the Septuagint reads “Gog the king.” The Christocentric lens asks a different set of questions:

Did Jesus or the New Testament authors engage with Amos 7 or the Gog tradition?
How did Jesus and the apostles relate to the Septuagint as Scripture?
What does Jesus’s example teach us about approaching textual uncertainty with humility?

What Jesus Taught

Jesus and the Book of Amos

Jesus does not directly quote Amos 7:1 in any of the Gospels. However, Jesus’s teaching shows deep engagement with the prophetic tradition that includes Amos:

The theme of prophetic intercession --- Amos pleading for small, helpless Jacob --- resonates with Jesus’s own intercessory prayer for his people (John 17) and his weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44).
God’s concern for the poor and oppressed --- the central theme of Amos --- is woven throughout Jesus’s ministry (Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 25:31-46).
The pattern of divine judgment tempered by mercy --- which defines Amos’s first two visions --- finds its ultimate expression in the cross: God’s judgment and mercy meet in one event.

Jesus and the Gog Tradition

Jesus does not reference Gog by name, but the apocalyptic tradition that includes the Gog figure appears in Jesus’s eschatological discourse:

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.” --- Matthew 24:7 (KJV)

The image of hostile nations gathering against God’s people --- which is the Gog tradition’s essential core --- is present in Jesus’s teaching about the end times, though Jesus does not use the specific name.

The Book of Revelation, attributed to John, explicitly draws on the Gog tradition:

“And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.” --- Revelation 20:8 (KJV)

This shows the early Christian community was familiar with Gog as an apocalyptic figure, whether derived from Ezekiel alone or from a broader prophetic tradition that may include the LXX reading of Amos.

What Jesus Demonstrated

The New Testament’s Use of the Septuagint

This study’s textual question has a particularly important Christocentric dimension: the New Testament authors predominantly quoted the Old Testament from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew Masoretic Text. This is directly relevant to how we evaluate the LXX reading of Amos 7:1.

Key examples:

Matthew 8:17 quotes Isaiah 53:4, but Matthew’s Greek is closer to an independent translation from the Hebrew than to the LXX (which renders choliy as hamartias, “sins”). This shows the NT authors could work from both traditions.
Hebrews 10:5 quotes Psalm 40:6 from the LXX (“a body hast thou prepared me”) rather than the MT (“mine ears hast thou opened”) --- and builds a theological argument on the LXX reading.
Acts 15:16-17 quotes Amos 9:11-12 from the LXX, which differs significantly from the MT. James’s argument at the Jerusalem Council depends on the LXX wording. This is particularly relevant because it is an LXX reading of Amos that the apostles treated as authoritative.

The apostolic precedent in Acts 15 is striking: when the early church needed to make a critical decision about Gentile inclusion, they appealed to the Septuagint text of Amos --- even though the LXX reading of Amos 9:11-12 differs from the Hebrew. This does not automatically validate every LXX variant, but it demonstrates that the early church was willing to find theological truth in the Greek text of Amos even where it diverged from the Hebrew.

Jesus’s Hermeneutical Approach

Jesus demonstrated a pattern of reading the Old Testament that prioritized:

The spirit over the letter --- “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Jesus read Scripture for its deepest meaning, not merely its surface grammar.
Mercy over judgment --- “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13, quoting Hosea 6:6). This aligns with Amos’s intercessory heart in 7:2.
Compassion for the vulnerable --- Jesus consistently sided with the poor, the sick, and the marginalized, which is precisely the concern that motivates Amos’s intercession: “by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.”

Jesus’s Priorities: Love and Unity

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” --- John 13:34 (KJV)

“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” --- John 17:21 (KJV)

How do love and unity apply to a question of textual criticism? In several ways:

Humility before ambiguity. When the textual evidence is genuinely uncertain, dogmatic insistence on one reading against all others can damage fellowship. The appropriate posture is honest acknowledgment of the evidence on both sides.
Charitable engagement. Scholars who prefer the MT reading and scholars who give weight to the LXX are both engaged in the legitimate, God-honoring work of understanding Scripture. Neither should be dismissed or caricatured.
Unity in essentials. Regardless of which reading is original, the theological truth of Amos 7:1-3 is clear: God shows his prophet the reality of coming judgment, the prophet intercedes with compassion, and God mercifully relents. The character of God --- just, yet merciful when intercession is offered --- is not in dispute.
The text serves the people, not the other way around. Whether the threat is locusts after the king’s mowing or Gog the king, the pastoral message is the same: God hears the prayers of those who plead for the vulnerable. This is the message that builds up the body of Christ.

Summary

The Christocentric lens does not resolve the textual question of Amos 7:1 --- Jesus did not quote this verse. But it provides important context:

The apostles treated the LXX of Amos as authoritative (Acts 15:16-17), which means LXX readings of Amos deserve careful consideration, not reflexive dismissal.
The Gog tradition appears in Revelation 20:8, showing continuity with the prophetic tradition whether it originates in Amos or Ezekiel.
Jesus’s hermeneutical example teaches us to read Scripture for its deepest meaning, with humility before ambiguity and compassion for the vulnerable.
The love and unity test calls us to engage textual questions with charity, honest acknowledgment of uncertainty, and focus on the theological truths that both readings share.

What remains open: Does the NT’s use of the LXX of Amos lend indirect support to the LXX reading of 7:1? This is a question of inference, not proof. Chapter 3 will examine how the earliest Christians --- who used the LXX as their Bible --- understood this passage.