I raised up some of your sons for prophets, And some of your young men for Nazirites. Isn't this true, You children of Israel?" says Yahweh.
Yet the memory of these, who, amid the general corruption, were, each in his own sphere, centers of pure faith and life, is embalmed in these few words only. So little reason is there to think that God’s commands were neglected by all, because their observance is not related. Amos appeals publicly to the people that the fact was so, that God had raised up Nazarites as well as prophets among them. He had His “little flock” Luke 12:32, His “seven thousand” 1 Kings 19:18, who escaped the eye even of Elijah. The gift of the Nazarites was a special favor to Israel, as a memorial what the grace of God could do for man, what man could do, with the grace of God. His “raising up Nazarites, out of their young men,” men in their first bloom of unmarried , virgin (Deuteronomy 32:25; 2 Chronicles 36:17; Jeremiah 51:22; and in the plur. Psalms 78:63; Psalms 148:12; Isaiah 23:4;. Jeremiah 31:13; Lamentations 1:18; Lamentations 2:21; Zechariah 9:17; and by Amos himself, Amos 8:13), life their picked “very chosen men,” such as furnished the prime of their warriors , stengthened that teaching.