"Off with you, visionary"! - An interpretation of Amos-VII,10-17 in context

The narrative about the encounter between the prophet Amos and Amatsia, the priest of the royal sanctuary of Bethel, interrupts the autobiographic cyc le of visions (7/1-8 and 8/1-3). This insertion raises some questions. Is i t due to some clumsiness or even some error of transmission? A closer look at the redactionaal logic of the writing of Amos, the study of the lexical and syntactical links between the narrative and both visions that frame it, and a particular attention to the rhetorical phenomenon of repetition lead to a different conclusion: the interlacing of the narrative with the visio ns is intentional and highly significant. It gives to the narrative an embl ematic quality.