Amos 2:2

"But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Keiloth; and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.

This pronouncement prophesied the overthrow of Moab by military conquest, a forecast actually fulfilled by the Assyrian monarchs Shalmanezer and Sargon. "From then on, a succession of world conquerors subdued, and in the process, annihilated Moab as a nation"[7] Moab is identified with the high plateau, some 3,000 feet high, that lies south of Arnon, north of Edom, and between the Dead Sea on the west and the desert on the east.

"The palaces of Keiloth ..." Fosbroke identified this place thus:

"Keiloth is perhaps to be identified with Ar, elsewhere named as a chief city of Moab (Isaiah 15:1). On the Moabite stone, it is named as the site of a sanctuary of the Moabite god, Chemosh."[8]

Fosbroke declared that, "This oracle against Moab is beyond doubt an authentic utterance of Amos,"[9] which, of course, is the truth; but we deny the right of Biblical critics to decide which portions of God's Word are authentic and which are not. Such an admission by the Old Testament critics of the undeniable truth of this oracle, however, actually frustrates their assertions that the so-called "oracle" against Judah is not an authentic part of Amos. As pointed out in the introduction, Amos, by thus concluding the prophetic denunciations against surrounding nations, including both the pagan neighbors and the pagan relatives of Israel, it would have been absolutely impossible for Amos, in any logical sense, to have proceeded to announce the destruction of Israel, without, at the same time, denouncing the apostasy of his own country, Judah. The critics, however, intent on affirming just such a proposition, like to make it out that Amos considered Judah and Israel as a single family! "Therefore, he would not have uttered a special oracle against Judah!"[10] What is an argument like that? It is a denial based upon what someone in the 20th century imagines that Amos thought! There is no evidence whatever that Amos believed Israel and Judah to be a single family; and, in fact there was not any more basis for such a thought than for believing that Israel and Edom were a single family, for both had a common ancestor. We receive the following prophecy against Judah, therefore, as indeed a genuine and dependable portion of the true Word of God.