Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit:
Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet - in answer to Amaziah's insinuation (Amos 7:12), that he discharged the prophetic office to earn his "bread" (like Israel's mercenary prophets). So far from being rewarded, Yahweh's prophets had to expect imprisonment and even death as the result of their prophesying in Samaria or Israel; whereas, the prophets of Baal were maintained at the king's expense (cf. 1 Kings 18:19). I was not, says Amos, of the order of prophets, or educated in their schools, and deriving a livelihood from exercising the public functions of a prophet. I am a shepherd (cf. Amos 7:15, "I followed the flock;" the Hebrew for 'herdman' includes the meaning shepherd, cf. Amos 1:1, though more commonly used as to a cowherd bowqeer (H951)) in humble position, who did not even think of prophesying among you until a divine call impelled me to it. Neither was I a prophet's son - i:e., disciple. Schools of prophets are mentioned first in 1 Samuel; in these youths were educated to serve the theocracy as public instructors. Only in the kingdom of the ten tribes the continuance of the schools of prophets is mentioned. They were missionary stations near the chief seats of superstition in Israel, and associations endowed with the Spirit of God; none were admitted but those to whom the Spirit had been previously imparted. Their spiritual fathers traveled about to visit the training schools, and cared for the members, and even their widows (2 Kings 4:1-2). The pupils had their common board in them, and after leaving them still continued members. The offerings which, in Judah, were given by the pious to the Levites, in Israel went to the schools of the prophets (2 Kings 4:42). Prophecy (ex. gr., that of Elijah and Elisha) in Israel was more connected with extraordinary events than in Judah, inasmuch as, in the absence of the legal hierarchy of the latter, it needed to have more palpable divine sanction.
A gatherer - one occupied with their cultivation (Maurer). The mode of cultivating it was, they made an incision in the fruit when of a certain size, and on the fourth day afterward it ripened (Pliny, 'Natural History,' 13: 7, 14). So the Septuagint translation [knizoon], 'puncturing,' or 'a puncturer of sycamore fruit.' Grotius from Jerome says, if it be not plucked off and 'gathered' (which favours the English version), it is spoiled by gnats. The Hebrew expresses simply 'one employed about sycamore fruit' [bowleec].
Of sycamore fruit - abounding in Palestine. The fruit was like the fig, but inferior; according to Pliny, a sort of compound, as the name expresses, of the fig and the mulberry. It was only eaten by the poorest (cf. 1 Kings 10:27).