All the prophets were wealthy.
Amos owned cattle and had sycamores in the lowlands (Nedarim 38a).
They called him “the stutterer” because he stuttered (Vayikra Rabbah 10:2). Six hundred thirteen precepts were told to Moses at Sinai.
Amos came and stressed one: “Seek Me and live” (Amos 5:4) (Makkot 24a). He came with the clas- sic credentials of the prophet: humble origins and fear of chastising his people. He tells Amaziah the priest: “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdman, and a dresser of sycamore trees (Amos 7:14). And yet, when faced with the Divine challenge and mission, there was no prophet mightier or more powerful in his castigation of the people of Israel:
The Lord roareth from Zion, And uttereth His voice from Jerusalem; And the pastures of the shepherds shall mourn, And the top of Carmel shall wither (Amos 1:2).

Amos’s visions of Israel’s destruction are varied and potent. He is appalled by the class distinctions extant in urban culture, and condemns, unmitigatingly, a society that had become fat, lazy, and idolatrous. This would be resolved, adumbrates the prophet, through a two-pronged punishment, from God and from the nation of Assyria. Amos’s illustrations of God’s plan are remarkably vivid. Locusts, fire, the razing of city walls, the desecration of the altar, are all pitted against the feeble plea of the prophet for the welfare of his people. Anticipating the tragedy, Amos asks: “How shall Jacob stand? for he is small.” The Lord answers: “It shall not be” (Amos 7:2-3). There are small voices, and there are great. Amos, despite his humility, rises to greatness, in both tone and imagery. Mixing agrarian and urban metaphors, Amos describes the Lord’s wrath against Israel:
Thus saith the Lord: As the shepherd rescueth out of the mouth of the lion Two legs, or a piece of an ear, So shall the children of Israel that dwell in Samaria Escape with the corner of a couch, and the leg of a bed (Amos 3:12).
The barrage of Amos’s prophetic volleys thunders forth; finally, with four verses remaining in the last chapter, Amos offers the typical prophetic “comfort” (nechemta). The return to agronomy, a more pristine form of existence, is extolled by the profound shepherd:
And they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; They shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them And I will plant them upon their land, And they shall no more be plucked up Out of their land which I have given them, Saith the Lord thy God (Amos 9:14-15).
When Israel shall be redeemed, the erstwhile shepherd can return to his flock.