other similar phenomena of his time, and is saying simply that he was originally a ‘layman’ who lived, not at all badly, by his own labours, and that he was then called to exercise the function of a prophet. (b) According to 1:1 his homeland was the district of Tekoa (coord. 170–115); from the Talmud we hear of a place with the same name in Galilee (coord. 265–191), but we know virtually nothing about it. Therefore the traditional identification with the place south-east of Bethlehem, facing the