Amos 5:6

5:6 Seek the Lord so you can live!

Otherwise he will break out ¹  like fire against Joseph’s ²  family; ³ 

the fire ⁴  will consume

and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel. ⁵ 

Amos 7:1

Symbolic Visions of Judgment

7:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ⁶  him making locusts just as the crops planted late ⁷  were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest. ⁸ )

[5:6]  ¹ tn Heb “rush.” The verb depicts swift movement.

[5:6]  ² sn Here Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.

[5:6]  ³ tn Heb “house.”

[5:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the fire mentioned in the previous line) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[5:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “to/for Bethel.” The translation assumes that the preposition indicates advantage, “on behalf of.” Another option is to take the preposition as vocative, “O Bethel.”

[7:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:1]  ⁷ sn The crops planted late (consisting of vegetables) were planted in late January-early March and sprouted in conjunction with the spring rains of March-April. For a discussion of the ancient Israelite agricultural calendar, see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 31-44.

[7:1]  ⁸ tn Or “the mowings of the king.”

[7:1]  sn This royal harvest may refer to an initial mowing of crops collected as taxes by the royal authorities.