Amos 7:1-9

Symbolic Visions of Judgment

7:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  him making locusts just as the crops planted late ²  were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest. ³ ) 7:2 When they had completely consumed the earth’s vegetation, I said,

“Sovereign Lord, forgive Israel! ⁴ 

How can Jacob survive? ⁵ 

He is too weak!” ⁶ 

7:3 The Lord decided not to do this. ⁷  “It will not happen,” the Lord said.

7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ⁸  the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. ⁹  It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.

7:5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop!

How can Jacob survive? ¹⁰ 

He is too weak!” ¹¹ 

7:6 The Lord decided not to do this. ¹²  The sovereign Lord said, “This will not happen either.”

7:7 He showed me this: I saw ¹³  the sovereign One ¹⁴  standing by a tin ¹⁵  wall holding tin in his hand. 7:8 The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “Tin.” The sovereign One then said,

“Look, I am about to place tin among my people Israel.

I will no longer overlook their sin. ¹⁶ 

7:9 Isaac’s centers of worship ¹⁷  will become desolate;

Israel’s holy places will be in ruins.

I will attack Jeroboam’s dynasty with the sword.” ¹⁸ 

Amos 8:1-3

More Visions and Messages of Judgment

8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹⁹  a basket of summer fruit. ²⁰ 

8:2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end ²¹  has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins. ²² 

8:3 The women singing in the temple ²³  will wail in that day.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking.

“There will be many corpses littered everywhere! ²⁴  Be quiet!”

Amos 9:1-4

9:1 I saw the sovereign One ²⁵  standing by the altar ²⁶  and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, ²⁷  so the thresholds shake!

Knock them down on the heads of all the people, ²⁸ 

and I will kill the survivors ²⁹  with the sword.

No one will be able to run away; ³⁰ 

no one will be able to escape. ³¹ 

9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, ³² 

my hand would pull them up from there.

Even if they could climb up to heaven,

I would drag them down from there.

9:3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,

I would hunt them down and take them from there.

Even if they tried to hide from me ³³  at the bottom of the sea,

from there ³⁴  I would command the Sea Serpent ³⁵  to bite them.

9:4 Even when their enemies drive them into captivity, ³⁶ 

from there ³⁷  I will command the sword to kill them.

I will not let them out of my sight;

they will experience disaster, not prosperity.” ³⁸ 

[7:1]  ¹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:1]  ² 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]  ³ 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.

[7:2]  ⁴ tn “Israel” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “stand” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[7:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “small.”

[7:3]  ⁷ tn Or “changed his mind about this.”

[7:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:4]  ⁹ tc The Hebrew appears to read, “summoning to contend with fire,” or “summoning fire to contend,” but both are problematic syntactically (H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos [Hermeneia], 292; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 230-31). Many emend the text to לרבב אשׁ, “(calling) for a shower of fire,” though this interpretation is also problematic (see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 746-47).

[7:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “stand.”

[7:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “small.”

[7:6]  ¹² tn Or “changed his mind about this.”

[7:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:7]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here and in the following verse is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[7:7]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew word אֲנָךְ (’anakh, “tin”) occurs only in this passage (twice in this verse and twice in the following verse). (Its proposed meaning is based on an Akkadian cognate annaku.) The tin wall of the vision, if it symbolizes Israel, may suggest weakness and vulnerability to judgment. See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 233-35. The symbolic significance of God holding tin in his hand and then placing tin among the people is unclear. Possibly the term אֲנָךְ in v. 8b is a homonym meaning “grief” (this term is attested in postbiblical Hebrew). In this case there is a wordplay, the אֲנָךְ (“tin”) of the vision suggesting the אֲנָךְ (“grief”) that judgment will bring upon the land. See F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos (AB), 759. Another option is to maintain the meaning “tin” and understand that the Lord has ripped off a piece of the tin wall and placed it in front of all to see. Their citadels, of which the nation was so proud and confident, are nothing more than tin fortresses. The traditional interpretation of these verses (reflected in many English versions) understands the term אֲנָךְ to mean “lead,” and by extension, “plumb line.” In this case, one may translate: “I saw the sovereign one standing by a wall built true to plumb holding a plumb line in his hand. The Lord said to me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ I said, ‘A plumb line.’ The sovereign one then said, ‘Look, I am about to place a plumb line among my people…’” According to this view, the plumb line symbolizes God’s moral standards by which he will measure Israel to see if they are a straight or crooked wall.

[7:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And I will no longer pass over him.”

[7:9]  ¹⁷ tn Traditionally, “the high places” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “pagan shrines.”

[7:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.”

[8:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:1]  ²⁰ sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.

[8:2]  ²¹ tn There is a wordplay here. The Hebrew word קֵץ (qets, “end”) sounds like קָיִץ (qayits, “summer fruit”). The summer fruit arrived toward the end of Israel’s agricultural year; Israel’s national existence was similarly at an end.

[8:2]  ²² tn Heb “I will no longer pass over him.”

[8:3]  ²³ tn Or “palace” (NASB, NCV, TEV).

[8:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Many corpses in every place he will throw out.” The subject of the verb is probably impersonal, though many emend the active (Hiphil) form to a passive (Hophal): “Many corpses in every place will be thrown out.”

[9:1]  ²⁵ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[9:1]  ²⁶ sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.

[9:1]  ²⁷ tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.

[9:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “cut them off on the head of all of them.” The translation assumes the objective suffix on the verb refers to the tops of the pillars and that the following prepositional phrase refers to the people standing beneath. Another option is to take this phrase as referring to the pillars, in which case one could translate, “Knock all the tops of the pillars off.”

[9:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the remnant of them.” One could possibly translate, “every last one of them” (cf. NEB “to the last man”). This probably refers to those who survive the collapse of the temple, which may symbolize the northern kingdom.

[9:1]  ³⁰ tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”

[9:1]  ³¹ tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”

[9:2]  ³² tn Heb “into Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), that is, the land of the dead localized in Hebrew thought in the earth’s core or the grave. Cf. KJV “hell”; NCV, NLT “the place of the dead”; NIV “the depths of the grave.”

[9:3]  ³³ tn Heb “from before my eyes.”

[9:3]  ³⁴ tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).

[9:3]  ³⁵ sn If the article indicates a definite serpent, then the mythological Sea Serpent, symbolic of the world’s chaotic forces, is probably in view. See Job 26:13 and Isa 27:1 (where it is also called Leviathan). Elsewhere in the OT this serpent is depicted as opposing the Lord, but this text implies that even this powerful enemy of God is ultimately subject to his sovereign will.

[9:4]  ³⁶ tn Heb “Even if they go into captivity before their enemies.”

[9:4]  ³⁷ tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).

[9:4]  ³⁸ tn Heb “I will set my eye on them for disaster, not good.”