Amos 7:4

7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. ²  It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.

Amos 7:7

7:7 He showed me this: I saw ³  the sovereign One ⁴  standing by a tin ⁵  wall holding tin in his hand.

Amos 8:8

8:8 Because of this the earth ⁶  will quake, ⁷ 

and all who live in it will mourn.

The whole earth ⁸  will rise like the River Nile, ⁹ 

it will surge upward ¹⁰  and then grow calm, ¹¹  like the Nile in Egypt. ¹² 

Amos 9:5

9:5 The sovereign Lord who commands armies will do this. ¹³ 

He touches the earth and it dissolves; ¹⁴ 

all who live on it mourn.

The whole earth ¹⁵  rises like the River Nile, ¹⁶ 

and then grows calm ¹⁷  like the Nile in Egypt. ¹⁸ 

[7:4]  ¹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:4]  ² 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).

[7:7]  ³ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:7]  ⁴ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here and in the following verse is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[7:7]  ⁵ 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.

[8:8]  ⁶ tn Or “land” (also later in this verse).

[8:8]  ⁷ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[8:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “all of it.”

[8:8]  ⁹ tc The MT reads “like the light” (כָאֹר, kha’or; note this term also appears in v. 9), which is commonly understood to be an error for “like the Nile” (כִּיאוֹר, ki’or). See the parallel line and Amos 9:5. The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity. If this emendation is correct, in the Hebrew of Amos “Nile” is actually spelled three slightly different ways.

[8:8]  sn The movement of the quaking earth is here compared to the annual flooding and receding of the River Nile.

[8:8]  ¹⁰ tn Or “churn.”

[8:8]  ¹¹ tn Or “sink back down.” The translation assumes the verb שָׁקַע (shaqa’), following the Qere.

[8:8]  ¹² tn The entire verse is phrased in a series of rhetorical questions which anticipate the answer, “Of course!” (For example, the first line reads, “Because of this will the earth not quake?”). The rhetorical questions entrap the listener in the logic of the judgment of God (cf. 3:3-6; 9:7). The rhetorical questions have been converted to affirmative statements in the translation for clarity.

[9:5]  ¹³ tn The words “will do this” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[9:5]  ¹⁴ tn Or “melts.” The verb probably depicts earthquakes and landslides. See v. 5b.

[9:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “all of it.”

[9:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the Nile.” The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:5]  ¹⁷ tn Or “sinks back down.”

[9:5]  ¹⁸ sn See Amos 8:8, which is very similar to this verse.