Amos 7:15

7:15 Then the Lord took me from tending ¹  flocks and gave me this commission, ²  ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!’

Amos 5:1

Death is Imminent

5:1 Listen to this funeral song I am ready to sing about you, ³  family ⁴  of Israel:

Amos 2:11

2:11 I made some of your sons prophets

and some of your young men Nazirites. ⁵ 

Is this not true, you Israelites?”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 3:5

3:5 Does a bird swoop down into a trap on the ground if there is no bait?

Does a trap spring up from the ground unless it has surely caught something?

Amos 5:2

5:2 “The virgin ⁶  Israel has fallen down and will not get up again.

She is abandoned on her own land

with no one to help her get up.” ⁷ 

Amos 4:2

4:2 The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his own holy character: ⁸ 

“Certainly the time is approaching ⁹ 

when you will be carried away ¹⁰  in baskets, ¹¹ 

every last one of you ¹²  in fishermen’s pots. ¹³ 

Amos 5:5

5:5 Do not seek Bethel! ¹⁴ 

Do not visit Gilgal!

Do not journey down ¹⁵  to Beer Sheba!

For the people of Gilgal ¹⁶  will certainly be carried into exile; ¹⁷ 

and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds.” ¹⁸ 

Amos 8:8

8:8 Because of this the earth ¹⁹  will quake, ²⁰ 

and all who live in it will mourn.

The whole earth ²¹  will rise like the River Nile, ²² 

it will surge upward ²³  and then grow calm, ²⁴  like the Nile in Egypt. ²⁵ 

Amos 9:5

9:5 The sovereign Lord who commands armies will do this. ²⁶ 

He touches the earth and it dissolves; ²⁷ 

all who live on it mourn.

The whole earth ²⁸  rises like the River Nile, ²⁹ 

and then grows calm ³⁰  like the Nile in Egypt. ³¹ 

Amos 6:10

6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ³²  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ³³ 

[7:15]  ¹ tn Heb “from [following] after.”

[7:15]  ² tn Heb “and the Lord said to me.”

[5:1]  ³ tn Heb “Listen to this word which I am about to take up against you, a funeral song.”

[5:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “house.”

[2:11]  ⁵ tn Or perhaps “religious devotees” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term נָזִיר (nazir) refers to one who “consecrated” or “devoted” to God (see Num 6:1-21).

[5:2]  ⁶ tn Or “young lady.” The term “Israel” is an appositional genitive.

[5:2]  ⁷ tn Or “with no one to lift her up.”

[4:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “swears by his holiness.”

[4:2]  sn The message that follows is an unconditional oath, the fulfillment of which is just as certain as the Lord’s own holy character.

[4:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “Look, certainly days are coming upon you”; NRSV “the time is surely coming upon you.”

[4:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “one will carry you away”; NASB “they will take you away.”

[4:2]  ¹¹ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word translated “baskets” is uncertain. The translation follows the suggestion of S. M. Paul (Amos [Hermeneia], 128), who discusses the various options (130-32): “shields” (cf. NEB); “ropes”; “thorns,” which leads to the most favored interpretation, “hooks” (cf. NASB “meat hooks”; NIV, NRSV “hooks”); “baskets,” and (derived from “baskets”) “boats.” Against the latter, it is unlikely that Amos envisioned a deportation by boat for the inhabitants of Samaria! See also the note on the expression “fishermen’s pots” later in this verse.

[4:2]  ¹² tn Or “your children”; KJV “your posterity.”

[4:2]  ¹³ tn The meaning of the Hebrew expression translated “in fishermen’s pots” is uncertain. The translation follows that of S. M. Paul (Amos [Hermeneia], 128), who discusses the various options (132-33): “thorns,” understood by most modern interpreters to mean (by extension) “fishhooks” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV); “boats,” but as mentioned in the previous note on the word “baskets,” a deportation of the Samaritans by boat is geographically unlikely; and “pots,” referring to a container used for packing fish (cf. NEB “fish-baskets”). Paul (p. 134) argues that the imagery comes from the ancient fishing industry. When hauled away into exile, the women of Samaria will be like fish packed and transported to market.

[4:2]  sn The imagery of catching fish in connection with the captivity of Israel is also found in Jer 16:16 and Hab 1:14.

[5:5]  ¹⁴ sn Ironically, Israel was to seek after the Lord, but not at Bethel (the name Bethel means “the house of God” in Hebrew).

[5:5]  map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[5:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “cross over.”

[5:5]  sn To worship at Beer Sheba, northern worshipers had to journey down (i.e., cross the border) between Israel and Judah. Apparently, the popular religion of Israel for some included pilgrimage to holy sites in the South.

[5:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “For Gilgal.” By metonymy the place name “Gilgal” is used instead of referring directly to the inhabitants. The words “the people of” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:5]  ¹⁷ tn In the Hebrew text the statement is emphasized by sound play. The name “Gilgal” sounds like the verb גָּלָה (galah, “to go into exile”), which occurs here in the infinitival + finite verb construction (גָּלֹה יִגְלֶה, galoh yigleh). The repetition of the “ג” (g) and “ל” (l) sounds draws attention to the announcement and suggests that Gilgal’s destiny is inherent in its very name.

[5:5]  sn That the people of Gilgal would be taken into exile is ironic, for Gilgal was Israel’s first campsite when the people entered the land under Joshua and the city became a symbol of Israel’s possession of the promised land.

[5:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “disaster,” or “nothing”; NIV “Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”

[5:5]  sn Again there is irony. The name Bethel means “house of God” in Hebrew. How surprising and tragic that Bethel, the “house of God” where Jacob received the inheritance given to Abraham, would be overrun by disaster.

[8:8]  ¹⁹ tn Or “land” (also later in this verse).

[8:8]  ²⁰ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[8:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “all of it.”

[8:8]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Or “churn.”

[8:8]  ²⁴ tn Or “sink back down.” The translation assumes the verb שָׁקַע (shaqa’), following the Qere.

[8:8]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn The words “will do this” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[9:5]  ²⁷ tn Or “melts.” The verb probably depicts earthquakes and landslides. See v. 5b.

[9:5]  ²⁸ tn Heb “all of it.”

[9:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the Nile.” The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:5]  ³⁰ tn Or “sinks back down.”

[9:5]  ³¹ sn See Amos 8:8, which is very similar to this verse.

[6:10]  ³² tn The translation assumes that “their relatives” and “the ones who will burn the corpses” are in apposition. Another option is to take them as distinct individuals, in which case one could translate, “When their close relatives and the ones who will burn the corpses pick up…” The meaning of the form translated “the ones who burn the corpses” is uncertain. Another option is to translate, “the ones who prepare the corpses for burial” (NASB “undertaker”; cf. also CEV). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 215-16.

[6:10]  ³³ tn This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. The Hebrew text literally reads, “And he will lift him up, his uncle, and the one burning him, to bring out bones from the house. And he will say to the one who is in the inner parts of the house, ‘Is there [anyone] still with you?’ And he will say, ‘Be quiet for not to invoke the name of the Lord.’” The translation assumes that the singular pronominal and verbal forms throughout the verse are collective or distributive. This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment; the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved; an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.