Yesaya 21:10

21:10 O my downtrodden people, crushed like stalks on the threshing floor, ¹ 

what I have heard

from the Lord who commands armies,

the God of Israel,

I have reported to you.

Yesaya 41:15-16

41:15 “Look, I am making you like ²  a sharp threshing sledge,

new and double-edged. ³ 

You will thresh the mountains and crush them;

you will make the hills like straw. ⁴ 

41:16 You will winnow them and the wind will blow them away;

the wind will scatter them.

You will rejoice in the Lord;

you will boast in the Holy One of Israel.

Amos 1:3

1:3 This is what the Lord says:

“Because Damascus has committed three crimes ⁵  –

make that four! ⁶  – I will not revoke my

decree of judgment. ⁷ 

They ripped through Gilead like threshing sledges with iron teeth. ⁸ 

Mikha 4:13

4:13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion!

For I will give you iron horns; ⁹ 

I will give you bronze hooves,

and you will crush many nations.” ¹⁰ 

You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them,

and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler ¹¹  of the whole earth. ¹² 

Habakuk 3:12

3:12 You furiously stomp on the earth,

you angrily trample down the nations.

[21:10]  ¹ tn Heb “My trampled one, and the son of the threshing floor.”

[41:15]  ² tn Heb “into” (so NIV); ASV “have made thee to be.”

[41:15]  ³ tn Heb “owner of two-mouths,” i.e., double-edged.

[41:15]  ⁴ sn The mountains and hills symbolize hostile nations that are obstacles to Israel’s restoration.

[1:3]  ⁵ tn Traditionally, “transgressions” or “sins.” The word refers to rebellion against authority and is used in the international political realm (see 1 Kgs 12:19; 2 Kgs 1:1; 3:5, 7; 8:22). There is debate over its significance in this context. Some relate the “rebellion” of the foreign nations to God’s mandate to Noah (Gen 9:5-7). This mandate is viewed as a treaty between God and humankind, whereby God holds humans accountable to populate the earth and respect his image as it is revealed in all people. While this option is a possible theological explanation of the message in light of the Old Testament as a whole, nothing in these oracles alludes to that Genesis passage. J. Barton suggests that the prophet is appealing to a common morality shared across the ancient Near East regarding the conduct of war since all of the oracles can be related to activities and atrocities committed in warfare (Amos’s Oracles against the Nations [SOTSMS], 39-61). The “transgression” then would be a violation of what all cultures would take as fundamental human decency. Some argue that the nations cited in Amos 1-2 had been members of the Davidic empire. Their crime would consist of violating the mutual agreements that all should have exhibited toward one another (cf. M. E. Polley, Amos and the Davidic Empire). This interpretation is connected to the notion that Amos envisions a reconstituted Davidic empire for Israel and the world (9:11-15). Ultimately, we can only speculate what lay behind Amos’ thinking. He does not specify the theological foundation of his universal moral vision, but it is clear that Amos believes that all nations are responsible before the Lord for their cruelty toward other human beings. He also assumes that even those who did not know his God would recognize their inhumane treatment of others as inherently wrong. The translation “crimes” is general enough to communicate that a standard (whether human or divine) has been breached. For a survey of the possible historical events behind each oracle, see S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia).

[1:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “Because of three violations of Damascus, even because of four.”

[1:3]  sn The three…four style introduces each of the judgment oracles of chaps. 1-2. Based on the use of a similar formula in wisdom literature (see Prov 30:18-19, 29-31), one expects to find in each case a list of four specific violations. However, only in the eighth oracle (against Israel) does one find the expected fourfold list. Through this adaptation and alteration of the normal pattern the Lord indicates that his focus is Israel (he is too bent on judging Israel to dwell very long on her neighbors) and he emphasizes Israel’s guilt with respect to the other nations. (Israel’s list fills up before the others’ lists do.) See R. B. Chisholm, “For Three Sins…Even for Four: The Numerical Sayings in Amos,” BSac 147 (1990): 188-97.

[1:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The pronominal object (1) refers to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 46-47. Another option (2) is to understand the suffix as referring to the particular nation mentioned in the oracle and to translate, “I will not take him [i.e., that particular nation] back.” In this case the Lord makes it clear that he does not intend to resume treaty relations with the nation in view. See M. L. Barré, “The Meaning of lá ásŒybnw in Amos 1:3-2:6,” JBL 105 (1986): 622.

[1:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “they threshed [or “trampled down”] Gilead with sharp iron implements” (NASB similar).

[1:3]  sn Like threshing sledges with iron teeth. A threshing sledge was made of wooden boards embedded with sharp stones or iron teeth. As the sledge was pulled over the threshing floor the stones or iron teeth would separate the grain from the stalks. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 64-65. Here the threshing metaphor is used to emphasize how violently and inhumanely the Arameans (the people of Damascus) had treated the people of Gilead (located east of the Jordan River).

[4:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will make your horn iron.”

[4:13]  ¹⁰ sn Jerusalem (Daughter Zion at the beginning of the verse; cf. 4:8) is here compared to a powerful ox which crushes the grain on the threshing floor with its hooves.

[4:13]  ¹¹ tn Or “the Lord” (so many English versions); Heb “the master.”

[4:13]  ¹² tn Heb “and their wealth to the master of all the earth.” The verb “devote” does double duty in the parallelism and is supplied in the second line for clarification.

[4:13]  sn In vv. 11-13 the prophet jumps from the present crisis (which will result in exile, v. 10) to a time beyond the restoration of the exiles when God will protect his city from invaders. The Lord’s victory over the Assyrian armies in 701 b.c. foreshadowed this.