Amos 2

This is what the LORD says: For three sins of Moab, and now a fourth, I will not hold back the punishment. Moab burned the bones of the king of Edom until they turned to lime.

1Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:

Note"For three sins, and now a fourth" is a set poetic formula in Hebrew, not a count of specific offenses. Pairing a number with the next number up (three/four, six/seven) was a standard way of saying "more than enough (the limit has been passed." Amos uses the same opening against seven nations in turn before reaching Israel itself. Moab and Edom were small kingdoms east and south-east of Israel, across the Dead Sea; both were long-standing rivals of Israel and of each other. Lime is the white powder left when bone or limestone is burned at high heat; burning a dead king's bones to lime destroyed the body completely, so it could not rest in its tomb. Ancient peoples regarded this as an outrage against the dead rather than an act of war, and note that the victim here is Edom's king, not an Israelite) Moab is condemned for a crime against a foreign nation.

2So I will send fire against Moab, and it will burn up the strong buildings of Kerioth. Moab will die in an uproar, with war cries and the blast of the ram's horn.

2But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kirioth: and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet:

Note"Strong buildings" translates a word for the fortified citadels and palace complexes at the center of a walled city, the last place to fall in a siege. Kerioth was a major Moabite town. The ram's horn (shofar) was the standard battlefield signal instrument, sounded to raise the alarm or start an attack; hearing it meant war had arrived.

3I will cut off the ruler who governs Moab, and I will kill all its officials along with him, says the LORD.

3And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.

NoteThe word behind "ruler" is literally "judge," which in this period meant the chief governing figure of a people, not a courtroom official. "Cut off" is the ordinary Hebrew idiom for killing or removing someone permanently.

4This is what the LORD says: For three sins of Judah, and now a fourth, I will not hold back the punishment. They have rejected the teaching of the LORD and have not obeyed his rules. The lies their ancestors followed have led them off the right path.

4Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:

NoteJudah is the southern kingdom, with its capital at Jerusalem. Amos was himself from Judah but preached in the northern kingdom, called Israel, which had split from Judah about 150 years earlier. "The teaching of the LORD" translates torah, the body of instruction and law given to Israel. The word rendered "lies" is often used elsewhere for idols or false gods, so the line may mean either false beliefs generally or the worthless gods their ancestors chased after; the Hebrew leaves both open.

5So I will send fire against Judah, and it will burn up the strong buildings of Jerusalem.

5But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

6This is what the LORD says: For three sins of Israel, and now a fourth, I will not hold back the punishment. They sell honest people for silver, and they sell a poor man for the price of a pair of sandals.

6Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;

NoteIsrael from here on means the northern kingdom, Amos's audience. "Sell the righteous for silver" refers to debt slavery: a person who could not repay a debt, or the debt itself, could be handed over to a creditor, and a corrupt judge could be paid silver to rule against an innocent man. Coined money did not yet exist; silver was weighed out by the piece. A pair of sandals was the cheapest thing a person owned, so the phrase measures how trivial a debt could cost someone their freedom. Sandals also figured in Israelite property transfers as a token of a completed sale, which may be a second layer of meaning here.

7They grind the heads of the poor into the dust of the ground, and they shove the humble out of the way. A man and his father have sex with the same girl, and so they treat my holy name as worthless.

7That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:

NoteThe first line is difficult in Hebrew and has been read two ways: that the powerful trample the poor into the dust, or that they crave even the dust the poor throw on their heads in mourning. Both senses are of grinding people who are already down. In the second half, the Hebrew word for the girl can mean a young woman, a servant, or a slave in the household; the text does not say who she is or in what setting, and interpreters have proposed everything from abuse of a household slave to a practice connected with a shrine. What the passage does say is that father and son sharing the same woman was forbidden. "Treat my holy name as worthless" uses a word meaning to strip something of its sacredness by common or contemptuous handling.

8They stretch out beside every altar on clothing handed over as security for a loan. And in the house of their god they drink wine bought with the fines they collected.

8And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.

NoteIsraelite law let a lender hold a borrower's outer cloak as security for a loan, but required it to be returned each evening, because for a poor man the cloak was also his blanket. Keeping such garments overnight, and lounging on them at a shrine, is the offense. "The house of their god" may equally be read "the house of their God": Hebrew makes no distinction, so the wine may be drunk at a pagan shrine or in the LORD's own sanctuary. The wine came from fines levied on the same poor people.

9Yet I was the one who destroyed the Amorites in front of them. The Amorites were as tall as cedar trees and as strong as oak trees, but I destroyed their fruit above and their roots below.

9Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

NoteThe Amorites were among the peoples living in Canaan before Israel; biblical tradition remembered them as unusually tall and formidable. Cedars, imported from Lebanon, were the tallest timber known in the region, and oaks the byword for toughness. "Fruit above and roots below" is a stock image for wiping out a people completely, the visible generation and the stock it grew from, leaving nothing to sprout again.

10I also brought you up out of the land of Egypt. I led you for forty years through the desert so that you could take over the land of the Amorites.

10Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.

NoteThe exodus from Egypt and the forty years in the desert were the founding story of Israel's national identity, retold constantly as the proof of what God had done for them. Amos's point is the sequence: the same God who removed the Amorites and installed Israel in their land is now the one bringing the charge.

11I made some of your sons into prophets, who speak my message, and some of your young men into Nazirites, who took a special vow to me that included never drinking wine. People of Israel, is this not true? says the LORD.

11And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.

NoteA Nazirite took a voluntary vow, for a set period or for life, that involved abstaining from wine and anything else made from grapes, leaving the hair uncut, and avoiding contact with dead bodies. It was a visible, public form of dedication that any ordinary Israelite could undertake. Prophets and Nazirites are named together as the two kinds of person God gave the nation as living reminders.

12But you made the Nazirites drink wine, and you ordered the prophets, saying, Do not speak any message from God.

12But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.

NoteForcing wine on a Nazirite broke his vow and made his dedication useless; silencing a prophet cut off the message. Both charges are about destroying the very gifts named in the previous verse.

13Look, I am pressed down under you, the way a cart is pressed down when it is loaded with cut grain.

13Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.

NoteThe Hebrew verb in this verse occurs nowhere else and its sense is disputed. It may mean that God is weighed down and pressed beneath Israel, as the plain rendering has it, or that God is about to press down and crush them where they stand, as many modern translations read it. The image itself is a farm cart so heavily loaded with cut grain that its frame groans.

14So the fast runner will have nowhere to escape. The strong man will not be able to use his strength. The warrior will not save his own life.

14Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself:

NoteVerses 14 to 16 list the kinds of people who would normally survive a rout (the fast runner, the strong man, the archer, the horseman) and say that none of their advantages will work. It is a stock way of describing a defeat so total that skill and strength make no difference.

15The man with the bow will not hold his ground. The man who runs fast will not get away. The man on horseback will not save his own life.

15Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself.

16Even the bravest of the warriors will run away naked on that day, says the LORD.

16And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the LORD.

Note"Naked" here most likely means stripped of armor and weapons, and possibly of the outer garment as well, in order to run faster, the image of a soldier throwing away everything that identifies him as a fighter.