Amos 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Amos pronounces woe on the comfortable and confident leaders of Israel and Judah, who lounge on ivory beds, feast, drink, and make music, but do not grieve over the ruin of their nation. Because of this, God swears that they will be the first to go into exile, that the city and everything in it will be handed over, and that houses great and small will be broken to pieces. The chapter ends with a charge that they have turned justice into poison and boasted in victories won by their own strength, and with God's word that he will raise up a nation to oppress them from one end of their land to the other.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • Woe is pronounced on those who are at ease in Zion.
   • Woe is pronounced on those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria.
   • These people are the marked-out notables of the foremost of the nations.
   • The house of Israel comes to them.
2. 6:2
   • The hearers are told to cross over to Calneh and look.
   • They are told to go from there to Hamath the great.
   • They are told to go down to Gath of the Philistines.
   • It is asked whether they are better than these kingdoms, or whether those kingdoms are better than these; the comparison's direction is left open.
   • It is asked whether their territory is greater than the hearers' territory.
3. 6:3
   • They push away the day of calamity.
   • They bring near a seat of violence.
4. 6:4
   • They lie on beds of ivory.
   • They sprawl on their couches.
   • They eat lambs from the flock.
   • They eat calves from the middle of the fattening stall.
5. 6:5
   • They improvise singing to the sound of the harp.
   • Like David, they devise musical instruments for themselves.
6. 6:6
   • They drink wine from bowls.
   • They anoint themselves with the finest oils.
   • They are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
7. 6:7
   • Therefore they will now go into exile at the head of the exiles.
   • The revelry of those who sprawl will be removed.
8. 6:8
   • The Lord GOD has sworn by himself.
   • This is declared by the LORD, the God of hosts.
   • The LORD says he abhors the pride of Jacob.
   • The LORD says he hates Jacob's fortified palaces.
   • The LORD says he will hand over the city and everything in it.
9. 6:9
   • If ten men are left in one house, they will die.
10. 6:10
    • A man's relative, the one who burns him, will lift him up to carry the bones out of the house.
    • He will say to whoever is in the innermost part of the house, 'Is there anyone still with you?'
    • That person will answer, 'No one.'
    • The relative will then say, 'Hush.'
    • The reason given is that the name of the LORD must not be mentioned.
11. 6:11
    • The LORD is giving a command.
    • The great house will be struck into fragments.
    • The small house will be struck into splinters.
12. 6:12
    • It is asked whether horses run on rock.
    • It is asked whether one plows with oxen; the object plowed is not stated in the source, and it can be read as plowing there on the rock or as plowing the sea.
    • The hearers have turned justice into poison.
    • The hearers have turned the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.
13. 6:13
    • They rejoice in a thing that is nothing.
    • They say they took horns for themselves by their own strength.
14. 6:14
    • The LORD says he is raising up a nation against the house of Israel.
    • This is declared by the LORD, the God of hosts.
    • That nation will oppress them from the entrance of Hamath to the wadi of the Arabah.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

Zion is the hill of Jerusalem, capital of the southern kingdom of Judah; Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, built on a steep hill and heavily fortified. Amos names the ruling class of both capitals. "The leading nation" is his ironic echo of how they described themselves.

6:2

Calneh and Hamath were cities to the north, in Syrian territory; Gath was one of the five chief cities of the Philistines, a people settled on the coastal plain southwest of Israel and long its rivals. The force of the comparison is disputed: either "those kingdoms are no better than yours, so what is there to boast about" or "those kingdoms have already been overrun, what makes you think you are safe."

6:3

The King James "cause the seat of violence to come near" uses "seat" to mean a throne or a place of rule, the way we still speak of the seat of government. The charge is that these men are not simply failing to stop violence; the way they live installs it in power.

6:4

Beds and couches inlaid with carved ivory panels were imported luxury goods; archaeologists have dug up fragments of them at Samaria. Ordinary people ate meat rarely and kept young animals for breeding, so eating lambs from the flock and stall-fattened calves marks conspicuous extravagance.

6:5

David was remembered as a singer and player who devised musical instruments. The Hebrew verb translated "chant" or "make up songs" is uncertain and may carry a sneering edge, something like improvising, or babbling.

6:6

The bowls are large basins, not cups, drinking by the bowlful. Rubbing the skin with perfumed olive oil was a festive practice, deliberately given up while mourning; the point is that these men keep up the trappings of a party while the nation is falling apart. "Joseph" stands for the northern kingdom, whose leading tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, traced their descent from Joseph.

6:7

Conquering empires of this period deported the populations they defeated, marching them off in columns. To go "with the first" is to head the procession, the men at the top of society leaving first.

6:8

An oath is normally sworn by something greater than oneself; the phrase marks that there is nothing greater for God to swear by. "Jacob" is the ancestor whose descendants made up Israel, so "the pride of Jacob" means the nation's arrogance and also the things it was proud of, here, its fortified buildings. "The God of hosts" means the God who commands armies.

6:9

Ten men in one house is a whole extended household under one roof. Numbers like that were a family's insurance: someone always survived. Here even that is no protection.

6:10

Israelites buried their dead; burning bodies was exceptional and suggests a disaster too large or too dangerous (plague, or corpses too many to bury) for the normal rites. The last line is obscure in the Hebrew. It may mean that speaking the LORD's name aloud, even in the customary way, might draw more disaster down on the house.

6:11

"The great house" and "the little house" is a way of saying every house, from the mansions of the men on the ivory beds down to the poorest homes. The disaster does not sort people by rank.

6:12

The first question expects the answer "of course not." The second is a puzzle: the Hebrew as written says simply "does one plow with oxen?", which is not absurd at all, since that is what oxen are for. Dividing the same consonants differently gives "does one plow the sea with oxen?", which many translations follow. "Gall" and "hemlock" are poison and wormwood, a proverbially bitter plant.

6:13

Two puns the English cannot carry. "A thing of nought" is Lo-debar, and "horns" is Karnaim, towns east of the Jordan that Israel had recently captured. Lo-debar sounds like Hebrew for "no thing," and Karnaim means "two horns," the horn being the standard image for strength, taken from a bull. So the boast reads: you are celebrating over Nothing, and bragging that you seized Horns by your own strength.

6:14

Lebo-hamath in the far north and the Brook or Valley of the Arabah in the south were the standard way of naming the full length of the kingdom, border to border. The nation to be raised up is not named here; within a generation it was Assyria.