Amos 7

This is what the Lord GOD showed me. He was making a swarm of locusts, right when the late crop was starting to come up. This was the crop that grew after the king had taken his cutting.

1Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.

NoteSmall capitals in "LORD" stand for the personal name of Israel's God, which the King James translators never spelled out; "Lord GOD" renders a pair of Hebrew words, "master" plus that name. (Locusts swarmed periodically in the ancient Near East and could strip a whole region bare within hours; they were the standard image of total agricultural ruin. "The king's mowings" refers to a tax in kind: the first cutting of the spring grass was owed to the crown, largely to feed its horses and livestock, so an ordinary farmer's own living depended entirely on the second, later growth) precisely the crop the locusts eat here.

2When the locusts had finished eating every green plant in the land, I said, "Lord GOD, please forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small."

2And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

Note"Jacob" is the nation called by the name of its ancestor. Jacob was renamed Israel, and the two names are used interchangeably for the people descended from him. "He is so small" describes the kingdom's weakness, not its population.

3So the LORD changed his mind about this. "It will not happen," the LORD said.

3The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD.

NoteThe King James "repented" does not mean God was sorry for a sin. The Hebrew verb means to relent, to turn back from a course of action already announced; it is regularly used of a ruler withdrawing a sentence.

4This is what the Lord GOD showed me. The Lord GOD was calling for fire to settle the case. The fire dried up the great deep waters, and it began to eat up the land as well.

4Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.

Note"Called to contend by fire" is legal language: to contend is to bring a lawsuit or press a case, so the fire is summoned as a judicial punishment rather than an accident. "The great deep" is the vast body of water that ancient Israelites pictured lying beneath the earth, feeding the seas and springs; fire drinking that dry is a picture of drought beyond anything survivable. The last phrase is genuinely uncertain in Hebrew: the word can mean simply "a portion" or "a share", and may refer to the farmland allotted to the people, so translators divide between "devoured a part" and "devoured the farmland".

5Then I said, "Lord GOD, please stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small."

5Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

6So the LORD changed his mind about this too. "This will not happen either," said the Lord GOD.

6The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GOD.

7This is what he showed me. The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built straight, and he had a plumb line in his hand.

7Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the LORD stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

NoteA plumb line is a builder's tool: a cord with a lead weight on the end, hung against a wall to test whether it is truly vertical. A wall out of plumb is unsound and has to be pulled down. The Hebrew word used here occurs nowhere else in the Bible and its meaning is debated; "plumb line" is the traditional guess, while others read it as "tin" or "lead", the metal itself.

8The LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel. I will not pass them by and spare them again.

8And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the LORD, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:

Note"Pass by" translates a Hebrew idiom for overlooking or letting an offense go unpunished, the same picture as looking the other way.

9The worship sites on the hills of Isaac will be left empty, and the holy places of Israel will be torn down. I will rise up with the sword against the family of Jeroboam."

9And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

Note"High places" were open-air worship sites, usually on hilltops or raised platforms, with an altar and a stone pillar; they were the ordinary local places of sacrifice outside the Jerusalem temple. "Isaac" here, like "Jacob" earlier, names the nation after an ancestor, an unusual usage found almost only in this chapter. "The house of Jeroboam" means his dynasty, his ruling family line, not his building. This is Jeroboam II, king of the northern kingdom of Israel in the first half of the eighth century BC.

10Then Amaziah, the priest at Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel. He said, "Amos is plotting against you right here among the people of Israel. The land cannot put up with everything he says.

10Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

NoteBethel was the northern kingdom's chief royal sanctuary, set up so that its people would not travel south to Jerusalem to worship. Amaziah is its senior priest, a royal appointee, which is why he reports to the king rather than acting himself. "Conspired" is a formal accusation of treason, plotting against the crown, the most serious charge available, and a common way of silencing a hostile speaker.

11This is what Amos is saying: 'Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly be carried away from its own land as prisoners.'"

11For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

NoteDeporting a conquered people, moving the population away from its homeland to break its identity and prevent revolt, was standard Assyrian imperial practice and the fate the northern kingdom actually met in 722 BC.

12Amaziah also said to Amos, "You seer, get out of here. Run away to the land of Judah. Earn your food there, and do your prophesying there.

12Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

Note"Seer" is an older word for a prophet, from the visions such a man saw; in Amaziah's mouth it is probably dismissive, as though naming a trade. Judah is the separate southern kingdom, Amos's home country, so this is an order to leave the country. "Eat bread there" means earn your keep there, and carries the sneer that Amos prophesies for a fee.

13But never prophesy at Bethel again. This is the king's holy place. It is the temple of the kingdom."

13But prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it is the king’s chapel, and it is the king’s court.

NoteA royal sanctuary was state property, maintained by the king and staffed by his appointees. Amaziah's argument is jurisdictional: this ground belongs to the crown, so speech against the crown is not permitted on it.

14Then Amos answered Amaziah, "I was not a prophet by trade, and I was not a member of a prophet's group. I took care of cattle and sheep, and I looked after sycamore fig trees.

14Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit:

NoteHebrew of this kind has no tense marker here, so the sentence can equally be read "I am no prophet" or "I was no prophet", and translators genuinely divide over it. Either way Amos is denying that he is a professional. A "prophet's son" means a member of a prophetic guild, organized bands of prophets who trained together and lived on the support of others. The word for herdsman is a rare one used elsewhere of a large-scale sheep owner or manager, not a hired hand. Sycamore figs are a coarse, cheap fruit that has to be nicked or pierced by hand a few days before harvest to ripen properly; the trees grow in the warm lowlands, not in Amos's hill country, so this was seasonal work away from home.

15But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

15And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

16So now hear what the LORD says. You tell me, 'Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the house of Isaac.'

16Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

Note"Drop not thy word" is literal Hebrew: the verb means to let something fall in drops, and it is used of pouring out prophetic speech. "The house of Isaac" again means the nation, named after an ancestor.

17So this is what the LORD says: 'Your wife will become a prostitute in the city. Your sons and your daughters will be killed by the sword. Your land will be measured off and divided up among others. You yourself will die in an unclean foreign land. And Israel will certainly be carried away from its own land as prisoners.'"

17Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

NoteEach item is a standard consequence of a city being stormed: women taken by the soldiers, children killed, and the conquered farmland re-surveyed with a measuring cord and handed out to new owners. To die "in a polluted land" means on foreign soil, outside Israel and so ritually unclean; for an Israelite priest, dying and being buried away from his own land was the sharpest possible reversal of his position.