Text -- Amos 8:10 (NET)

8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, and all your songs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeral clothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Amo 8:10

¹ tn Heb “mourning.”

² tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”

sn Mourners wore sackcloth (funeral clothes) as an outward expression of grief.

³ tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).

sn Shaving the head or tearing out one’s hair was a ritual act of mourning. See Lev 21:5; Deut 14:1; Isa 3:24; 15:2; Jer 47:5; 48:37; Ezek 7:18; 27:31; Mic 1:16.

⁴ tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”

⁵ tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.