Text -- Amos 8:5-14 (NET)

8:5 You say, “When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins? We’re eager to sell less for a higher price, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales! 8:6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, a pair of sandals for the needy! We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!” 8:7 The Lord confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob: “I swear I will never forget all you have done! 8:8 Because of this the earth will quake, and all who live in it will mourn. The whole earth will rise like the River Nile, it will surge upward and then grow calm, like the Nile in Egypt. 8:9 In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon, and make the earth dark in the middle of the day. 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. 8:11 Be certain of this, the time is coming,” says the sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land– not a shortage of food or water but an end to divine revelation! 8:12 People will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north around to the east. They will wander about looking for a revelation from the Lord, but they will not find any. 8:13 In that day your beautiful young women and your young men will faint from thirst. 8:14 These are the ones who now take oaths in the name of the sinful idol goddess of Samaria. They vow, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or ‘As surely as your beloved one lives, O Beer Sheba!’ But they will fall down and not get up again.”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Amo 8:5

¹ sn Apparently work was prohibited during the new moon festival, just as it was on the Sabbath.

² tn Heb “pass by.”

³ tn The verb, though omitted in the Hebrew text, is supplied in the translation from the parallel line.

⁴ tn Heb “sell grain.” Here “grain” could stand by metonymy for the bins where it was stored.

⁵ tn Here and in v. 6 the words “we’re eager” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

⁶ tn Heb “to make small the ephah and to make great the shekel.” The “ephah” was a unit of dry measure used to determine the quantity purchased, while the “shekel” was a standard weight used to determine the purchase price. By using a smaller than standard ephah and a heavier than standard shekel, these merchants were able to increase their profit (“sell less for a higher price”) by cheating the buyer.

⁷ tn Heb “and to cheat with deceptive scales”; NASB, NIV “dishonest scales”; NRSV “false balances.”

sn Rigged scales may refer to bending the crossbar or shifting the center point of the scales to make the amount weighed appear heavier than it actually was, thus cheating the buyer.

NET Notes: Amo 8:6

¹ tn Heb “to buy the poor for silver.”

sn The expression trade silver for the poor refers to the slave trade.

² tn See the note on the word “sandals” in 2:6.

³ tn Heb “The chaff of the grain we will sell.”

NET Notes: Amo 8:7

¹ tn Or “swears.”

² sn In an oath one appeals to something permanent to emphasize one’s commitment to the promise. Here the Lord sarcastically swears by the arrogance of Jacob, which he earlier had condemned (6:8), something just as enduring as the Lord’s own life (see 6:8) or unchanging character (see 4:2). Other suggestions include that the Lord is swearing by the land, his most valuable possession (cf. Isa 4:2; Ps 47:4 [47:5 HT]); that this is a divine epithet analogous to “the Glory of Israel” (1 Sam 15:29); or that an ellipsis should be understood here, in which case the meaning is the same as that of 6:8 (“The Lord has sworn [by himself] against the arrogance of Jacob”).

³ tn The words “I swear” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation because a self-imprecation is assumed in oaths of this type.

⁴ tn Or “I will never forget all your deeds.”

NET Notes: Amo 8:8

¹ tn Or “land” (also later in this verse).

² tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

³ tn Heb “all of it.”

⁴ tc The MT reads “like the light” (כָאֹר, kha’or; note this term also appears in v. 9), which is commonly understood to be an error for “like the Nile” (כִּיאוֹר, ki’or). See the parallel line and Amos 9:5. The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity. If this emendation is correct, in the Hebrew of Amos “Nile” is actually spelled three slightly different ways.

sn The movement of the quaking earth is here compared to the annual flooding and receding of the River Nile.

⁵ tn Or “churn.”

⁶ tn Or “sink back down.” The translation assumes the verb שָׁקַע (shaqa’), following the Qere.

⁷ tn The entire verse is phrased in a series of rhetorical questions which anticipate the answer, “Of course!” (For example, the first line reads, “Because of this will the earth not quake?”). The rhetorical questions entrap the listener in the logic of the judgment of God (cf. 3:3-6; 9:7). The rhetorical questions have been converted to affirmative statements in the translation for clarity.

NET Notes: Amo 8:9

¹ tn Heb “in a day of light.”

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.

NET Notes: Amo 8:11

¹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

² tn Heb “the days are.”

³ tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”

NET Notes: Amo 8:12

¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east – that is, across the whole land.

³ tn Heb “looking for the word of.”

⁴ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

NET Notes: Amo 8:13

¹ tn Heb “the.”

² tn Or “virgins.”

³ tn Heb “the.”

⁴ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

NET Notes: Amo 8:14

¹ tn Heb “those who swear.”

² tn Heb “the sin [or “guilt”] of Samaria.” This could be a derogatory reference to an idol-goddess popular in the northern kingdom, perhaps Asherah (cf. 2 Chr 24:18, where this worship is labeled “their guilt”), or to the golden calf at the national sanctuary in Bethel (Hos 8:6, 10:8). Some English versions (e.g., NEB, NRSV, CEV) repoint the word and read “Ashimah,” the name of a goddess worshiped in Hamath in Syria (see 2 Kgs 17:30).

³ tn Heb “say.”

⁴ sn Your god is not identified. It may refer to another patron deity who was not the God of Israel, a local manifestation of the Lord that was worshiped by the people there, or, more specifically, the golden calf image erected in Dan by Jeroboam I (see 1 Kgs 12:28-30).

⁵ tc The MT reads, “As surely as the way [to] Beer Sheba lives,” or “As surely as the way lives, O Beer Sheba.” Perhaps the term דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “the way”) refers to the pilgrimage route to Beersheba (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 272) or it may be a title for a god. The notion of pilgrimage appears elsewhere in the book (cf. 4:4-5; 5:4-5; 8:12). The translation above assumes an emendation to דֹּדְךְ (dodÿkh, “your beloved” or “relative”; the term also is used in 6:10) and understands this as referring either to the Lord (since other kinship terms are used of him, such as “Father”) or to another deity that was particularly popular in Beer Sheba. Besides the commentaries, see S. M. Olyan, “The Oaths of Amos 8:14” Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel, 121-49.