6:11 I am as full of anger as you are, Lord, 1
I am tired of trying to hold it in.”
The Lord answered, 2
“Vent it, then, 3 on the children who play in the street
and on the young men who are gathered together.
Husbands and wives are to be included, 4
as well as the old and those who are advanced in years.
20:9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.
I will not speak as his messenger 5 any more.”
But then 6 his message becomes like a fire
locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. 7
I grow weary of trying to hold it in;
I cannot contain it.
78:38 Yet he is compassionate.
He forgives sin and does not destroy.
He often holds back his anger,
and does not stir up his fury. 8
78:39 He remembered 9 that they were made of flesh,
and were like a wind that blows past and does not return. 10
78:40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,
and insulted him 11 in the desert!
12:26 The word of the Lord came to me: 12:27 “Take note, son of man, the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for distant days; he is prophesying about the far future.’ 12:28 Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: None of my words will be delayed any longer! The word I speak will come to pass, declares the sovereign Lord.’”
13:14 Will I deliver them from the power of Sheol? No, I will not! 12
Will I redeem them from death? No, I will not!
O Death, bring on your plagues! 13
O Sheol, bring on your destruction! 14
My eyes will not show any compassion! 15
7:3 The Lord decided not to do this. 16 “It will not happen,” the Lord said.
7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw 17 the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. 18 It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.
7:5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop!
How can Jacob survive? 19
He is too weak!” 20
7:6 The Lord decided not to do this. 21 The sovereign Lord said, “This will not happen either.”
7:7 He showed me this: I saw 22 the sovereign One 23 standing by a tin 24 wall holding tin in his hand. 7:8 The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “Tin.” The sovereign One then said,
“Look, I am about to place tin among my people Israel.
I will no longer overlook their sin. 25
1 tn Heb “I am full of the wrath of the
2 tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the words that follow. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Heb “Pour it out.”
4 tn Heb “are to be captured.”
5 tn Heb “speak in his name.” This idiom occurs in passages where someone functions as the messenger under the authority of another. See Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19, 29:20; Jer 14:14. The antecedent in the first line is quite commonly misidentified as being “him,” i.e., the
6 tn The English sentence has again been restructured for the sake of English style. The Hebrew construction involves two vav consecutive perfects in a condition and consequence relation, “If I say to myself…then it [his word] becomes.” See GKC 337 §112.kk for the construction.
7 sn Heb “It is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones.” In addition to standing as part for the whole, the “bones” for the person (e.g., Ps 35:10), the bones were associated with fear (e.g., Job 4:14) and with pain (e.g., Job 33:19, Ps 102:3 [102:4 HT]) and joy or sorrow (e.g., Ps 51:8 [51:10 HT]). As has been mentioned several times, the heart was connected with intellectual and volitional concerns.
8 tn One could translate v. 38 in the past tense (“he was compassionate…forgave sin and did not destroy…held back his anger, and did not stir up his fury”), but the imperfect verbal forms are probably best understood as generalizing. Verse 38 steps back briefly from the narrational summary of Israel’s history and lays the theological basis for v. 39, which focuses on God’s mercy toward sinful Israel.
9 tn The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive signals a return to the narrative.
10 tn Heb “and he remembered that they [were] flesh, a wind [that] goes and does not return.”
11 tn Or “caused him pain.”
12 tn The translation of the first two lines of this verse reflects the interpretation adopted. There are three interpretive options to v. 14: (1) In spite of Israel’s sins, the
13 tn Heb “Where, O Death, are your plagues?” (so NIV).
14 tn Heb “Where, O Sheol, is your destruction?” (NRSV similar).
15 tn Heb “Compassion will be hidden from my eyes” (NRSV similar; NASB “from my sight”).
16 tn Or “changed his mind about this.”
17 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
18 tc The Hebrew appears to read, “summoning to contend with fire,” or “summoning fire to contend,” but both are problematic syntactically (H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos [Hermeneia], 292; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 230-31). Many emend the text to לרבב אשׁ, “(calling) for a shower of fire,” though this interpretation is also problematic (see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 746-47).
19 tn Heb “stand.”
20 tn Heb “small.”
21 tn Or “changed his mind about this.”
22 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
23 tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here and in the following verse is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
24 tn The Hebrew word אֲנָךְ (’anakh, “tin”) occurs only in this passage (twice in this verse and twice in the following verse). (Its proposed meaning is based on an Akkadian cognate annaku.) The tin wall of the vision, if it symbolizes Israel, may suggest weakness and vulnerability to judgment. See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 233-35. The symbolic significance of God holding tin in his hand and then placing tin among the people is unclear. Possibly the term אֲנָךְ in v. 8b is a homonym meaning “grief” (this term is attested in postbiblical Hebrew). In this case there is a wordplay, the אֲנָךְ (“tin”) of the vision suggesting the אֲנָךְ (“grief”) that judgment will bring upon the land. See F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos (AB), 759. Another option is to maintain the meaning “tin” and understand that the Lord has ripped off a piece of the tin wall and placed it in front of all to see. Their citadels, of which the nation was so proud and confident, are nothing more than tin fortresses. The traditional interpretation of these verses (reflected in many English versions) understands the term אֲנָךְ to mean “lead,” and by extension, “plumb line.” In this case, one may translate: “I saw the sovereign one standing by a wall built true to plumb holding a plumb line in his hand. The
25 tn Heb “And I will no longer pass over him.”