Amos 4:13

4:13 For here he is!

He ¹  formed the mountains and created the wind.

He reveals ²  his plans ³  to men.

He turns the dawn into darkness ⁴ 

and marches on the heights of the earth.

The Lord, the God who commands armies, ⁵  is his name!”

Amos 5:5

5:5 Do not seek Bethel! ⁶ 

Do not visit Gilgal!

Do not journey down ⁷  to Beer Sheba!

For the people of Gilgal ⁸  will certainly be carried into exile; ⁹ 

and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds.” ¹⁰ 

Amos 6:10

6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ¹¹  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ¹² 

Amos 8:11

8:11 Be certain of this, ¹³  the time is ¹⁴  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! ¹⁵ 

Amos 9:8

9:8 Look, the sovereign Lord is watching ¹⁶  the sinful nation, ¹⁷ 

and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

But I will not completely destroy the family ¹⁸  of Jacob,” says the Lord.

[4:13]  ¹ tn Heb “For look, the one who.” This verse is considered to be the first hymnic passage in the book. The others appear at 5:8-9 and 9:5-6. Scholars debate whether these verses were originally part of a single hymn or three distinct pieces deliberately placed in each context for particular effect.

[4:13]  ² tn Or “declares” (NAB, NASB).

[4:13]  ³ tn Or “his thoughts.” The translation assumes that the pronominal suffix refers to God and that divine self-revelation is in view (see 3:7). If the suffix refers to the following term אָדַם (’adam, “men”), then the expression refers to God’s ability to read men’s minds.

[4:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “he who makes dawn, darkness.” The meaning of the statement is unclear. The present translation assumes that allusion is made to God’s approaching judgment, when the light of day will be turned to darkness (see 5:20). Other options include: (1) “He makes the dawn [and] the darkness.” A few Hebrew mss, as well as the LXX, add the conjunction (“and”) between the two nouns. (2) “He turns darkness into glimmering dawn” (NJPS). See S. M. Paul (Amos [Hermeneia], 154), who takes שָׁחַר (shakhar) as “blackness” rather than “dawn” and עֵיפָה (’efah) as “glimmering dawn” rather than “darkness.”

[4:13]  ⁵ tn Traditionally, “God of hosts.”

[5:5]  ⁶ sn Ironically, Israel was to seek after the Lord, but not at Bethel (the name Bethel means “the house of God” in Hebrew).

[5:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “cross over.”

[5:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “For Gilgal.” By metonymy the place name “Gilgal” is used instead of referring directly to the inhabitants. The words “the people of” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:5]  ⁹ tn In the Hebrew text the statement is emphasized by sound play. The name “Gilgal” sounds like the verb גָּלָה (galah, “to go into exile”), which occurs here in the infinitival + finite verb construction (גָּלֹה יִגְלֶה, galoh yigleh). The repetition of the “ג” (g) and “ל” (l) sounds draws attention to the announcement and suggests that Gilgal’s destiny is inherent in its very name.

[5:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “disaster,” or “nothing”; NIV “Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”

[6:10]  ¹¹ tn The translation assumes that “their relatives” and “the ones who will burn the corpses” are in apposition. Another option is to take them as distinct individuals, in which case one could translate, “When their close relatives and the ones who will burn the corpses pick up…” The meaning of the form translated “the ones who burn the corpses” is uncertain. Another option is to translate, “the ones who prepare the corpses for burial” (NASB “undertaker”; cf. also CEV). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 215-16.

[6:10]  ¹² tn This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. The Hebrew text literally reads, “And he will lift him up, his uncle, and the one burning him, to bring out bones from the house. And he will say to the one who is in the inner parts of the house, ‘Is there [anyone] still with you?’ And he will say, ‘Be quiet for not to invoke the name of the Lord.’” The translation assumes that the singular pronominal and verbal forms throughout the verse are collective or distributive. This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment; the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved; an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.

[8:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the days are.”

[8:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”

[9:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “the eyes of the sovereign Lord are on.”

[9:8]  ²² tn Or “kingdom.”

[9:8]  ²³ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).