Amos 6:10

6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ¹  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!” ² 

Amos 7:5

7:5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop!

How can Jacob survive? ³ 

He is too weak!” ⁴ 

Amos 7:2

7:2 When they had completely consumed the earth’s vegetation, I said,

“Sovereign Lord, forgive Israel! ⁵ 

How can Jacob survive? ⁶ 

He is too weak!” ⁷ 

Amos 7:8

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. ⁸ 

Amos 8:2

8:2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end ⁹  has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins. ¹⁰ 

[6:10]  ¹ 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]  ² 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.

[7:5]  ³ tn Heb “stand.”

[7:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “small.”

[7:2]  ⁵ tn “Israel” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “stand” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[7:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “small.”

[7:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “And I will no longer pass over him.”

[8:2]  ⁹ tn There is a wordplay here. The Hebrew word קֵץ (qets, “end”) sounds like קָיִץ (qayits, “summer fruit”). The summer fruit arrived toward the end of Israel’s agricultural year; Israel’s national existence was similarly at an end.

[8:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I will no longer pass over him.”