Amos 7:1

Symbolic Visions of Judgment

7:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  him making locusts just as the crops planted late ²  were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest. ³ )

Amos 7:7

7:7 He showed me this: I saw ⁴  the sovereign One ⁵  standing by a tin ⁶  wall holding tin in his hand.

Revelation 4:1

The Amazing Scene in Heaven

4:1 After these things I looked, and there was ⁷  a door standing open in heaven! ⁸  And the first voice I had heard speaking to me ⁹  like a trumpet ¹⁰  said: “Come up here so that ¹¹  I can show you what must happen after these things.”

[7:1]  ¹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:1]  ² sn The crops planted late (consisting of vegetables) were planted in late January-early March and sprouted in conjunction with the spring rains of March-April. For a discussion of the ancient Israelite agricultural calendar, see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 31-44.

[7:1]  ³ tn Or “the mowings of the king.”

[7:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:7]  ⁵ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here and in the following verse is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[7:7]  ⁶ 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 Lord said to me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ I said, ‘A plumb line.’ The sovereign one then said, ‘Look, I am about to place a plumb line among my people…’” According to this view, the plumb line symbolizes God’s moral standards by which he will measure Israel to see if they are a straight or crooked wall.

[4:1]  ⁷ tn Grk “and behold.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) at the beginning of this statement has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[4:1]  ⁸ tn Or “in the sky” (the same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky”).

[4:1]  ⁹ tn Grk “with me.” The translation “with me” implies that John was engaged in a dialogue with the one speaking to him (e.g., Jesus or an angel) when in reality it was a one-sided conversation, with John doing all the listening. For this reason, μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ (met’ emou, “with me”) was translated as “to me.”

[4:1]  ¹⁰ sn The phrase speaking to me like a trumpet refers back to Rev 1:10.

[4:1]  ¹¹ tn The conjunction καί (kai), much like the vav-consecutive in Hebrew, appears to be introducing a final/purpose clause here rather than a coordinate clause.