Amos 7:14-17

7:14 Amos replied ¹  to Amaziah, “I was not a prophet by profession. ²  No, ³  I was a herdsman who also took care of ⁴  sycamore fig trees. ⁵  7:15 Then the Lord took me from tending ⁶  flocks and gave me this commission, ⁷  ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!’ 7:16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach ⁸  against the family of Isaac!’

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ⁹ 

and your sons and daughters will die violently. ¹⁰ 

Your land will be given to others ¹¹ 

and you will die in a foreign ¹²  land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile ¹³  away from its land.’”

[7:14]  ¹ tn Heb “replied and said.” The phrase “and said” is pleonastic (redundant) and has not been included in the translation.

[7:14]  ² tn Heb “I was not a prophet nor was I the son of a prophet.” The phrase “son of a prophet” refers to one who was trained in a prophetic guild. Since there is no equative verb present in the Hebrew text, another option is to translate with the present tense, “I am not a prophet by profession.” In this case Amos, though now carrying out a prophetic ministry (v. 15), denies any official or professional prophetic status. Modern English versions are divided about whether to understand the past (JB, NIV, NKJV) or present tense (NASB, NEB, NRSV, NJPS) here.

[7:14]  ³ tn Heb “for.”

[7:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “gashed”; or “pierced.”

[7:14]  ⁵ sn It is possible that herdsmen agreed to care for sycamore fig trees in exchange for grazing rights. See P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 116-17. Since these trees do not grow around Tekoa but rather in the lowlands, another option is that Amos owned other property outside his hometown. In this case, this verse demonstrates his relative wealth and is his response to Amaziah; he did not depend on prophecy as a profession (v. 13).

[7:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “from [following] after.”

[7:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the Lord said to me.”

[7:16]  ⁸ tn The verb, which literally means “to drip,” appears to be a synonym of “to prophesy,” but it might carry a derogatory tone here, perhaps alluding to the impassioned, frenzied way in which prophets sometimes delivered their messages. If so, one could translate, “to drivel; to foam at the mouth” (see HALOT 694 s.v. נטף).

[7:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

[7:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

[7:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

[7:17]  ¹² tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

[7:17]  ¹³ tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.