Amos 7:7

7:7 He showed me this: I saw ¹  the sovereign One ²  standing by a tin ³  wall holding tin in his hand.

Amos 9:1

9:1 I saw the sovereign One ⁴  standing by the altar ⁵  and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, ⁶  so the thresholds shake!

Knock them down on the heads of all the people, ⁷ 

and I will kill the survivors ⁸  with the sword.

No one will be able to run away; ⁹ 

no one will be able to escape. ¹⁰ 

[7:7]  ¹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:7]  ² tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here and in the following verse is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[7:7]  ³ 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.

[9:1]  ⁴ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[9:1]  ⁵ sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.

[9:1]  ⁶ tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.

[9:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “cut them off on the head of all of them.” The translation assumes the objective suffix on the verb refers to the tops of the pillars and that the following prepositional phrase refers to the people standing beneath. Another option is to take this phrase as referring to the pillars, in which case one could translate, “Knock all the tops of the pillars off.”

[9:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “the remnant of them.” One could possibly translate, “every last one of them” (cf. NEB “to the last man”). This probably refers to those who survive the collapse of the temple, which may symbolize the northern kingdom.

[9:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”

[9:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”