Amos 8:1

More Visions and Messages of Judgment

8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  a basket of summer fruit. ² 

Amos 3:15

3:15 I will destroy both the winter and summer houses. ³ 

The houses filled with ivory ⁴  will be ruined,

the great ⁵  houses will be swept away.” ⁶ 

The Lord is speaking!

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 ⁷  has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins. ⁸ 

[8:1]  ¹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:1]  ² sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.

[3:15]  ³ tn Heb “the winter house along with the summer house.”

[3:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “houses of ivory.” These houses were not made of ivory, but they had ivory panels and furniture decorated with ivory inlays. See P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 139-48.

[3:15]  ⁵ tn Or “many,” cf. NAB “their many rooms.”

[3:15]  ⁶ tn The translation assumes the form is from the Hebrew verb סָפָה (safah, “to sweep away”) rather than סוּף (suf, “to come to an end”), which is the choice of most versions. Either option effectively communicates the destruction of the structures.

[8:2]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will no longer pass over him.”