Amos 8:1-3

More Visions and Messages of Judgment

8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  a basket of summer fruit. 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 ³  has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins. ⁴ 

8:3 The women singing in the temple ⁵  will wail in that day.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking.

“There will be many corpses littered everywhere! ⁶  Be quiet!”

[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.

[8:2]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will no longer pass over him.”

[8:3]  ⁵ tn Or “palace” (NASB, NCV, TEV).

[8:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “Many corpses in every place he will throw out.” The subject of the verb is probably impersonal, though many emend the active (Hiphil) form to a passive (Hophal): “Many corpses in every place will be thrown out.”