7:4 Sovereign Yahweh also showed Amos a vision of a great fire that was burning up everything. Like a great drought it consumed all the water and all the farmland (or people) in Israel (cf. 1:19-20). What he saw may have been a scorching heat wave that resulted in a drought.
The "great deep"is a phrase that refers to subterranean waters that feed springs (cf. Gen. 1:2; 7:11; 8:2; 49:25; Deut. 8:7; Ezek. 31:4). So intense was the fire that Amos saw that it dried up even these underground water reservoirs. Great heat with consequent drought was one of the punishments that the Lord warned of for covenant unfaithfulness (Deut. 28:22).
7:5-6 Amos prayed virtually the same prayer again asking the sovereign Lord not to send such a judgment because Jacob was small (cf. v. 2). Again the Lord relented and determined that it would not come then (cf. v. 3). He would not discipline Israel with a locust plague or with a raging "fire."
