Amos 2:10

2:10 I brought you up from the land of Egypt;

I led you through the wilderness for forty years

so you could take the Amorites’ land as your own.

Amos 3:1

Every Effect has its Cause

3:1 Listen, you Israelites, to this message which the Lord is proclaiming against ¹  you! This message is for the entire clan I brought up ²  from the land of Egypt:

Amos 5:25

5:25 You did not bring me ³  sacrifices and grain offerings during the forty years you spent in the wilderness, family ⁴  of Israel.

Amos 9:7

9:7 “You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” ⁵  says the Lord.

“Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt,

but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor ⁶  and the Arameans from Kir. ⁷ 

[3:1]  ¹ tn Or “about.”

[3:1]  ² tn One might expect a third person verb form (“he brought up”), since the Lord apparently refers to himself in the third person in the preceding sentence. This first person form, however, serves to connect this message to the earlier indictment (2:10) and anticipates the words of the following verse.

[5:25]  ³ tn Heb “Did you bring me…?” This rhetorical question expects a negative answer. The point seems to be this: Since sacrifices did not characterize God’s relationship with Israel during the nation’s formative years, the people should not consider them to be so fundamental. The Lord places a higher priority on justice than he does on empty ritual.

[5:25]  sn Like Jer 7:22-23, this passage seems to contradict the Pentateuchal accounts that indicate Israel did offer sacrifices during the wilderness period. It is likely that both Amos and Jeremiah overstate the case to emphasize the relative insignificance of sacrifices in comparison to weightier matters of the covenant. See R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 428.

[5:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “house.”

[9:7]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text has a rhetorical question, “Are you children of Israel not like the Cushites to me?” The rhetorical question has been converted to an affirmative statement in the translation for clarity. See the comment at 8:8.

[9:7]  sn Though Israel was God’s special covenant people (see 3:2a), the Lord emphasizes they are not inherently superior to the other nations subject to his sovereign rule.

[9:7]  ⁶ sn Caphtor may refer to the island of Crete.

[9:7]  ⁷ tn The second half of v. 7 is also phrased as a rhetorical question in the Hebrew text, “Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and Aram from Kir?” The translation converts the rhetorical question into an affirmation for clarity.