Amos 3:3

3:3 Do two walk together without having met? ¹ 

Amos 7:17

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ² 

and your sons and daughters will die violently. ³ 

Your land will be given to others ⁴ 

and you will die in a foreign ⁵  land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile ⁶  away from its land.’”

[3:3]  ¹ sn The rhetorical questions in vv. 3-5 expect the answer, “No, of course not!” Those in v. 6 anticipate the answer, “Yes, of course they do/he is.” They all draw attention to the principle of cause and effect and lay the logical foundation for the argument in vv. 7-8. Also note the progression from a general question in v. 3 to the “meetings” of two animals (v. 4), to that of an animal and a human trap (v. 5), to a climax with the confrontation with the Lord (v. 6). Each of these meetings is disastrous.

[7:17]  ² tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

[7:17]  ³ tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

[7:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

[7:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

[7:17]  ⁶ tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.