Amos 4:10

4:10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. ¹ 

I killed your young men with the sword,

along with the horses you had captured.

I made the stench from the corpses ²  rise up into your nostrils.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 8:10

8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, ³ 

and all your songs into funeral dirges.

I will make everyone wear funeral clothes ⁴ 

and cause every head to be shaved bald. ⁵ 

I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; ⁶ 

when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. ⁷ 

Amos 9:7

9:7 “You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” ⁸  says the Lord.

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

but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor ⁹  and the Arameans from Kir. ¹⁰ 

[4:10]  ¹ tn Heb “in the manner [or “way”] of Egypt.”

[4:10]  ² tn Heb “of your camps [or “armies”].”

[8:10]  ³ tn Heb “mourning.”

[8:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”

[8:10]  sn Mourners wore sackcloth (funeral clothes) as an outward expression of grief.

[8:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).

[8:10]  sn Shaving the head or tearing out one’s hair was a ritual act of mourning. See Lev 21:5; Deut 14:1; Isa 3:24; 15:2; Jer 47:5; 48:37; Ezek 7:18; 27:31; Mic 1:16.

[8:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”

[8:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.

[9:7]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ sn Caphtor may refer to the island of Crete.

[9:7]  ¹⁰ 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.