Amos 4:5

4:5 Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast! ¹ 

Make a public display of your voluntary offerings! ² 

For you love to do this, you Israelites.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking!

Amos 3:9

Samaria Will Fall

3:9 Make this announcement in ³  the fortresses of Ashdod

and in the fortresses in the land of Egypt.

Say this:

“Gather on the hills around Samaria! ⁴ 

Observe the many acts of violence ⁵  taking place within the city, ⁶ 

the oppressive deeds ⁷  occurring in it.” ⁸ 

Amos 6:10

6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ⁹  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ¹⁰ 

[4:5]  ¹ sn For the background of the thank offering of bread made with yeast, see Lev 7:13.

[4:5]  ² tn Heb “proclaim voluntary offerings, announce.”

[3:9]  ³ tn Heb “on” or “over” (also later in this verse).

[3:9]  ⁴ sn Samaria might refer here both to the region and to the capital city (later known as Sebaste). On the other hand, there actually are hills that surround the mound upon which the city was built. The implication is that the nations can come and sit and see from those hills the sin of the capital city and its judgment.

[3:9]  map For location of the city see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[3:9]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew noun carries the nuance of “panic” or “confusion.” Here it refers metonymically to the violent deeds that terrorize the oppressed.

[3:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “in her midst” (so NAB, NASB); NIV “among her people.”

[3:9]  ⁷ tn The translation assumes the form is an abstract plural (see Job 35:9; Eccl 4:1). Another option is to understand the form as a substantival passive participle and translate, “the oppressed” (so KJV).

[3:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “within her.”

[6:10]  ⁹ tn The translation assumes that “their relatives” and “the ones who will burn the corpses” are in apposition. Another option is to take them as distinct individuals, in which case one could translate, “When their close relatives and the ones who will burn the corpses pick up…” The meaning of the form translated “the ones who burn the corpses” is uncertain. Another option is to translate, “the ones who prepare the corpses for burial” (NASB “undertaker”; cf. also CEV). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 215-16.

[6:10]  ¹⁰ tn This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. The Hebrew text literally reads, “And he will lift him up, his uncle, and the one burning him, to bring out bones from the house. And he will say to the one who is in the inner parts of the house, ‘Is there [anyone] still with you?’ And he will say, ‘Be quiet for not to invoke the name of the Lord.’” The translation assumes that the singular pronominal and verbal forms throughout the verse are collective or distributive. This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment; the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved; an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.