Amos 4:7-9

4:7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. ¹ 

I gave rain to one city, but not to another.

One field ²  would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

4:8 People from ³  two or three cities staggered into one city to get ⁴  water,

but remained thirsty. ⁵ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:9 “I destroyed your crops ⁶  with blight and disease.

Locusts kept ⁷  devouring your orchards, ⁸  vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

[4:7]  ¹ sn Rain…three months before the harvest refers to the rains of late March-early April.

[4:7]  ² tn Heb “portion”; KJV, ASV “piece”; NASB “part.” The same word occurs a second time later in this verse.

[4:8]  ³ tn The words “people from” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[4:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “to drink.”

[4:8]  ⁵ tn Or “were not satisfied.”

[4:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “you.” By metonymy the crops belonging to these people are meant. See the remainder of this verse, which describes the agricultural devastation caused by locusts.

[4:9]  ⁷ tn The Hiphil infinitive construct is taken adverbially (“kept”) and connected to the activity of the locusts (NJPS). It also could be taken with the preceding sentence and related to the Lord’s interventions (“I kept destroying,” cf. NEB, NJB, NIV, NRSV), or it could be understood substantivally in construct with the following nouns (“Locusts devoured your many orchards,” cf. NASB; cf. also KJV, NKJV).

[4:9]  ⁸ tn Or “gardens.”