Amos 5:4

5:4 The Lord says this to the family ¹  of Israel:

“Seek me ²  so you can live!

Amos 8:14

8:14 These are the ones who now take oaths ³  in the name of the sinful idol goddess ⁴  of Samaria.

They vow, ⁵  ‘As surely as your god ⁶  lives, O Dan,’ or ‘As surely as your beloved one ⁷  lives, O Beer Sheba!’

But they will fall down and not get up again.”

Amos 5:6

5:6 Seek the Lord so you can live!

Otherwise he will break out ⁸  like fire against Joseph’s ⁹  family; ¹⁰ 

the fire ¹¹  will consume

and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel. ¹² 

Amos 5:14

5:14 Seek good and not evil so you can live!

Then the Lord, the God who commands armies, just might be with you,

as you claim he is.

Amos 5:3

5:3 The sovereign Lord says this:

“The city that marches out with a thousand soldiers ¹³  will have only a hundred left;

the town ¹⁴  that marches out with a hundred soldiers ¹⁵  will have only ten left for the family of Israel.” ¹⁶ 

Amos 4:1

4:1 Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan ¹⁷  who live on Mount Samaria!

You ¹⁸  oppress the poor;

you crush the needy.

You say to your ¹⁹  husbands,

“Bring us more to drink!” ²⁰ 

Amos 6:1

The Party is over for the Rich

6:1 Woe ²¹  to those who live in ease in Zion, ²² 

to those who feel secure on Mount Samaria.

They think of themselves as ²³  the elite class of the best nation.

The family ²⁴  of Israel looks to them for leadership. ²⁵ 

Amos 6:10

6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ²⁶  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!” ²⁷ 

Amos 4:11

4:11 “I overthrew some of you the way God ²⁸  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁹ 

You were like a burning stick ³⁰  snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

[5:4]  ¹ tn Heb “house.”

[5:4]  ² sn The following verses explain what it meant to seek the Lord. Israel was to abandon the mere formalism and distorted view of God and reality that characterized religious activity at the worship sites, as well as the social injustice that permeated Israelite society. Instead the people were to repent and promote justice in the land. This call to seek the Lord echoes the challenge in 4:13 to prepare to meet him as he truly is.

[8:14]  ³ tn Heb “those who swear.”

[8:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “the sin [or “guilt”] of Samaria.” This could be a derogatory reference to an idol-goddess popular in the northern kingdom, perhaps Asherah (cf. 2 Chr 24:18, where this worship is labeled “their guilt”), or to the golden calf at the national sanctuary in Bethel (Hos 8:6, 10:8). Some English versions (e.g., NEB, NRSV, CEV) repoint the word and read “Ashimah,” the name of a goddess worshiped in Hamath in Syria (see 2 Kgs 17:30).

[8:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “say.”

[8:14]  ⁶ sn Your god is not identified. It may refer to another patron deity who was not the God of Israel, a local manifestation of the Lord that was worshiped by the people there, or, more specifically, the golden calf image erected in Dan by Jeroboam I (see 1 Kgs 12:28-30).

[8:14]  ⁷ tc The MT reads, “As surely as the way [to] Beer Sheba lives,” or “As surely as the way lives, O Beer Sheba.” Perhaps the term דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “the way”) refers to the pilgrimage route to Beersheba (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 272) or it may be a title for a god. The notion of pilgrimage appears elsewhere in the book (cf. 4:4-5; 5:4-5; 8:12). The translation above assumes an emendation to דֹּדְךְ (dodÿkh, “your beloved” or “relative”; the term also is used in 6:10) and understands this as referring either to the Lord (since other kinship terms are used of him, such as “Father”) or to another deity that was particularly popular in Beer Sheba. Besides the commentaries, see S. M. Olyan, “The Oaths of Amos 8:14” Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel, 121-49.

[5:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “rush.” The verb depicts swift movement.

[5:6]  ⁹ sn Here Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.

[5:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “house.”

[5:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the fire mentioned in the previous line) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[5:6]  ¹² tn Heb “to/for Bethel.” The translation assumes that the preposition indicates advantage, “on behalf of.” Another option is to take the preposition as vocative, “O Bethel.”

[5:3]  ¹³ tn The word “soldiers” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “The one.” The word “town” has been used in the translation in keeping with the relative sizes of the armed contingents sent out by each. It is also possible that this line is speaking of the same city of the previous line. In other words, the contingent sent by that one city would have suffered a ninety-nine percent casualty loss.

[5:3]  ¹⁵ tn The word “soldiers” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “for/to the house of Israel.” The translation assumes that this is a graphic picture of what is left over for the defense of the nation (NEB, NJB, NASB, NKJV). Others suggest that this phrase completes the introductory formula (“The sovereign Lord says this…”; see v. 4a; NJPS). Another option is that the preposition has a vocative force, “O house of Israel” (F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 476). Some simply delete the phrase as dittography from the following line (NIV).

[4:1]  ¹⁷ sn The expression cows of Bashan is used by the prophet to address the wealthy women of Samaria, who demand that their husbands satisfy their cravings. The derogatory language perhaps suggests that they, like the livestock of Bashan, were well fed, ironically in preparation for the coming slaughter. This phrase is sometimes cited to critique the book’s view of women.

[4:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the ones who” (three times in this verse).

[4:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “their.”

[4:1]  ²⁰ sn Some commentators relate this scene to the description of the marzeah feast of 6:3-6, in which drinking played a prominent part (see the note at 6:6).

[6:1]  ²¹ tn On the Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy; “ah, woe”) as a term of mourning, see the notes in 5:16, 18.

[6:1]  ²² sn Zion is a reference to Jerusalem.

[6:1]  ²³ tn The words “They think of themselves as” are supplied in the translation for clarification. In the Hebrew text the term נְקֻבֵי (nÿquvey; “distinguished ones, elite”) is in apposition to the substantival participles in the first line.

[6:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “house.”

[6:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “comes to them.”

[6:10]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ 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.

[4:11]  ²⁸ tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:11]  ²⁹ tn Heb “like God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The divine name may be used in an idiomatic superlative sense here, in which case one might translate, “like the great [or “disastrous”] overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

[4:11]  sn The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is described in Gen 19:1-29.

[4:11]  ³⁰ tn Heb “like that which is burning.”