Amos 8:7-14

8:7 The Lord confirms this oath ¹  by the arrogance of Jacob: ² 

“I swear ³  I will never forget all you have done! ⁴ 

8:8 Because of this the earth ⁵  will quake, ⁶ 

and all who live in it will mourn.

The whole earth ⁷  will rise like the River Nile, ⁸ 

it will surge upward ⁹  and then grow calm, ¹⁰  like the Nile in Egypt. ¹¹ 

8:9 In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon,

and make the earth dark in the middle of the day. ¹² 

8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, ¹³ 

and all your songs into funeral dirges.

I will make everyone wear funeral clothes ¹⁴ 

and cause every head to be shaved bald. ¹⁵ 

I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; ¹⁶ 

when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. ¹⁷ 

8:11 Be certain of this, ¹⁸  the time is ¹⁹  coming,” says the sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land –

not a shortage of food or water

but an end to divine revelation! ²⁰ 

8:12 People ²¹  will stagger from sea to sea, ²² 

and from the north around to the east.

They will wander about looking for a revelation from ²³  the Lord,

but they will not find any. ²⁴ 

8:13 In that day your ²⁵  beautiful young women ²⁶  and your ²⁷  young men will faint from thirst. ²⁸  8:14 These are the ones who now take oaths ²⁹  in the name of the sinful idol goddess ³⁰  of Samaria.

They vow, ³¹  ‘As surely as your god ³²  lives, O Dan,’ or ‘As surely as your beloved one ³³  lives, O Beer Sheba!’

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

[8:7]  ¹ tn Or “swears.”

[8:7]  ² sn In an oath one appeals to something permanent to emphasize one’s commitment to the promise. Here the Lord sarcastically swears by the arrogance of Jacob, which he earlier had condemned (6:8), something just as enduring as the Lord’s own life (see 6:8) or unchanging character (see 4:2). Other suggestions include that the Lord is swearing by the land, his most valuable possession (cf. Isa 4:2; Ps 47:4 [47:5 HT]); that this is a divine epithet analogous to “the Glory of Israel” (1 Sam 15:29); or that an ellipsis should be understood here, in which case the meaning is the same as that of 6:8 (“The Lord has sworn [by himself] against the arrogance of Jacob”).

[8:7]  ³ tn The words “I swear” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation because a self-imprecation is assumed in oaths of this type.

[8:7]  ⁴ tn Or “I will never forget all your deeds.”

[8:8]  ⁵ tn Or “land” (also later in this verse).

[8:8]  ⁶ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[8:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “all of it.”

[8:8]  ⁸ tc The MT reads “like the light” (כָאֹר, kha’or; note this term also appears in v. 9), which is commonly understood to be an error for “like the Nile” (כִּיאוֹר, ki’or). See the parallel line and Amos 9:5. The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity. If this emendation is correct, in the Hebrew of Amos “Nile” is actually spelled three slightly different ways.

[8:8]  sn The movement of the quaking earth is here compared to the annual flooding and receding of the River Nile.

[8:8]  ⁹ tn Or “churn.”

[8:8]  ¹⁰ tn Or “sink back down.” The translation assumes the verb שָׁקַע (shaqa’), following the Qere.

[8:8]  ¹¹ tn The entire verse is phrased in a series of rhetorical questions which anticipate the answer, “Of course!” (For example, the first line reads, “Because of this will the earth not quake?”). The rhetorical questions entrap the listener in the logic of the judgment of God (cf. 3:3-6; 9:7). The rhetorical questions have been converted to affirmative statements in the translation for clarity.

[8:9]  ¹² tn Heb “in a day of light.”

[8:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “mourning.”

[8:10]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”

[8:10]  ¹⁷ 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.

[8:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the days are.”

[8:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”

[8:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:12]  ²² tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east – that is, across the whole land.

[8:12]  ²³ tn Heb “looking for the word of.”

[8:12]  ²⁴ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[8:13]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the.”

[8:13]  ²⁶ tn Or “virgins.”

[8:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the.”

[8:13]  ²⁸ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[8:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “those who swear.”

[8:14]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ tn Heb “say.”

[8:14]  ³² 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]  ³³ 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.