Amos 7:16-17

7:16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach against the family of Isaac!’

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets

and your sons and daughters will die violently.

Your land will be given to others

and you will die in a foreign land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.’”


tn The verb, which literally means “to drip,” appears to be a synonym of “to prophesy,” but it might carry a derogatory tone here, perhaps alluding to the impassioned, frenzied way in which prophets sometimes delivered their messages. If so, one could translate, “to drivel; to foam at the mouth” (see HALOT 694 s.v. נטף).

tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.