5:15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right!
Promote 1 justice at the city gate! 2
Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on 3 those who are left from 4 Joseph. 5
7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw 6 the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. 7 It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.
7:5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop!
How can Jacob survive? 8
He is too weak!” 9
7:7 He showed me this: I saw 10 the sovereign One 11 standing by a tin 12 wall holding tin in his hand.
9:4 Even when their enemies drive them into captivity, 13
from there 14 I will command the sword to kill them.
I will not let them out of my sight;
they will experience disaster, not prosperity.” 15
1 tn Heb “set up, establish.” In the ancient Near East it was the responsibility especially of the king to establish justice. Here the prophet extends that demand to local leaders and to the nation as a whole (cf. 5:24).
2 sn Legal disputes were resolved in the city gate (see the note in v. 12). This repetition of this phrase serves to highlight a deliberate contrast to the injustices cited in vv. 11-13.
3 tn Or “will show favor to.”
4 tn Or “the remnant of” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “what’s left of your people.”
5 sn Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.
6 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
7 tc The Hebrew appears to read, “summoning to contend with fire,” or “summoning fire to contend,” but both are problematic syntactically (H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos [Hermeneia], 292; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 230-31). Many emend the text to לרבב אשׁ, “(calling) for a shower of fire,” though this interpretation is also problematic (see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 746-47).
8 tn Heb “stand.”
9 tn Heb “small.”
10 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
11 tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here and in the following verse is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
12 tn The Hebrew word אֲנָךְ (’anakh, “tin”) occurs only in this passage (twice in this verse and twice in the following verse). (Its proposed meaning is based on an Akkadian cognate annaku.) The tin wall of the vision, if it symbolizes Israel, may suggest weakness and vulnerability to judgment. See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 233-35. The symbolic significance of God holding tin in his hand and then placing tin among the people is unclear. Possibly the term אֲנָךְ in v. 8b is a homonym meaning “grief” (this term is attested in postbiblical Hebrew). In this case there is a wordplay, the אֲנָךְ (“tin”) of the vision suggesting the אֲנָךְ (“grief”) that judgment will bring upon the land. See F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos (AB), 759. Another option is to maintain the meaning “tin” and understand that the Lord has ripped off a piece of the tin wall and placed it in front of all to see. Their citadels, of which the nation was so proud and confident, are nothing more than tin fortresses. The traditional interpretation of these verses (reflected in many English versions) understands the term אֲנָךְ to mean “lead,” and by extension, “plumb line.” In this case, one may translate: “I saw the sovereign one standing by a wall built true to plumb holding a plumb line in his hand. The
13 tn Heb “Even if they go into captivity before their enemies.”
14 tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).
15 tn Heb “I will set my eye on them for disaster, not good.”