Amos 6:7-11

6:7 Therefore they will now be the first to go into exile, 1 

and the religious banquets 2  where they sprawl on couches 3  will end.

6:8 The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. 4 

The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking:

“I despise Jacob’s arrogance;

I hate their 5  fortresses.

I will hand over to their enemies 6  the city of Samaria 7  and everything in it.”

6:9 If ten men are left in one house, they too will die. 6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, 8  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!” 9 

6:11 Indeed, look! The Lord is giving the command. 10 

He will smash the large house to bits,

and the small house into little pieces.

1 tn Heb “they will go into exile at the head of the exiles.”

2 sn Religious banquets. This refers to the מַרְזֵחַ (marzeakh), a type of pagan religious banquet popular among the upper class of Israel at this time and apparently associated with mourning. See P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 137-61; J. L. McLaughlin, The “Marzeah” in the Prophetic Literature (VTSup). Scholars debate whether at this banquet the dead were simply remembered or actually venerated in a formal, cultic sense.

3 tn Heb “of the sprawled out.” See v. 4.

4 tn Heb “swears by his life”; or “swears by himself.”

5 tn Heb “his,” referring to Jacob, which stands here for the nation of Israel.

6 tn The words “to their enemies” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

7 tn Heb “the city”; this probably refers to the city of Samaria (cf. 6:1), which in turn, by metonymy, represents the entire northern kingdom.

8 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.

9 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.

10 tn Or “is issuing the decree.”