7:3 The Lord decided not to do this. 1 “It will not happen,” the Lord said.
7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw 2 the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. 3 It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.
7:5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop!
How can Jacob survive? 4
He is too weak!” 5
7:6 The Lord decided not to do this. 6 The sovereign Lord said, “This will not happen either.”
1 tn Or “changed his mind about this.”
2 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
3 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).
4 tn Heb “stand.”
5 tn Heb “small.”
6 tn Or “changed his mind about this.”