Discovery BoxAmos 4:9 
Context4:9 “I destroyed your crops 1 with blight and disease.
Locusts kept 2 devouring your orchards, 3 vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.
Still you did not come back to me.”
The Lord is speaking!
Amos 7:1
Context7:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw 4 him making locusts just as the crops planted late 5 were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest. 6 )
1 tn Heb “you.” By metonymy the crops belonging to these people are meant. See the remainder of this verse, which describes the agricultural devastation caused by locusts.
2 tn The Hiphil infinitive construct is taken adverbially (“kept”) and connected to the activity of the locusts (NJPS). It also could be taken with the preceding sentence and related to the Lord’s interventions (“I kept destroying,” cf. NEB, NJB, NIV, NRSV), or it could be understood substantivally in construct with the following nouns (“Locusts devoured your many orchards,” cf. NASB; cf. also KJV, NKJV).
3 tn Or “gardens.”
4 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
5 sn The crops planted late (consisting of vegetables) were planted in late January-early March and sprouted in conjunction with the spring rains of March-April. For a discussion of the ancient Israelite agricultural calendar, see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 31-44.
6 tn Or “the mowings of the king.”
sn This royal harvest may refer to an initial mowing of crops collected as taxes by the royal authorities.
