Amos 7:7

He showed me this: I saw ¹  the sovereign One ²  standing by a tin ³  wall holding tin in his hand.

This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb-line in his hand.

Thus He showed me, and behold, the Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in His hand.

Then he showed me another vision. I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line. He was checking it with a plumb line to see if it was straight.

GOD showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line.

This is what he let me see: and I saw the Lord stationed by a wall made straight by a weighted line, and he had a weighted line in his hand.

This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.

Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand.

He showed me this: I saw ¹  the sovereign One ²  standing by a tin ³  wall holding tin in his hand.

¹ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

² tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here and in the following verse is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

³ 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 Lord said to me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ I said, ‘A plumb line.’ The sovereign one then said, ‘Look, I am about to place a plumb line among my people…’” According to this view, the plumb line symbolizes God’s moral standards by which he will measure Israel to see if they are a straight or crooked wall.