Amoschapter 7
17 verses · Amos · about 760 BC · The Twelve
But never prophesy at Bethel again, because it is the sanctuary of the king and the temple of the kingdom.”
Introduction
Amos, The Twelve, Amos Overview.
This chapter begins the last part of the book, a series of visions Amos says the Lord showed him. They are told in his own voice, and in them he speaks back to God. Between the visions stands the only story in the book, a clash at Bethel between Amos and the priest who served the king there. Bethel was a royal shrine, and its priest answered to the king. Listen for what Amos says in the first two visions and what he no longer says in the third. Notice how Amos answers the charge that he prophesies for a living.
Context
- Who
- Israelites watching a prophet be officially expelled
- What
- Three visions of judgment, two of them turned back at the prophet's plea, and the order from the priest of Bethel that Amos leave.
- Where
- Bethel, the royal sanctuary of the northern kingdom.
- When
- About 760 BC, in the reign of Jeroboam II, who is named in the chapter.
- Why
- To show that judgment had been held back by God's mercy and was now fixed, and to set Amos's call from God against the king's shrine.
Historical context
The timing of the first vision is agricultural and cruel. The king's mowings were a first cut of the spring growth taken as a royal levy; the latter growth was what the ordinary farmer had left to live on. Locusts arriving at that exact point would take everything the crown had not already taken.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The plumb line is a builder's tool, a weight on a cord, held against a wall to test whether it is upright. It does not push the wall over. It simply shows that the wall is out of true and cannot be saved, which is why the mason condemns it.
Amaziah's title tells you what Bethel had become. He is priest of Bethel, and he reports Amos to the king as a conspirator, then orders him out with the words: it is the king's sanctuary and a royal house. The northern shrine was a department of the government, and its priest behaved like a civil servant protecting his minister.
Amos's answer describes his actual working life. He was a herdsman, the word used elsewhere of a man who managed flocks on a substantial scale, and a dresser of sycamore figs. That job is real horticulture: sycamore figs must be pierced or nipped a few days before ripening to produce edible fruit, and it was low-status, seasonal work done in the warm lowlands, not near Tekoa's hills. He travelled for it.
Significance
Twice Amos intercedes and God relents, and hearers were meant to notice that the disaster had already been turned back twice by a man they were now throwing out.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The exchange with Amaziah settled the question of authority. I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, no guild membership, no professional standing, no salary, the LORD took me from following the flock and said, Go, prophesy to my people Israel. The message did not come with credentials because it did not need them.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
No part of this chapter is read in the synagogue. Probed for this lane, the site's table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and no Haftarah use for Amos 7, and no festival reading for the book. The same probe printed 54 weekly portions and 6 festival readings in the table as a whole. Amos is heard in the synagogue twice in the year, and neither reading reaches this chapter. The table records Amos 2:6 to 3:8 as the Haftarah of Vayeshev and Amos 9:7 to 9:15 as the Ashkenazi Haftarah of Kedoshim.
The chapter is met in the study of Exodus and Leviticus. Under the fifteenth verse, where the Lord took Amos from following the flock, the corpus carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shemot 10:2, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 3:1:2 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 3:1:1. Exodus 3:1 is the verse of Moses keeping the flock of Jethro, and it stands in the portion Shemot, which the table records as Exodus 1:1 to 6:1. Under the fourteenth verse the corpus carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Achrei Mot 6:1. That portion is Leviticus 16:1 to 18:30.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The translation is modern, so every quotation from it is fifty words or fewer.
The first two visions end with the prophet's prayer, and Rashi reads the Lord's relenting as an answer to it. "He acquiesced to my prayer and was entreated of me" (Rashi on Amos 7:3:1). The corpus carries Makkot 24a:28 on the same verse. The plumb line of the third vision he reads with Dunash as a builder's lead line, and then as justice. "Behold I judge them with the line of strict justice" (Rashi on Amos 7:8:1).
The rest of the chapter is the clash at Bethel, and Rashi reads it closely. The sanctuaries of Israel are Bethel, the king's sanctuary (Rashi on Amos 7:9:1). Amaziah is "A priest of the idols" (Rashi on Amos 7:10:1). Rashi finds Amaziah misreporting the prophet to the king. Amos never said that Jeroboam would die by the sword, "But he did not say that" (Rashi on Amos 7:11:1). He had said that the house of Jeroboam would fall, and Rashi reads that of Zechariah, the son, killed by Shallum son of Jabesh in 2 Kings 15. Amaziah's order to prophesy elsewhere he explains by the place, "for here they mention only the name of the idols" (Rashi on Amos 7:13:1).
Amos's answer in the fourteenth verse is where Rashi's reading differs most from an English one. The Berean Standard Bible prints "I was not a prophet" and "I was a herdsman". Rashi reads the denial as a refusal of the paid office. "I am not one of your false prophets, who take pay for prophesying." He reads the herdsman as a man of means, after Targum Jonathan. "I am wealthy and an owner of cattle and property", the note runs (Rashi on Amos 7:14:1). It is the reading he gave at the first verse of the book. The word for prophesy in the sixteenth verse he glosses as a common term of prophecy, with Ezekiel 21:2 (Rashi on Amos 7:16:1).
The corpus carries eight further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Amos 7:3:1, 7:5:1, 7:6:1, 7:7:1, 7:15:1 and 7:17:1 and at Radak on Amos 7:5:1 and 7:6:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, fifteen it files under Talmud and twenty-five under Midrash, and the text of none, so each is cited by ref here rather than quoted. On the second verse it holds Chullin 60b:3, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Chullin 3:11, Midrash Tehillim 5:1, Otzar Midrashim, Drashot of Rabbi Bena'ah 1:4 and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 6:1. On the third verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Makkot 3:8 and Makkot 24a:28. On the fifth verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Makkot 3:11 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 291:1.
On the seventh verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 68:1, Avot DeRabbi Natan 34:7, Bava Metzia 59a:7, Bava Metzia 59a:8, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 25 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Metzia 4:8. It also holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Rosh Hashanah 4:2. On the tenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Pesakhim 8:4, Ein Yaakov, Pesakhim 8:5, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 11:5:4, Pesachim 87b:12, Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 17:1 and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Zuta 7:1. On the eleventh verse it holds Seder Olam Rabbah 28:1 and Sifrei Devarim 320:6. On the fourteenth verse it holds Bava Kamma 50a:21, Berakhot 34b:27, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Nedarim 4:4, Jerusalem Talmud Gittin 1:2:6, Jerusalem Talmud Sheviit 6:1:7 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Achrei Mot 6:1.
On the fifteenth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 3:1:2, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 3:1:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shemot 10:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 169:7. On the seventeenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Ketubot 13:13, Ein Yaakov, Ketubbot 13:9, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 3:1:18, Jerusalem Talmud Demai 2:3:8, Jerusalem Talmud Ketubot 8:11:5 and Jerusalem Talmud Peah 5:1:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and it is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Amos 7:1:1 to 7:16:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Amos 7:3:1, 7:5:1, 7:6:1, 7:7:1, 7:15:1 and 7:17:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Amos 7:5:1 and 7:6:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/amos/7.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this chapter and printing parashot 0 and no Haftarah use, with festivalReadingForBook(amos) null.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The locusts: and the LORD repented
Amos 7:1-3
He was preparing swarms of locusts: The first vision is a swarm of locusts "just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up." Amos pleads Jacob's weakness, "since he is so small," and makes no claim of innocence. The LORD relents, and the prophet's intercession turns both of the first two visions.
Amos 7:1
“Thus hath the Lord showed unto me,.... What follows in this and the two chapters, before the prophet delivered what he heard from the Lord; now what he saw, the same thing, the ruin of the ten tribes, is here expressed as before, but in a different form; before in prophecy, here in vision, the more to affect and work upon the hearts of the people: and, behold, he formed grasshoppers; or "locusts" (u), as the word is rendered, Isa 33:4; and so the Septuagint here, and other versions.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Amos 7:1
“And behold He formed - (that is, He was forming.) The very least things then are as much in His infinite Mind, as what we count the greatest. He has not simply made “laws of nature,” as people speak, to do His work, and continue the generations of the world. He Himself was still framing them, giving them being, as our Lord saith, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” Joh 5:17. The same power of God is seen in creating the locust, as the universe. The creature could as little do the one as the other.”
Amos 7:1
“Thus - This is the first of five prophetic representations of what was coming upon this people. The latter growth - The shooting up of the first growth being too luxuriant, they often eat it down with cattle; but if the second growth were eat up, it marred the whole harvest.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How will Jacob survive: The locusts strip every green plant, and Amos answers with a plea. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hear in the name Jacob an appeal to God's covenant, and read small as reduced in numbers and strength. Adam Clarke sees the prophet looking ahead to a nation brought low in every sense.
Amos 7:2
“By whom shall Jacob arise? - The locusts, the symbols of the many enemies that had impoverished Jerusalem, having devoured much of the produce of the land, were proceeding, till, at the intercession of the prophet, they were removed. Then, seeing in the light of prophecy the nation in every sense brought low, he cries, “By whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.” Calmet justly remarks: “After the death of Jeroboam the second, the kingdom, so flourishing and powerful before, was reduced to such weakness that it was obliged to have recourse to strangers for support.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 7:2
“The mention of "Jacob" is a plea that God should "remember for them His covenant" with their forefather, the patriarch (Ps 106:45). he is small--reduced in numbers and in strength.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
So the LORD relented from this plan: The Lord answers the first plea, and the locust judgment stops. Albert Barnes explains that God is said to repent when, upon repentance or prayer, He holds back an evil He has begun or threatened. He notes that Amos prayed only after the judgment had in part fallen.
Amos 7:3
“The Lord repented for this - God is said to “repent, to have strong compassion upon” or “over” evil, which He has either inflicted Deu 32:36; 1Ch 21:15, or has said that He would inflict Exo 32:12; Joe 2:13; Jon 3:10; Jer 18:8, and which, upon repentance or prayer, He suspends or checks. Here, Amos does not intercede until after the judgment had been, in part, inflicted.”
The devouring fire: and the LORD repented
Amos 7:4-6
calling for judgment by fire: The second vision moves from crop to cosmos, a fire that "consumed the great deep." Amos repeats his plea, asking "How will Jacob survive" a second time, and the LORD relents again. Mercy has now been stretched twice, and the third vision brings no plea and no reprieve.
Amos 7:4
“The Lord God called to contend by fire - Permitted war, both civil and foreign, to harass the land, after the death of Jeroboam the second. These wars would have totally destroyed it, had not the prophet interceded. It devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part - We are here to understand the partially destructive wars which afterwards took place; for the Lord causes all these things to pass before the eyes of Amos in the vision of prophecy; and intimates that, at the intercession of his prophets, total ruin should be prevented.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The second plea repeats the first almost word for word, with stop in place of forgive. Albert Barnes compares it to our Lord repeating the same words in the Garden. The plea is the same as before: if God does not help, Israel is helpless.
Amos 7:5
“As our Lord repeated the same words in the Garden, so Amos interceded with God with words, all but one, the same, and with the same plea, that, if God did not help, Israel was indeed helpless. Yet a second time God spared Israel. To human sight, what so strange and unexpected, as that the Assyrian and his army, having utterly destroyed the kingdom of Damascus, and carried away its people, and having devoured, like fire, more than half of Israel, rolled back like an ebb-tide, swept away to ravage other countries, and spared the capital?”
The fire stops as the locusts did, and the Lord gives the same answer with one word added. Albert Barnes observes that God spared Israel a second time on the prophet's plea alone. The pattern ends in verse 8, where the Lord says He will no longer spare them.
Amos 7:6
“The Lord repented for this,.... He heard the prophet's prayer, and desisted from going on with the threatened destruction: this also shall not be, saith the Lord God; the whole land shall not be destroyed, only a part of it carried captive.”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 7:6
“The caterpillars were countermanded, were remanded; a stop was put to the progress of the fire, and thus a reprieve was granted. See the power of prayer, of effectual fervent prayer, and how much it avails, what great things it prevails for. A stop has many a time been put to a judgment by making supplication to the Judge.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A plumb line set in the midst of my people
Amos 7:7-9
a plumb line in His hand: The Lord stands "by a wall true to plumb, with a plumb line in His hand." The tool that tests a wall now tests Israel. "I will no longer spare them" moves from probation to sentence, and "The high places of Isaac" and "the house of Jeroboam," are found short.
Amos 7:7
“Thus he showed me,.... A third vision, which was in the following manner: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand: this "wall" was the people of Israel, who were built up as a wall, firm and strong; and so stood against their enemies, while supported by the Lord, and he stood by them. The Septuagint version is, "an adamantine wall".”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 7:7
“Stood upon - (Rather “over” “a wall” made by “a plumbline;” lit. “a wall of a plumbline,” that is, (as our’s has it) “made” straight, perpendicular, “by” it. The wall had been “made by a lead” or “plumbline;” by it, that is, according to it, it should e destroyed. God had made it upright, He had given to it an undeviating rule of right, He had watched over it, to keep it, as He made it. Now “He stood over it,” fixed in His purpose, to destroy it. He marked its inequalities. Yet this too in judgment.”
I will no longer spare them: The Lord calls Amos by name, which Albert Barnes reads as the address of a familiar friend, as God said to Moses at Exodus 33:12. The plumb line tests the wall against true upright. Barnes notes that God had twice heard the prophet and willed to be entreated no more.
Amos 7:8
“Amos, what seest thou? - o: “He calls the prophet by name, as a familiar friend, known and approved by Him, as He said to Moses, “I know thee by name” Exo 33:12, Exo 33:17. For “the Lord knoweth them that are His. What seest thou?” 2Ti 2:19. God had twice heard the prophet. Two judgments upon His people He had mitigated, not upon their repentance, but on the single intercession of the prophet. After that, He willed to be no more entreated.”
The high places of Isaac will be deserted: The sentence falls on the shrines. Albert Barnes thinks Amos calls the ten tribes Isaac to set their deeds beside Isaac's gentle piety. Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hear a play on the name, which means laughter, so the high places become a thing to be scorned.
Amos 7:9
“The high places of Isaac - He probably calls the ten tribes by the name of Isaac, as well as of Israel, in order to contrast their deeds with the blameless, gentle piety of Isaac, as well as the much-tried faithfulness of Israel. It has been thought too that he alludes to the first meaning of the name of Isaac. His name was given from the joyous laughter at the unheard-of promise of God, to give children to those past age; their high places should be a laughter, but the laughter of mockery .”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 7:9
“In the Hebrew here "Isaac" is written with s, instead of the usual ts; both forms mean "laughter"; the change of spelling perhaps expresses that their "high places of Isaac" may be well so called, but not as they meant by the name; for they are only fit to be laughed at in scorn.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Amaziah tells the seer to go earn his bread in Judah
Amos 7:10-11
Amaziah, "the priest of Bethel," says the land "cannot bear all his words" and reports Amos as a conspirator. He objects that it is intolerable to hear, never that it is false. The priest of the state shrine acts as the king's man, the collision the chapter has built toward.
Amos 7:10
“Amaziah the priest of Beth-el - The idolatrous priest who had been established by the king to maintain the worship of the golden calves which Jeroboam the elder had set up at this place. Amos hath conspired against thee - This was truly a lying prophet; there is not one word of truth in this message which he sent to Jeroboam.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Amos 7:10
“Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel,.... The Targum calls him the prince or president of Bethel; and the word used signifies both a prince and a priest; and very probably this man had the care of the civil as well as religious matters in Bethel.”
Amos 7:10
“Not secretly, or in a corner, but openly, in the very center of the state, so as to upset the whole utterly. land is not able to bear all his words--They are so many and so intolerable. A sedition will be the result. The mention of his being "priest of Beth-el" implies that it was for his own priestly gain, not for the king or state, he was so keen.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Israel will surely go into exile: Amaziah reports the sermon in his own words, though John Gill notes that Amos had set the sword against the house of Jeroboam. It was his son Zechariah who died by it. Albert Barnes observes that Amos named the word as the Lord's, while Amaziah names Amos as its author.
Amos 7:11
“For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword,.... Which was not saying truth; for Amos said not that Jeroboam should die by the sword, but that God would raise up the sword against his house or family; nor did Jeroboam die by the sword, but his son Zachariah did: and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land; this was true; Amos did say this, and he afterwards confirms it.”
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 7:11
“For thus Amos saith - Amos had said, “Thus saith the Lord;” he never fails to impress on them, whose words he is speaking. Amaziah, himself bound up in a system of falsehood and imposture, which, being a creature-worship, gave itself out as the worship of the true God, believed all besides to be fraud. Fraud always suspects fraud; the irreligious think devotion, holiness, saintliness to be hypocrisy: vice imagines virtue to be well-masked vice.”
Amos 7:12-13
Amaziah orders Amos: "Flee to the land of Judah; earn your bread there and do your prophesying there." He calls Bethel "the sanctuary of the king and the temple of the kingdom," placing the shrine under the crown. The next two verses answer his assumption that prophecy is a living.
Amos 7:12
He judges of Amos by his own selfishness, as if regard to one's own safety and livelihood are the paramount considerations. So the false prophets (Eze 13:19) were ready to say whatever pleased their hearers, however false, for "handfuls of barley and pieces of bread."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 7:12
“That Bethel was not a proper place for him to exercise his ministry in, for it was the king's chapel, or sanctuary, where he had his idols and their altars and priests; and it was the king's court, or the house of the kingdom, where the royal family resided and where were set the thrones of judgment; and therefore prophesy not any more here.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the sanctuary of the king: Amaziah bans Amos on the ground that the shrine belongs to the crown. Albert Barnes points out that the word for sanctuary is the one used of God's own sanctuary at Exodus 25:8. The phrase places the shrine under the king, where the law placed the sanctuary under God.
Amos 7:14-15
Amos answers the charge that he prophesies for a living by naming his trade, "a herdsman and a tender of sycamore-fig trees." He was neither prophet nor prophet's son; "the LORD took me from following the flock" with the command "Go, prophesy to My people Israel."
Amos 7:14
“I am a shepherd (compare Am 7:15, "flock"; the Hebrew for "herdsman" includes the meaning, shepherd, compare Am 1:1) in humble position, who did not even think of prophesying among you, until a divine call impelled me to it. prophet's son--that is, disciple.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3 more voices on this verse
Amos 7:14
“No prophet - Not originally, or by study, or by any human designation. An herdman - By breeding and occupation I was and still am, an herdman. Sycamore fruit - This fruit was good food for man, or cattle.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Amos 7:14
“I was no prophet - I am an extraordinary messenger of God. I am not called to the prophetic office but for this occasion. I have no message to Judah, and therefore need not go there. I have a message to Israel alone, and I must faithfully deliver it. For the account which Amos gives here of himself, see the introduction.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Amos 7:14
“He did not run before he was sent, but pleads, as Paul, that he was called to be an apostle; and men will find it is at their peril if they contradict and oppose any that come in God's name, if they say to his seers, See not, or silence those whom he has bidden to speak; such fight against God.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the LORD took me from following the flock: Amos grounds his right to speak in the Lord's call. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown tie the flock to the herdsman of verse 14, a shepherd who spoke only when a divine call moved him. Matthew Henry compares him to Paul, who pleaded that he was called to be an apostle.
Amos 7:16-17
Because Amaziah said, "Do not prophesy against Israel," the word turns on his own household. "Your wife will become a prostitute in the city" while his children fall by the sword. He himself "will die on pagan soil," measure for measure against the man who wanted no word spoken.
Amos 7:16
“Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord,.... Which I have from him concerning thee, and which he has pronounced upon thee and thy family: thou sayest, prophesy not against Israel; when God has bid me prophesy: and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac; say nothing against it, though in ever so soft and gentle a manner: it designs the same thing as before, only in different words; and is a prohibition of the prophet to prophesy against the ten tribes that descended from Isaac, in the line of Jacob.”
2 more voices on this verse
Amos 7:16
Amaziah then was in direct rebellion and contradiction against God. He was in an office forbidden by God. God’s word came to him. He had his choice; and, as people do, when entangled in evil courses, he chose the more consciously amiss. He had to resign his lucrative office and to submit to God speaking to him through a shepherd, or to stand in direct opposition to God, and to confront God; and in silencing Amos, he would silence God. But, like one who would arrest the lightning, he draws it on his own head.
Amos 7:16
“Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord - While he was speaking in his own vindication, God seems to have inspired him with the awful prediction which he immediately delivers.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
you yourself will die on pagan soil: The sentence on Amaziah reaches his wife, his children, his land and his own life. Albert Barnes calls these the horrors of war, and notes that his own sentence comes last. Matthew Henry adds that he would live to see his sons and daughters fall by the sword.
Amos 7:17
“Sometimes the sins of our relations are to be looked upon as judgments of God upon us. His children, though they keep honest, yet shall not keep alive: His sons and his daughters shall fall by the sword of war, and he himself shall live to see it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Amos 7:17
“Thy wife shall be a harlot - These were, and still are, among the horrors of war. His own sentence comes last, when he had seen the rest, unable to hinder it. Against his and her own will, she should suffer this.”
How this psalm is built
The form: The first three of five visions, with the narrative of Amaziah and Amos set between the third and the fourth, as guide classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Five visions in one pattern | The visions open at 7:1, 7:4, 7:7, 8:1 and 9:1. Amos pleads after the first two and the LORD relents both times. After the third and fourth no plea is recorded and the Lord says He will no longer spare them. The fifth has no question and no answer, only a decree.the site's Amos guide, src/components/book/guides/amos/AmosGuide.tsx, the Five Visions block. | Amos 7:1, Amos 7:4, Amos 7:7, Amos 8:1, Amos 9:1 |
The structure
3 more paragraphs on the patterns
The locusts at verses 1 to 3 and the fire at verses 4 to 6 each end with a plea and a reprieve. The plumb line at verses 7 to 9 ends with a sentence on Israel's shrines and on the house of Jeroboam. Verses 10 to 17 tell how Amaziah reported that sentence to the king and ordered Amos back to Judah.
Where the chapter reaches
The fourth vision follows at 8:1 and the fifth at 9:1.
Keep studying
Studies5
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
the site's Amos guide, src/components/book/guides/amos/AmosGuide.tsx, the Five Visions block.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.