A Funeral Song Before the Feasting Has Ended

A “lamentation” is a qinah, the funeral dirge, sung in a limping rhythm of a long line and a short one, the metre of the Book of Lamentations. To “take up” a dirge was the formal act of a mourner, as David took up his lament over Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17).

The verse is in that limping funeral metre in Hebrew. A virgin who dies young leaves no children, and the nation is pictured with no heir to carry its name. Jeremiah answers the line generations later: “Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel” (Jeremiah 31:4).

Thousands and hundreds were the units of Israel’s tribal muster, each with its captain (Exodus 18:21; 1 Samuel 17:18). A town that mustered a regiment gets a company back; a town that sent a company gets a squad. Nine in ten do not return.

“Seek” is darash, the ordinary word for going to a shrine or a prophet to inquire of God, as Rebekah “went to enquire of the LORD” (Genesis 25:22). Amos keeps the verb and removes the destination: seek me, not a place.

The Hebrew for Gilgal’s fate is a jingle, ha-gilgal galoh yigleh, Gilgal will go into galut, exile. Beersheba lay in the far south of Judah, the old shrine of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 21:33; 26:23–25); northerners had to “pass” across the border to worship there. Bethel will become aven, nothing.

The house of Joseph means Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s two sons, the heart of the northern kingdom. Fire has fallen on every nation in chapters 1 and 2; here it reaches Israel. Bethel’s god, the calf, is named by implication as the one who cannot put it out.

Wormwood is a plant proverbial for bitterness (Deuteronomy 29:18). “Leave off” is literally “cast to the ground”, righteousness thrown down like rubbish. The sentence breaks off without a main verb, interrupted by the hymn that follows, and 6:12 picks up the same charge.

The seven stars are the Pleiades and Orion is kesil, “the fool”, both named in Job 9:9 and 38:31. The Hebrew opens without “seek him”: it is simply “Maker of the Pleiades”, a hymn line set against the people who turn justice into poison. The call to the sea returns in 9:6.

The verb the KJV renders “strengtheneth” means to make flash or burst out, so many translate “who makes destruction flash out against the strong”. Some scholars have even found further star names in the verse, continuing the sky of verse 8. Either way, fortresses fall.

The city gate was the town’s courtroom, where elders sat to hear cases (Deuteronomy 21:19; Ruth 4:1–2). The one who “rebuketh” is the witness or arbiter who argues for the right; Isaiah 29:21 speaks of those who “lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate”.

The rare word behind “treading” may mean levying a tax, from an Akkadian verb for exacting a grain tribute, which suits the “burdens of wheat” that follow. Houses of hewn stone were built of expensive dressed ashlar, and the sentence on them is the covenant curse of Deuteronomy 28:30.

“Manifold” and “mighty” mean many and strong: numerous sins, and sins with power behind them. The “bribe” is kopher, ransom money, the price paid to escape a penalty, and Numbers 35:31 forbade taking a ransom for a murderer. Justice at the gate is for sale.

The line sounds like a proverb, the sort of advice wisdom teachers gave (compare Ecclesiastes 3:7, “a time to keep silence”). Some take the verb as “wail” rather than keep silent. “That time” is most naturally the coming disaster, when there is no longer anything useful to say.

“As ye have spoken” quotes the people’s own confidence, the slogan Micah 3:11 also records: “Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.” Amos takes the slogan and attaches the condition it was missing.

“It may be” is the same hesitant word Moses used after the golden calf: “peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin” (Exodus 32:30). The command pairs hate and love as Psalm 97:10 does. The “remnant of Joseph” is the first hope of survivors in the book.

The title is heaped up, “the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord”, before the verdict. Jeremiah 9:17 calls for “the mourning women… cunning women” to wail; here too professional mourners are hired, and the farmer is called in from his field to join them, since it will yield nothing to harvest.

“I will pass through thee” is the Passover verb: “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night” (Exodus 12:12). God once passed through Egypt and over Israel; now Israel is the land he passes through. Vineyards were usually loud with vintage songs (Isaiah 16:10).

This is the earliest mention of “the day of the LORD” in the prophets, and the hearers already know the phrase and want the day to come. “Woe” is hoy, the cry of a funeral, the “Alas, my brother” spoken over a grave in 1 Kings 13:30.

Stone walls were built without mortar and full of crevices where snakes sheltered; Ecclesiastes 10:8 warns that “whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him”. The man leans his hand on his own wall to catch his breath after running, and the bite comes at home.

“Very dark” is ophel, deep gloom, and “brightness” is nogah, the glow on the horizon before dawn. Even that first grey is denied. The question is framed to expect agreement, as though the hearers should have known it already. Zephaniah 1:15 builds a whole passage on this line.

“I will not smell” refuses the “sweet savour” that made an offering pleasing (Leviticus 1:9) and fulfils the curse of Leviticus 26:31: “I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.” The “solemn assemblies” are the closing festival gatherings Joel also calls.

Burnt offering, grain offering, peace offering: the list follows the order of Leviticus 1–3 and so covers the whole system of voluntary sacrifice. The peace offering was shared as a meal, and “fat beasts” are fattened calves, the best a household could bring.

The address suddenly narrows to the singular, “thy songs”, as if to each worshipper in turn. “Viols” are harps, nevel, the instruments of the temple music David organised (1 Chronicles 15:16). “Noise” is hamon, a din, the same word for a crowd’s roar.

A “mighty stream” is a nachal eythan, a wadi that never runs dry. Most wadis flood in winter and are dust by summer; Jeremiah 15:18 complains of God “as waters that fail”. Justice is to run like the rare stream that keeps flowing through the dry season.

The question is phrased to expect the answer no, and it resembles Jeremiah 7:22–23: “I spake not unto your fathers… concerning burnt offerings… But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice.” Stephen quotes verses 25–27 in his defence (Acts 7:42–43).

Chiun is most likely Kaiwan, the Akkadian name for Saturn, and the word read “tabernacle” may be Sakkuth, another name for the same star god. The Hebrew scribes seem to have given both the vowels of shiqquts, abomination, a way of spitting as they read.

“Beyond Damascus” means Assyria, which Amos never names anywhere in his Hebrew text. Stephen, looking back after the Babylonian exile, quotes the line as “beyond Babylon” (Acts 7:43). The closing title echoes the hymn refrain, “The LORD is his name”.