A Fading Crown, a Firm Stone, and a Farmer Who Knows When to Stop

Samaria stood on a rounded hill above a fertile valley, and from below it looked like a garland on a head; feasters wore flower wreaths that wilted by morning. Amos 6:1-6 aims the same woe at those who “trust in the mountain of Samaria” and “drink wine in bowls”. This oracle comes from before Samaria’s fall in 722 BC.

The “mighty and strong one” is Assyria, left unnamed. Hail, storm and flood are the three weapons this chapter returns to in verse 17, where the hail sweeps away the refuge of lies and the waters overflow the hiding place. “With the hand” means by force, a blow from above.

A wreath at the end of a feast is dropped on the floor and trodden underfoot. Samaria was taken in the ninth year of Hoshea after a siege of three years (2 Kings 17:5-6), and the drunkards’ garland of verse 1 is pictured under the boots of the besiegers.

“Hasty fruit before the summer” is bikkurah, the early fig that ripens in June, weeks ahead of the main crop. It was a delicacy; Micah 7:1 says “my soul desired the firstripe fruit”. No one stores the first fig; he sees it, picks it, and it is gone before his hand comes down.

The words of verse 1 are handed back and given to God: the “crown” is the same ateret, and “glory” and “beauty” pick up the “glorious beauty” of the fading flower. What Ephraim wore as a wreath, the LORD becomes for the remnant. The residue is the same word as “remnant” in 10:20.

“A spirit of judgment” recalls the spirit that rests on the shoot from Jesse in 11:2. The two groups named are the judge at his bench and the soldiers “that turn the battle to the gate”, who drive an attack back to the gate it came from. Court and wall are the two places a city stands or falls.

“They also” turns from Samaria to Jerusalem: Judah’s leaders are no better. Leviticus 10:9 forbade priests wine or strong drink when they went into the tabernacle. “Swallowed up of wine” uses bala, the verb with which God swallows death in 25:8; here wine does the swallowing.

“No place clean” is literally “without a place”, not one spot left on the tables. The staggering in vomit that described Egypt’s counsellors in 19:14 now describes Jerusalem’s priests and prophets. The tables may be those of the sacrificial meals, eaten in the temple courts.

Children were weaned late, often around three; Hannah kept Samuel until he was weaned and then brought him to the temple (1 Samuel 1:22-24). “Doctrine” is shemu’ah, a message heard, the word in verse 19, “the report”, and in 53:1, “Who hath believed our report?”

Tsav and qav are also the sounds of two neighbouring letters of the Hebrew alphabet, tsade and qof, and some scholars hear a child’s alphabet drill: tsade, tsade, qof, qof, a little here, a little there. The drunken leaders mimic Isaiah as a nursery teacher. The line is almost untranslatable.

“Stammering lips” is barbarous, mocking speech. The Assyrians spoke Akkadian, a language related to Hebrew, close enough to catch a word now and then and too far to follow. The book says so plainly in 33:19, “a people of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand”.

The message they mocked was simple: rest, and give rest to the weary. In 30:15 it comes again in almost the same shape, “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not”. “Would not” is the same Hebrew in both verses.

The baby talk the leaders mocked is now what God actually says to them, syllable by syllable, and it trips them. “Fall backward, and be broken” is exactly how the priest Eli died when the ark was taken: “he fell from off the seat backward... and his neck brake” (1 Samuel 4:18).

The “scornful” are the letsim of Proverbs, “the scorner” who will not take correction (Proverbs 9:7-8). “That rule” is moshle, from a root that also means to speak in proverbs or taunts, so the rulers of Jerusalem are also the makers of mocking sayings. The chapter’s next verse quotes one.

The rulers’ slogan mixes its images: an “overflowing scourge”, a whip that floods. Death, mavet, was also the name of a Canaanite god, Mot, who swallowed his victims, and treaties were sworn before gods. Isaiah rewrites their boast in his own words, calling their refuge “lies” as they would never have called it.

“A tried stone” may be a stone that has passed testing, or a stone of bochan, an Egyptian hard stone used for statues. The Greek reads “shall not be ashamed” for “shall not make haste”, and that is the form Paul quotes in Romans 9:33 and 10:11. The cornerstone was the first stone laid, which set every angle.

The “line” is qav, the very syllable the mockers sang in verse 10, “line upon line”. Now it is God’s builder’s cord, stretched to check the walls, with a plumb weight to test their upright. Amos 7:7-8 shows the LORD standing on a wall “with a plumbline in his hand”.

“Disannulled” is kuppar, oddly the atonement verb, covered over, wiped out. The rulers’ covenant is cancelled like a debt, from the other side. Their own phrase, “when the overflowing scourge shall pass through”, is quoted back, but now with a different ending: it will reach them.

“The report” is the same shemu’ah as the “doctrine” of verse 9. The message they refused to learn as a lesson they will understand in terror. “Morning by morning” is the phrase of 50:4, where the Servant says the LORD “wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear”.

The “covering” is massekhah, the word for the veil over the nations in 25:7, and it also means something woven or poured, a libation that sealed a treaty. In 30:1 Isaiah uses it of the Egyptian alliance: “that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit”. The treaty is the blanket that does not reach.

At Baal-perazim the LORD broke through the Philistines for David “as the breach of waters” (2 Samuel 5:20), and at Gibeon he threw hailstones on the Amorites and made the sun stand still (Joshua 10:11-13). “Strange” is zar, foreign: God’s work will be foreign to his own people, turned against them.

“Bands” are the straps and ropes of a yoke, the kind Jeremiah made and wore on his neck as a sign (Jeremiah 27:2). Mocking only pulls them tighter. The prophet speaks as one who has heard a decree in the heavenly council, as he heard in 6:8.

The voice turns to a teacher’s. Four verbs of listening stack up in one verse, the opening of wisdom instruction (Proverbs 4:1) and of Moses’ song, “Give ear, O ye heavens” (Deuteronomy 32:1). The parable that follows comes from the farm, the most familiar work Isaiah’s hearers knew.

Ploughing began after the first autumn rains softened the ground, with a light wooden plough tipped with iron. “Break the clods” is harrowing, as in Hosea 10:11, “Jacob shall break his clods”. The questions expect no: nobody ploughs for ever, because ploughing is for sowing.

Fitches are black cumin, whose small dark seeds were sprinkled on bread; cummin is the spice the Pharisees tithed (Matthew 23:23). “Principal wheat” may mean wheat in rows, and the “rie” is kussemet, emmer or spelt, sown at the edge of the field. Every crop has its own place.

“Discretion” is mishpat, the word for justice that runs through the chapter, in verses 6 and 17. The farmer’s right way of working is the same word as God’s right judgment. Neighbouring peoples credited farming to divine teaching too; a Sumerian text gives a farmer’s instructions to his son.

The threshing instrument was a heavy sledge studded with stones or iron; the cart wheel was rolled over grain. Small seeds are beaten out by hand, with “a staff” and “a rod”, matteh and shevet, the very words for the oppressor’s staff and rod in 9:4 and 10:5, here a farmer’s light stick.

“Not ever be threshing it” uses lanetsach, “for ever”, the word of 25:8. Grain for bread must be threshed, but the thresher stops before the kernel is crushed. “Horsemen” are the draught animals pulling the threshing cart, trampling the floor round and round.

“Excellent in working” is literally “great in sound wisdom”, tushiyyah, a word from the vocabulary of Job and Proverbs (Proverbs 2:7, “he layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous”). The rulers of verse 15 had their counsel; this verse credits the counsel that runs the harvest to the LORD.