Amos 6:8-14
Christian Standard Bible
Israel’s Pride Judged
8 The Lord God has sworn by himself(A)—this is the declaration of the Lord, the God of Armies:
I loathe Jacob’s pride(B)
and hate his citadels,(C)
so I will hand over the city(D) and everything in it.
9 And if there are ten men left in one house, they will die.(E) 10 A close relative[a] and burner[b](F) will remove his corpse[c] from the house. He will call to someone in the inner recesses of the house, “Any more with you?”
That person will reply, “None.”
Then he will say, “Silence, because the Lord’s name must not be invoked.”(G)
11 For the Lord commands:
The large house will be smashed to pieces,
and the small house to rubble.(H)
12 Do horses gallop on the cliffs?
Does anyone plow there with oxen?[d]
Yet you have turned justice into poison(I)
and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood(J)—
13 you who rejoice over Lo-debar(K)
and say, “Didn’t we capture Karnaim
for ourselves by our own strength?” (L)
14 But look, I am raising up a nation
against you, house of Israel(M)—
this is the declaration of the Lord,
the God of Armies—
and they will oppress you
from the entrance of Hamath[e](N)
to the Brook of the Arabah.[f]
Amos 6:8-14
New English Translation
8 The Sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life.[a]
The Lord God of Heaven’s Armies is speaking:
“I despise Jacob’s arrogance;
I hate their[b] fortresses.
I will hand over to their enemies[c] the city of Samaria[d] and everything in it.”
9 If ten men are left in one house, they too will die. 10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses,[e] pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “No one.” Then he will say, “Hush! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!”[f]
11 Indeed, look! The Lord is giving the command.[g]
He will smash the large house to bits
and the small house into little pieces.
12 Can horses run on rocky cliffs?
Can one plow the sea with oxen?[h]
Yet you have turned justice into a poisonous plant,
and the fruit of righteous actions into a bitter plant.[i]
13 You are happy because you conquered Lo Debar.[j]
You say, “Did we not conquer Karnaim[k] by our own power?”
14 “Look! I am about to bring[l] a nation against you, family[m] of Israel,”
the Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking.
“They will oppress[n] you all the way from Lebo Hamath[o] to the stream of the rift valley.”[p]
Footnotes
- Amos 6:8 tn Heb “swears by his life”; or “swears by himself.”
- Amos 6:8 tn Heb “his,” referring to Jacob, which stands here for the nation of Israel.
- Amos 6:8 tn The words “to their enemies” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
- Amos 6:8 tn Heb “the city”; this probably refers to the city of Samaria (cf. 6:1), which in turn, by metonymy, represents the entire northern kingdom.
- Amos 6:10 tn The translation assumes that “their relatives” and “the ones who will burn the corpses” are in apposition. Another option is to take them as distinct individuals, in which case one could translate, “When their close relatives and the ones who will burn the corpses pick up…” The meaning of the form translated “the ones who burn the corpses” is uncertain. Another option is to translate, “the ones who prepare the corpses for burial” (cf. NASB “undertaker”; cf. also CEV). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 215-16.
- Amos 6:10 tn This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. The Hebrew text literally reads, “And he will lift him up, his uncle, and the one burning him, to bring out bones from the house. And he will say to the one who is in the inner parts of the house, ‘Is there [anyone] still with you?’ And he will say, ‘No one.’ And he will say, ‘Hush, for not to invoke the name of the Lord.’” The translation assumes that the singular pronominal and verbal forms throughout the verse are collective or distributive. This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment; the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved; an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.
- Amos 6:11 tn Or “is issuing the decree.”
- Amos 6:12 tc Heb “Does one plow with oxen?” This obviously does not fit the parallelism, for the preceding rhetorical question requires the answer, “Of course not!” An error of fusion has occurred in the Hebrew, with the word יָם (yam, “sea”) being accidentally added as a plural ending to the collective noun בָּקָר (baqar, “oxen”). A proper division of the consonants produces the above translation, which fits the parallelism and also anticipates the answer, “Of course not!”
- Amos 6:12 sn The botanical imagery, when juxtaposed with the preceding rhetorical questions, vividly depicts and emphasizes how the Israelites have perverted justice and violated the created order by their morally irrational behavior.
- Amos 6:13 tn Heb “those who rejoice over Lo Debar.”sn Lo Debar was located across the Jordan River in Gilead, which the Israelite army had conquered. However, there is stinging irony here, for in Hebrew the name Lo-Debar means “nothing.” In reality Israel was happy over nothing of lasting consequence.
- Amos 6:13 sn Karnaim was also located across the Jordan River. The name in Hebrew means “double horned.” Since an animal’s horn was a symbol of strength (see Deut 33:17), the Israelites boasted in this victory over a town whose very name symbolized military power.
- Amos 6:14 tn Or “raise up” (KJV, NASB); cf. NIV “stir up.”
- Amos 6:14 tn Heb “house.”
- Amos 6:14 sn Once again there is irony in the divine judgment. The oppressive nation itself will suffer oppression. The verb “oppress” (לָחַץ, lakhats) in this verse is not the same as that used in 4:1 (עָשַׁק, ʿashaq).
- Amos 6:14 tn Or “the entrance to Hamath.” The Hebrew term לְבוֹא (levoʾ) can either be translated or considered a part of the place name. This may be a site some 44 miles north of Damascus (see T.R. Hobbs, 2 Kings [WBC], 182).
- Amos 6:14 sn Lebo Hamath refers to the northern border of Israel, the stream of the rift valley to its southern border. See Num 34:8, 12; 1 Kgs 8:65; 2 Kgs 14:25. The southern border is named in various ways, as the Dead Sea, the stream of the rift valley (a stream which flows into the Dead Sea, possibly Zered at the south end), and the Brook of Egypt (the southwestern boundary). Through this invader the Lord would reverse the victories and territorial expansion Israel experienced during the reign of Jeroboam II.
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