Chapter Six

1–8. Denunciation of carelessness, luxury, and arrogance of Israelite nobles. 9–14. The proclamation of punishment.

Amos 6:1. Woe to those at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the honored ones of the first among the peoples, to whom the house of Israel comes! Chapter VI contains a new denunciatory speech of the prophet against those who considered the day of the Lord to be far off and turned away from themselves any thought of the coming judgment. In this speech, the prophet addresses the nobles of Samaria, placing alongside them the nobles of Zion. “Woe to those at ease in Zion”: according to the translation of the LXX—“to those who despise Zion.” According to the Greek translation, then, the prophet addresses only the nobles of Samaria, which fully corresponds to the context, although it is not confirmed by other translations. “The honored ones of the first among the peoples,” Hebrew nekuvejreschith haggoim: by “the first among peoples,” or more accurately from the Hebrew, “the first-born of the peoples,” the prophet means the people of Israel; such a designation was given to the people by the Lord himself through Moses (Exod 4:22; Num 24:20). The prophet uses this designation in an ironic sense, wishing to indicate that Israel is more conscious of its rights than it remembers its obligations. The LXX apparently took the Hebrew nekuvej as a form of the verb jakar and by analogy with the noun jekev (wine-press) gave it the meaning—ἀποτρυγάω—I gather at the wine-press; the word reschith (beginning, firstborn) the LXX read as reschim and translated it as ἀρχάς—heads, beginnings; from this in the Slavonic: “you gathered the beginnings of the peoples.” The thought of the Greek-Slavonic text is itself unclear and bears no relation whatsoever to the context. “To whom the house of Israel comes,” Slavonic: “and to them came the house of Israel”: the expression is unclear; one ordinarily presumes that the verb ubau (comes) should be supplemented: “for judgment.”

Amos 6:2. Pass over to Calneh and see; go from there to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory larger than your territory? Calneh is a city mentioned also in (Gen 10:10); (Isa 10:9) and (Ezek 27:23) (Cannah). Its location is supposed to be either in Babylonia (Gen 10:10), or in northern Syria (Winkler). In the latter case, the Calneh mentioned by the prophet Amos and in (Isa 10:9) is identified with the city of Kallani or Gullani, conquered by Sargon (Nowack). The LXX apparently incorrectly read the Hebrew kalneh as kulchem (from kol, all) and translated it as “go all”; in our Slavonic text both the Greek translation and the reading of the original are retained, as a result of which one gets: “pass by Khalna, all.” “Hamath the great”—(in the LXX Aemararaba) a city on the bank of the Orontes River, which later, according to the testimony of the blessed Jerome, bore the name Antioch, and then Ammas. “Gath”—a well-known Philistine city, very frequently mentioned in the Bible (1 Sam 6:17; 2 Chr 26:6); the word “aliens” or “foreigners,” the LXX renders with the Hebrew word pelischthim—Philistines. As for the meaning of the question with which the prophet addresses his listeners in v. 2, it is not entirely clear and is understood by exegetes differently. According to the opinion of Keil and others, in v. 2 the prophet provides a foundation for the designation he used in v. 1 regarding Israel—the first (first one) among the peoples, showing that indeed Israel is better than the neighboring kingdoms, and its boundaries are greater than theirs. But the listeners to the prophet hardly needed proof of the position that Israel is the first among the peoples. Moreover, if the prophet had intended such a purpose in v. 2, he would have mentioned Assyria and Egypt, not Gath. According to the opinion of other commentators (Yungerov), the prophet wants to show that the well-known pagan kingdoms “enjoyed lesser happiness, strength, and significance than Israel and Judah (during the time of Jeroboam II and Uzziah), and that their boundaries were less extensive than those of the Israelite kingdom.” But special well-being was given by Jehovah to Israel on condition of its observance of his laws. However, the Israelite nobles do not observe the law. With the interpretation presented, it is similar to another one, according to which the flow of the prophet’s thought should be presupposed as follows: the nobles of Samaria and Zion relied on their past. But if it were true that the past is a guarantee also for the future, then Calneh, Hamath, and Gath in the present time should have been at a higher degree of power than Israel. But is this really the case? Are they better than these kingdoms and is their territory larger than your territory? Consequently, Israel should not rely on its glorious past (Hoonacker). The interpretations presented scarcely satisfy, since they give the flow of thought in the speech of the prophet something unclear and forced. According to the Russian translation of v. 2, the prophet points not to the advantage of the Israelite kingdom over the neighboring pagan peoples, but on the contrary, to the advantage of these latter. The prophet, it is presumed, wants to say that if such kingdoms as Calneh, Hamath, and Gath have been destroyed, then all the more so can the kingdom of Israel or Judah be destroyed, and therefore it is foolish to be careless in Zion or to rely on the mountain of Samaria. Such an interpretation of v. 2 is held by the majority of modern commentators of the book of the prophet Amos (Wellhausen, Vallon, Nowack, Harper, and others). This interpretation gives a thought that is clear and corresponds to the context of the prophet’s speech. Doubt in some commentators arises only because, according to the testimony of the inscriptions, Hamath fell in 720 B.C. under Sargon,—and Calneh, if identified with Kulanu or Kullani of the inscriptions, was conquered by Sargon after 710 B.C. (Nowack). Thus, it appears that the events presupposed by v. 2 took place after the time of Amos, and that v. 2 should be considered a later insertion, as recent commentators think. But there is no need to suppose that v. 2 has in mind precisely the facts of the conquest of Hamath and Calneh by Sargon recorded in the cuneiform texts. The prophet could have had in view also the conquest of Gath by Hazael, king of Syria, and the taking of Hamath by Jeroboam II (2 Sam 12:17). Regarding Calneh, the prophet could have meant the general decline of the kingdom.

Amos 6:3. Woe to those who put far away the evil day, and bring near a seat of violence; V. 3–6 present a development of the general thought expressed in v. 1 and give a detailed description of the luxury of the Samaritan nobles. “You, who put far away the evil day”: in the Hebrew, hamenaddim lejom ra, those who remove the day of evil. The LXX apparently read the Hebrew hamenaddim (from niddah) as harrawnaderim and translated it with the word “praying” (Codex Alexandrinus, Syrogenesis, 26), which was later corrected to “coming”; the particle ל with the word jom (day), denoting the accusative as in (Hos 10:12), was taken by the LXX as a preposition; from this arose the unclear reading “coming into a day of evils,” Slavonic: “coming in a day of evils.” The second half of v. 3 with Hebrew reads: “and you bring near a seat of violence,” vaththagischun scheveth chamas. In the LXX, these words are rendered as “those who draw near and touch Sabbaths of lies,” in the Slavonic: “drawing near and touching Sabbaths false.” Apparently, the word “touching,” which represents an excess against the original, was initially a marginal note and later entered the text; the word “Sabbaths” arose in the LXX because they vocalized scheveth (throne, seat) as schabbath (Sabbath). According to the sense of the Greek-Slavonic text, in the second half of v. 3, the prophet censures the Israelites for hypocritical observance of the laws concerning Sabbaths and festivals (the blessed Theodoret). Some of the modern commentators (Hoonacker) understand the Hebrew scheveth (Russian “seat”) in the sense of rest (for example, from jashaV), in which case the expression of the prophet will take the form: “you consider the evil day to be far away and now you give yourselves over to (bring near) criminal rest.” With such an understanding, v. 3 will stand in close connection with the following verses, in which the “criminal rest” of the Samaritan nobles is characterized in more detail.

Amos 6:4. You who lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge on your couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, In v. 4–6, the prophet denounces the feasting of the Samaritan nobles, and namely, as is supposed (Yungerov), religious feasts celebrated in temples. “You eat the best rams from the flock,” Hebrew karim mizzon, the LXX “choice ones from herds,” Slavonic: “kids from pastures.” “And calves from the midst of the fattening pen”: from the Hebrew vaagalim mithoch marbek, calves from the stall (for fattening); in the LXX—“and calves fed with milk from the midst of herds,” in the Slavonic: “and calves fed with milk from the midst of herds.”

Amos 6:5. You sing idly to the sound of the harp, and like David you improvise on instruments of music, The text of v. 5 is unclear and is rendered in our translation conjecturally. “You sing idly to the sound of the harp,” happortim al pi hannayel: the meaning of the verb parat (you sing) is not precisely known; happartim is rendered as “those who clap” (LXX: in the Slavonic “clapping”), qui canitis (Vulgate), “you sing vainly” (Yungerov), “swaying” (Hoonacker), and the like; nevel—harp, a stringed instrument—a special twelve-stringed instrument (Judean Antiquities 7:12, 3), called by the LXX an “instrument” (in the Slavonic text: “clapping to the sound of pipes”). “Like David you devise for yourselves instruments of music”: the words of the original kedavid chaschvu lahem kelej–schir are rendered in the Russian text freely. Kelej–schir is understood in the sense of “musical instruments,” instruments for accompanying the song (schir), or, considering kelej to be wrongly arising from kol (all), they translate: every song, all songs (Nowack). The second half of v. 5 more accurately from the Hebrew should be rendered: “like David, they devised musical instruments for themselves,” or: “like David, they consider themselves to have invented every song.” The expression of the prophet has an ironic character. But from it follows that already in ancient times the name of David was known in Israel as the name of a singer and musician. The part of v. 5 we are considering is rendered in the LXX quite differently from the original, namely: “like one standing they thought, and not like one fleeing,” Slavonic: “as standing they thought, and not as fleeing.” How this reading of the LXX arose is difficult to say. The thought of the Greek translation is not clear. According to the interpretation of the blessed Theodoret and Cyril of Alexandria, the Greek text points to the forgetfulness by Israelite sensualists of the transience of earthly pleasures, which they represented as “standing,” that is, permanent.

Amos 6:6. You drink wine in large bowls, and anoint yourselves with the finest oils, but you have no concern for the ruin of Joseph! “You drink wine in large bowls (bemizrkrej)”: mizrak—a vessel of enormous capacity, used in worship (Num 4:14; Exod 38:3); the prophet thus points to the consumption of wine in too great a quantity. The LXX instead of bemizrkej jain apparently read bimzukkek jain, which they rendered as “strained wine.” Since the prophet in v. 4–6 denounces for refinement in pleasures, the reading of the LXX better corresponds to the context and is preferred by some (Hoonacker) to the reading of the original. “And you have no concern for the ruin of Joseph,” Slavonic: “and they did not suffer anything in the destruction of Joseph”; by the name Joseph the prophet means the people of Israel. Perhaps by this name the prophet wished to remind the Samaritan nobles that their attitude toward the calamities of the people is like the attitude of Joseph’s brothers toward Joseph: the latter, having lowered Joseph into a well, calmly sat down to eat and drink (Gen 37:25), not thinking of their brother’s sufferings; and the Samaritan nobles act likewise.

Amos 6:7. Therefore now they shall go into exile at the head of the exiles, and the reveling of the loiterers shall pass away. From v. 7, the proclamation of punishment by exile begins. “At the head of the exiles,” that is, before other nations captured by the conquerors, as an example of punishment. The LXX instead of the Hebrew “at the head of the exiles” (berosch golim) apparently read “from the beginning of the mighty” (merosch gedolim) and rendered it “from the beginning of rulers,” Slavonic: “from the beginning of the mighty,” understanding, according to the explanation of the blessed Jerome, in the capacity of conquerors—the leaders of the mighty, that is, the Assyrians. “And the reveling of the loiterers shall pass away”: Hebrew vesar mirzach seruchim is rendered variously. The Hebrew mirzach (R. reveling) Symmachus translates as “fraternity,” the blessed Jerome as “faction,” a society, brotherhood; in view of this, Hoonacker renders the entire expression: “and there will disappear the society of the dissolute.” In (Jer 16:5), mirzach is used in the sense of a wail, a sorrowful cry; therefore, the expression in question is also rendered: “the dissolute will depart with lamentation” (Yungerov). In the LXX, the second half of v. 7 contains a thought completely different from the thought of the original: “and the neighing of horses will be removed from Ephraim,” Slavonic: “and the neighing of horses from Ephraim will be taken away.” The origin of the LXX reading is unclear. Cyril of Alexandria explains it in the sense that the prophet speaks of the removal into exile of princes who gloried in their expensive horses and their pleasant neighing. The thought of the original better corresponds to the context.

Amos 6:8. The Lord God has sworn by himself, says the Lord, the God of hosts: I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his fortresses, and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it. By the words “the Lord has sworn,” the prophet points to the unchangeableness of the divine determination regarding the punishment of Israel. “And I will deliver up the city,” that is, the city of Samaria. In the Greek-Slavonic text, instead of the words “and I hate his fortresses” (veamnothaj), one reads: “and I hate his villages”; the LXX generally renders the Hebrew armon (fortress) differently and conjecturally (cf. Amos 1:4; Amos 3:9; Jer 17:27).

Amos 6:9. And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. V. 9–11 describe more fully the calamity coming upon the people. In v. 9, there is a discourse about the extreme scarcity of population. “And if ten men remain in one house (bebaith echad), they shall die.” Since the prophet speaks of the extreme reduction in population, the number of ten remaining in a house (that is, saved from war) appears too large, and modern commentators (Wellhausen, Nowack) suppose that the word “ten” (asarah) arose from an error of copyists. Proceeding from the same considerations, Marti understands the number ten as an indication of the maximum (not the minimum) of those remaining: even if ten remained, they shall die. The understanding proposed by Marti does not correspond to the context of the speech, from which it is evident that the prophet wishes to indicate the small number of survivors. But on the other hand, there is no need to correct the word asarah as erroneous. Apparently, the prophet speaks of ten remaining not in the house, but in the city. The prophet’s thought can be expressed more fully as follows: if one house is left (bebaith echad in one house) in the city, and if only ten men of the whole city population are saved, they shall die (Hoonacker). The prophet apparently means death from plague. At the end of the verse, the LXX has an addition: “and those remaining will be left.”

Amos 6:10. And when a man’s relative, the one who anoints him for burial, takes him up to bring the bones out of the house, he shall say to a man in the innermost part of the house, “Is there anyone else with you?” He will say, “No.” Then he will say, “Silence! for we must not mention the name of the Lord. In v. 10, the exposition of the thought about the extreme reduction in population continues. The beginning of v. 10 is unclear and raises doubts among modern commentators about the integrity of the text. “And a man’s relative (unesao dodo) or one who anoints him (umesarfo) shall take him to bring the bones out of the house”: in the Hebrew text, the pronouns stand in the singular (a relative of his, or the one who anoints him), and it is unclear to what they refer (hardly can one think that they refer to the noun “ten” from v. 9 (Yungerov), because in that case one would expect the plural); moreover, in the Hebrew text of v. 10, the word mesaref raises difficulty. The LXX translated it with the verb “to force,” in the Slavonic: “and they will be forced.” Ordinarily, mesaref is understood in the sense of “one who anoints” or “one who burns.” But the existence among the Hebrews of a custom of burning corpses appears doubtful (cf. Amos 2:1). Ordinarily, the Hebrews buried their dead (Vincent Canaan. 1907. р. 212, 262), and if the Bible speaks of burials “with burnings,” in these cases only the burning of various aromatic substances is meant (Jer 34:5; 2 Chr 16:14). In view of the indicated difficulties, modern commentators propose corrections to v. 10. Zeidner and Vallon instead of unesao dodo umesarfo lehozi (Russian: “and a man’s relative shall take him to bring”) propose reading “and one survivor will remain, a fugitive, to bring.” According to Hoonacker, the beginning of v. 10 originally read “veniszerau nodedei miseppar, a small number of fugitives (that is, those saved by flight) will remain—to bring out of the house the bones.” In the Russian translation, the beginning of v. 10 is understood as an indication of the burning of corpses—perhaps from fear of infection (Yungerov). “And he shall say to him: Silence! for we must not mention the name of the Lord”: “It is natural for the one remaining alive to invoke the name of God in response to the grave-digger. This intention the grave-digger will forestall by remarking: be silent, because at this terrible time it is not fitting to invoke the name of God. The prophet Amos, through the mouth of the grave-digger, even forbids to invoke the name of the Lord and to concentrate attention on prayer. No, and prayer will not be needed then, but only tomb-like silence” (Yungerov, 127). It is better, however, to understand the words simply in the sense of a prohibition to speak the name of God; the prophet wishes to express the thought about the extreme wrath of God against the sinful city—that the city will be as it were an unclean place, on which even the name of God cannot be spoken. Instead of the words “for we must not mention the name of the Lord,” in the Greek and Slavonic texts one reads: “not for the sake of the name of the Lord”: the LXX understood the words of the prophet as an indication of the reason for the punishment of the people, the fact that the people had not called upon the Lord.

Amos 6:11. For behold, the Lord commands, and the great house shall be struck into fragments, and the small house into bits. The blessed Jerome sees in the words of the prophet an allegorical meaning: great houses—the kingdom of Israel, small houses—the kingdom of Judah. But there is hardly reason to understand the prophet’s speech in this way, because he speaks only of the Israelite kingdom. Great houses—the houses of the rich, small houses—the dwellings of the poor.

Amos 6:12. Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness; The prophet points in v. 12 to the foundation for God’s judgment upon Israel. This foundation consists in this: in Israel, the whole order of life has been violated and something strange and incomprehensible is done, contrary to sound reason. The prophet expresses this thought by means of two questions: “Do horses run on rocks? Can one plow (Tacharosch) the sea with oxen” (babekarim)? The Hebrew bakar is a collective noun meaning: a herd of cattle, oxen; therefore, the use of it in v. 12 in the plural is unclear; moreover, with the verb jacharosch (do they plow) there is no object (Russian translation conjecturally adds—the sea). These difficulties are resolved if one assumes a different word division in the sentence in question, and instead of jacharasch babekarim read: jacharasch babbakar jam, do they plow the sea with oxen (Michaeles, Nowack, Hoonacker). The LXX took the word charasch in the sense of “to be silent,” which it has, and rendered it παρασιωπήσονται; the Hebrew babokarim the LXX rendered as ἐν θηλείαις (perhaps confusing it with banekevim from nekebah chena); the result was a scarcely understandable expression, which in the Slavonic is rendered: “and if they are silent in the feminine gender?”. “You have turned justice into poison (Slavonic: “into wrath,” Greek: εἰς θυμόν) and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness”: that is, justice, which should serve as a means to protect safety, you make a source of danger; instead of good, it brings only bitterness.

Amos 6:13. You who rejoice in a thing of naught, who say, “Have we not by our own strength taken horns for ourselves? As a consequence of the violation of the order of life indicated in v. 12, the temporary success which Israel is enjoying will turn out to be unstable. The word lo dabar, rendered in our text as “a thing of naught,” recent commentators consider to be the proper name of the city of Lo-debar, mentioned in (2 Sam 9:4-5). The proper name of the city is also considered the word “horns” (karnaim), translated in the Russian text as “strength.” About Karnaim, it is mentioned in (1 Macc 5:43). Both mentioned cities were located in Gilead and could have been taken by the Israelites during wars with Syria under Jeroboam II. The mention of these insignificant cities would well express the thought of the prophet about the insignificance of the success of the Israelites in comparison with the impending calamity. There is a foundation in the text for understanding the words lo dabar and karnaim in the sense of proper names: if we understand karnaim in the sense of a common noun, strength, then in the latter interpretation of v. 13, one gets mo-bohorim—“have we not by our own strength taken strength for ourselves.”

Amos 6:14. For behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, says the Lord, the God of hosts; and they shall oppress you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the Arabah. Jeroboam II expanded the boundaries of the Israelite kingdom from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, that is, to the Dead Sea (2 Sam 14:25). Now throughout this entire territory, a nation raised up by the Lord will oppress Israel. The prophet is speaking, of course, of the Assyrians. “To the brook of the Arabah” (ad nahal haarabah): by this brook, most often, is understood the present Wadi el-Ahzi, the Arabah stream (haarabim), mentioned by the prophet Isaiah (Isa 15:7), and which served as a boundary between Moab and Edom (Nowack, Hoonacker). The prophet, in distinction from (2 Sam 14:25), where the boundary of the Israelite kingdom is indicated only as the Dead Sea, extends this boundary further. Other commentators suppose that by nahai haarabah the prophet means the Dead Sea (Hoffman) or some Egyptian stream (Yungerov). In the Slavonic text, the end of the verse reads: “And they shall crush you so that you do not enter into Hamath, and to the water-course of the western regions.”