Amos 7:2

"And it came to pass when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech thee: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small. Jehovah repented concerning this: It shall not be, saith Jehovah."

Foremost in this is the prayer of the prophet with the resulting deliverance of the people. It would appear to be obvious that the reason for the inclusion of these visions by Amos, visions which he had actually had, in his proclamations against Bethel, is that of disarming any suspicion that the people might have entertained to the effect that Amos hoped for, or desired, any calamity to befall them. On the other hand, he was the source of prayers which had actually averted disasters from them many times in the past.

"Jehovah repented ..." Such expressions in the scriptures do not imply any instability, fickleness, or indecision on the part of God, his repentance always meaning that some justifying change had occurred in the threatened people themselves.

"When they made an end of eating the grass of the land ..." This indicates that the disasters which had been averted through prayer were not totally avoided, but that they were interrupted and averted before fatal damage was inflicted. This would fit the interpretation of such things by Deane who cited one of them thus:

"This refers to the retreat of the Assyrians under Pul, the usurping monarch who assumed the name of Tiglath-Peleser II (2 Kings 15:17ff). Some commentators consider this judgment to be literally a plague of locusts; but this is not probable."[8]