Amos 7:14

"Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees."

This was leveled squarely at Amaziah's unjust charge, by implication, that Amos was a cheap "seer" picking up a little money where he might for prophesying against Israel, there being also some implications in Amos' reply, namely, that the regular line of prophets, especially those identified as "the sons of the prophets," those attending the prophetic schools and following the traditions that many of them followed, were indeed the same type of "seer" with whom Amaziah sneeringly sought to identify Amos.

"I was no prophet ..." The past tense is vital to this verse, for in no sense whatever was it Amos' purpose here to deny his divine commission and calling as a true prophet of the Almighty God. We may only deplore the fact that both the RSV and the New English Bible, by rendering the verb here in the present, "I am no prophet, etc.," put in Amos' mouth a denial of the very thing he so emphatically affirmed in Amos 7:15 (next). To be sure, the passage could be rendered in either fashion. "The doubt about the tense arises because in Hebrew the verb is not expressed, but left to be understood."[38] Smith included this further explanation:

"The Hebrew language often used nominal sentences without verbs. In such a case, the tense of the verb was usually supplied by adopting that of the previous verb. If that principle were followed in this case, the past tense would be required, `I was no prophet.'"[39]

Our own choice of the ASV for these studies is due to the fact of there being in it strong evidence of a much greater respect for considerations of this kind than is evident in other versions.

Rowley's paraphrase of these verses was given thus by Hammershaimb:

"It is not money I prophecy for; I am a prophet by divine constraint. I had not chosen the calling of a prophet, or trained to be a prophet. God laid his hand upon me, and charged me with his word, and I have delivered it where he constrained me to deliver it."[40]

"Dresser of sycamore trees ..." "The phrase [~boles] [~shiqmim] may mean either one who plucks mulberry-figs for his own sustenance, or one who cultivates them for others."[41] Dean thought it was the latter in the case of Amos, and Keil believed it was the other. We do not know. In any event, it was a humble calling.