Amos 8:1

Amos, having effectively disposed of the interruption by Amaziah, proceeded to deliver his sermon. The first four visions actually occur in pairs, the two first being of disasters averted through prayer, and the next two announcing the summary and forthcoming end of Israel, the first of these (the third) having already been delivered. This fourth one, therefore (Amos 8:1-3) is not a recapitulation of the third, nor the introduction of any startling new element. Amos' denunciation continued as if nothing had occurred. "Notwithstanding the interference of Amaziah, the prophet finishes the recital of his visions."[1] Deane outlined the chapter thus: (1) the vision of the basket of the summer fruit (Amos 8:1-3); (2) The denunciation of the dealers (Amos 8:4-10); and (3) the warning of a famine of hearing God's Word and a wandering all over the earth by Israel (Amos 8:11-14).[2]

This fourth vision cannot be, therefore, a mere "reassertion of the thought contained in the third vision, which had been interrupted."[3] We may safely reject such allegations as, "these verses were inserted by a later editor of the book,"[4] based upon the bizarre and unfounded proposition that, "Amos had been imprisoned and executed,"[5] etc. As Smith has noted:

If Amos did not flee from Amaziah; and there is almost no reason to conclude that he did, it is conceivable that he stayed at Bethel to deliver the last two vision reports and the oracles that went with them.[6]

Not only is such a thing "conceivable," but it is clearly and logically an almost mandatory conclusion. We would amend Smith's admission that there is "almost no reason" to conclude otherwise with an affirmation that there is "no reason whatever" against this.

Amos 8:1-3

"And thus the Lord Jehovah showed me: and, behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said Jehovah unto me, The end is come upon my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more. And the songs of the temple shall be wailings in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah: the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence."

This is the vision of the basket of summer fruit, the fourth vision in Amos' sequence.

"A basket of summer fruit ..." Despite this translation being widely received, there is, nevertheless, some question about it. Most commentators and translators are greatly impressed with what they see as a kind of pun in the similarities between the Hebrew word for "basket" and their word for "end."[7] But the Hebrew word from which this is translated actually means "a receiver"[8] and might just as well be translated "hook" for plucking, or receiving the fruit from the tree. The Catholic Bible gives it that meaning: "And behold a hook to draw down fruit."[9] In either case, the meaning is essentially the same, namely that the ripeness of the fruit signals the end of its cycle. Motyer commented that, "The harvest metaphor is well suited to the passage. The crop comes to harvest as the climax of its own inner development."[10]

"The end is come upon my people Israel ..." "The harvest is past and the summer is ended; and we are not saved" (Jeremiah 8:20), was the plaintive cry of Jeremiah; and the same sad extremity is in view here.

"I will not again pass by them any more ..." As repeatedly in Amos, there is an indirect allusion to the passover experience of the children of Israel in Egypt when God "passed over" them and spared them from disaster; but this can no longer be expected. The people are ripe for judgment and destruction. (See under Amos 7:8, above.)

"The songs of the temple shall be wailings ..." Here again the translation should be corrected, as in the New English Bible,[11] to "the palace," instead of "the temple." The Jerusalem edifice is not in view here at all, as it is particularly the sins of the Northern Kingdom that are under consideration. The mistranslation is quite understandable, since the Hebrew text actually has a "Great House," which might mean either the temple, or the palace of the king. "The word came to the Hebrews from Babylonia, and literally signifies `Great House.'"[12]

"The dead bodies ... many, etc ... silence ..." This verse is rendered differently in several versions; and Fosbroke complained that, "The phrasing is abrupt, disjointed, and with no discernible grammatical construction," but, in spite of this, went on to state that even as the text stands, "it presents effectively the horrors of the aftermath of war, or possibly of pestilence."[13] We appreciate what McKeating said; "Amos seems to specialize in these fragmentary pictures, whose very lack of clarity makes them the more menacing."[14] Hammershalmb rendered the Hebrew text literally as, "The dead bodies are many! in every place one throws out, silence!"[15]

The most pertinent of all comment upon these verses is that of the Word of God itself, thus:

"But if thy heart turn away, and thou wilt not hear, but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish: ye shall not prolong your days in the land, whither thou passest over the Jordan to go in to possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, and thy seed; to love Jehovah thy God, to obey his voice, and to cleave unto him; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which Jehovah sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them" (Deuteronomy 30:17-20).

Prominent in that warning was the prohibition against worshipping other gods; and this was preeminently the sin which Israel had committed.