Amo 8:1-3 | KD | STEP | Under the symbol of a basket filled with ripe fruit, the Lord shows the prophet that Israel is ripe for judgment ( ); whereupon Amos, explaining the meaning of this vision, announces to the unrighteous magnates of the nation the changing of their joyful feasts into days of mourning, as the punishment from God for their unrighteousness ( ), and sets before them a time when those who now despise the word of God will sigh in vain in their extremity for a word of the Lord ( ).

‏ Amos 8:1-3

The Ripeness of Israel for Judgment - Amo 8:1-14

Under the symbol of a basket filled with ripe fruit, the Lord shows the prophet that Israel is ripe for judgment (Amo 8:1-3); whereupon Amos, explaining the meaning of this vision, announces to the unrighteous magnates of the nation the changing of their joyful feasts into days of mourning, as the punishment from God for their unrighteousness (Amo 8:4-10), and sets before them a time when those who now despise the word of God will sigh in vain in their extremity for a word of the Lord (Amo 8:11-14). Amo 8:1-3

Vision of a Basket of Ripe Fruit. - Amo 8:1. “Thus did the Lord Jehovah show me: and behold a basket with ripe fruit. Amo 8:2. And He said, What seest thou, Amos? And I said, A basket of ripe fruit. Then Jehovah said to me, The end is come to my people Israel; I will not pass by them any more. Amo 8:3. And the songs of the palace will yell in that day, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah: corpses in multitude; in every place hath He cast them forth: Hush!” כּלוּב from כּלך, to lay hold of, to grasp, lit., a receiver, here a basket (of basket-work), in Jer 5:27 a bird-cage. קיץ: summer-fruit (see at 2Sa 16:1); in Isa 16:9; Isa 28:4, the gathering of fruit, hence ripe fruit. The basket of ripe fruit (qayits) is thus explained by the Lord: the end (qēts) is come to my people (cf. Eze 7:6). Consequently the basket of ripe fruit is a figurative representation of the nation that is now ripe for judgment, although qēts, the end, does not denote its ripeness for judgment, but its destruction, and the word qēts is simply chosen to form a paronomasia with qayits. לא אוסיף וגו as in Amo 7:8. All the joy shall be turned into mourning. the thought is not that the temple-singing to the praise of God (Amo 5:23) would be turned into yelling, but that the songs of joy (Amo 6:5; 2Sa 19:36) would be turned into yells, i.e., into sounds of lamentation (cf. Amo 8:10 and 1 Maccabees 9:41), namely, because of the multitude of the dead which lay upon the ground on every side. השׁליך is not impersonal, in the sense of “which men are no longer able to bury on account of their great number, and therefore cast away in quiet places on every side;” but Jehovah is to be regarded as the subject, viz., which God has laid prostrate, or cast to the ground on every side. For the adverbial use of הס cannot be established. The word is an interjection here, as in Amo 6:10; and the exclamation, Hush! is not a sign of gloomy despair, but an admonition to bow beneath the overwhelming severity of the judgment of God, as in Zep 1:7 (cf. Hab 2:20 and Zec 2:13).