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LXX Amos

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 7

1 The Lord has shown me this; and, look, a swarm of locusts coming from the east; and, look, one locust, Gog the king.⁠ 2 And when he had finished devouring the grass of the land, I said, Lord God, be merciful; who shall raise up Jacob? for he is small in number. 3 Repent, Lord, for this. And this shall not be, says the Lord. 4 The Lord has shown me this; and, look, the Lord called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and devoured the portion. 5 Then I said, Lord, please stop:⁠ who shall raise up Jacob? for he is small in number. 6 Repent, Lord, for this. This also shall not be, says the Lord. 7 Thus the Lord showed me; and look, a man standing upon a wall of adamant, and in his hand was an adamant. 8 And the Lord said to me, What do you see, Amos? And I said, An adamant. And the Lord said to me, Look, I appoint an adamant in the midst of my people Israel: I will not pass by them any more. 9 And the joyful altars shall be abolished, and the sacrifices of Israel shall be set aside; and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. 10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos is forming conspiracies against you in the midst of the house of Israel: the land will be utterly unable to bear all his words. 11 For thus says Amos, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be led away captive from his land. 12 And Amaziah said to Amos, Go, seer, withdraw into the land of Judah, and live there, and you shall prophesy there: 13 but you shall no longer prophesy at Bethel: for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the royal house. 14 And Amos answered, and said to Amaziah, I was not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but I was a herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruits. 15 And the Lord took me from the sheep, and the Lord said to me, Go, and prophesy to my people Israel. 16 And now hear the word of the Lord: You say, Do not prophesy to Israel, and do not raise a tumult against the house of Jacob. 17 Therefore thus says the Lord; Your wife shall be a harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be measured with the line; and you shall die in an unclean land; and Israel shall be led captive out of his land.

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Compare Amos 7:5 and LXX Amos 7:5

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Amos 7 shows the prophet asking God to stop judgment. The Greek version changes this into a command and a question rather than saying God changes his mind, following similar Greek translations that avoid saying God changes.

Passages

Amos 7:5

Hebrew Bible
4 The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw the Sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields. 5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is too weak!” 6 The Lord decided not to do this. The Sovereign Lord said, “This will not happen either.”
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Amos

LXX Amos 7:5

Septuagint
4 The Lord has shown me this; and, look, the Lord called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and devoured the portion. 5 Then I said, Lord, please stop: who shall raise up Jacob? for he is small in number. 6 Repent, Lord, for this. This also shall not be, says the Lord.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Amos

References

"... With regard of God’s repentance, some translators of the Septuagint avoid rendering נחם by µετανοέω if God is the subject ... (LXX Genesis 6:6; LXX 1 Chronicles 21:15; LXX 1 Samuel 15:11; LXX Jeremiah 20:16; LXX Jeremiah 49:10 – The translator of Amos 7:5 read the consonants נחם as imperative. He interpreted the text as the prophet’s plea for God’s repenting, not as statement of real acting of God) ... There are two rationales for this rendering: 1. This rendering can avoid an antagonism to 1 Samuel 15:29 (God “is not like a human, that he should change his mind”). 2. If repenting really would be necessary for God, any Stoic wise man would be superior to him ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 74.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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