Amos — Chapter 8

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1This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

2“Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”

3“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”

4Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,

5asking, “When will the New Moon be over, that we may sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat? Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel; let us cheat with dishonest scales.

6Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”

7The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

8Will not the land quake for this, and all its dwellers mourn? All of it will swell like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.

9And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

10I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

11Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

12People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

13In that day the lovely young women—the young men as well—will faint from thirst.

14Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the way of Beersheba lives’—they will fall, never to rise again.”

1Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.

2And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

3And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.

4Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

5Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

6That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

7The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

8Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.

9And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

11Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:

12And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

13In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.

14They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer-sheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

1Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me: and, behold, a basket of summer fruit.

2And 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.

3And 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.

4Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

5saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

6that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

7Jehovah hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

8Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? yea, it shall rise up wholly like the River; and it shall be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

9And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

11Behold, the days come, saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah.

12And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, and shall not find it.

13In that day shall the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst.

14They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, As thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, As the way of Beer-sheba liveth; they shall fall, and never rise up again.

1The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

2He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins.

3The women singing in the temple will wail in that day.” The Sovereign Lord is speaking. “There will be many corpses littered everywhere! Be quiet!”

4Listen to this, you who trample the needy and do away with the destitute in the land.

5You say, “When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins? We’re eager to sell less for a higher price, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales!

6We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, a pair of sandals for the needy. We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!”

7The Lord confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob: “I swear I will never forget all you have done!

8Because of this the earth will quake, and all who live in it will mourn. The whole earth will rise like the Nile River; it will surge upward and then grow calm, like the Nile in Egypt.

9In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon and make the earth dark in the middle of the day.

10I will turn your festivals into funerals and all your songs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeral clothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.

11Be certain of this, the time is coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a shortage of food or water but an end to divine revelation.

12People will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north around to the east. They will wander about looking for a message from the Lord, but they will not find any.

13In that day your beautiful young women and your young men will faint from thirst.

14These are the ones who now take oaths in the name of the sinful idol goddess of Samaria. They vow, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as your beloved one lives, O Beer Sheba!’ But they will fall down and not get up again.”

1Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.

2He said, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then Yahweh said to me, “The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

3The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.

4Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

5Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

6that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’”

7Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Surely I will never forget any of their works.

8Won’t the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

9It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

10I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

11Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing Yahweh’s words.

12They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek Yahweh’s word, and will not find it.

13In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst.

14Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives;’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives;’ they will fall, and never rise up again.”

Summary
Authorship & Background
Map & Geography
Commentary
Videos
Articles
Reflection

Summary

God shows Amos a basket of ripe summer fruit, a wordplay signaling that the end has come for Israel (vv. 1-3). Amos condemns merchants who cannot wait for the Sabbath to end so they can cheat customers with dishonest scales and sell even the sweepings of the wheat (vv. 4-6). Because of this, God swears He will never forget their deeds, and the land will tremble and mourn as at a funeral (vv. 7-10). God declares a coming famine, not of bread or water, but of hearing His word, so that people will wander in search of it and not find it (vv. 11-14).

Authorship & Background

Author: Amos, a shepherd from Tekoa in Judah who prophesied to the northern kingdom (approximately 760-750 BC). Key theme: social justice — God judges nations (including Israel) for oppressing the poor. "Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (5:24).
Classification: Prophetic Vision — The Summer Fruit and the Famine of God's Word
Key Themes: The ripe fruit of judgment, exploitation of the poor, corrupt merchants, the sun going down at noon, famine of hearing God's Word
Historical Context: Chapter 8 presents the fourth vision: a basket of summer fruit ("qayits") — a wordplay on "the end" ("qets"). Ripe fruit signals the end of the growing season; Israel is ripe for judgment. The chapter then returns to the central theme of Amos: economic exploitation of the poor. Merchants can barely wait for the Sabbath to end so they can resume cheating (v.5). They use dishonest scales, sell the sweepings of grain, and buy humans for pocket change. The chapter climaxes with one of the most devastating prophecies in Scripture: a famine not of bread but of hearing the word of the LORD (vv.11-12). They will seek God's word and not find it.
Fourth Vision: A Basket of Summer Fruit (vv.1-3): The vision is a wordplay that only works in Hebrew: a basket of summer fruit is qayits, and the end is qets. Ripe fruit means the season is over. The verdict is the end is come upon my people Israel, I will not again pass by them, repeating the plumbline's phrase. Verse 3 turns the temple songs into howling.
When Will the Sabbath Be Gone? (vv.4-6): The merchants are quoted asking when the new moon and sabbath will be over so they can resume trading. They keep the holy days and resent them. The methods are itemised: making the ephah small and the shekel great, falsifying the balances, selling the refuse of the wheat, and buying the poor for a pair of shoes — the same phrase as 2:6, which makes it the book's signature charge.
Sworn by the Excellency of Jacob (vv.7-8): God swears by the excellency of Jacob, the same thing he said he abhorred at 6:8, which gives the oath an edge. Surely I will never forget any of their works. The land trembling and rising and sinking like the river of Egypt makes the response geological, and the Nile comparison would be recognized as an annual flood, something that comes round without fail.
The Sun Going Down at Noon (vv.9-10): The imagery goes cosmic: the sun set at noon, the earth darkened in the clear day. Then the reversals — feasts turned into mourning, songs into lamentation, sackcloth on all loins, baldness on every head. Verse 10 ends with it made like the mourning of an only son, which is the sharpest grief the culture had a word for.
A Famine of Hearing the Words of the LORD (vv.11-14): The chapter's most devastating sentence, and its severity depends on the whole book having been a stream of words they did not want. A famine not of bread nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They will wander from sea to sea seeking it and not find it. The judgment is the removal of the very thing they had been telling Amos to stop saying.

Map & Geography

  • Egypt (v.8): Land to the southwest; place of Israel's bondage and exodus.
  • Samaria (v.14): Central region between Judea and Galilee; mixed Jewish-Gentile population.

Places on this map

  • EgyptEgyptA ribbon of irrigated land along the Nile, ending in the Delta where Israel settled in Goshen. Rain-fed Canaan depended on weather; Egypt depended on a river that flooded on schedule, which made it the place everyone went when the harvest failed. Wikipedia
  • SamariaSebastia, West BankOmri bought a bare hill and built a capital on it, which gave the northern kingdom a fortress with no prior claim on it, the same calculation David made with Jerusalem. It commands the pass west toward the coastal plain. The name later spread to the whole region between Galilee and Judea. Wikipedia
  • Galileenorthern IsraelThe northern hill country above the Jezreel Valley, wetter and greener than Judah and crossed by the trade road to Damascus. That traffic is why Judeans considered it mixed and provincial, and why Jesus grew up hearing more than one language. Wikipedia
  • Judeasouthern Israel and the West BankThe southern hill country around Jerusalem, high, stony and dry, with the wilderness on one side and the Philistine plain on the other. Poor farming and hard access are what let it stay independent longest. Wikipedia

Towns sit on their excavated or traditional site. Regions, rivers and seas are ringed rather than dotted, because for those a single point is only an anchor. Coastlines from Natural Earth.

Commentary

  • Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Verse-by-verse commentary on this chapter, written for the everyday reader and freely available online.
  • Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
  • Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Amos 7-9 | The Plumb Line | Bible Study
Spoken Gospel

Feast Or Famine? - Amos 8:11-12
David Guzik

Articles

  • GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Amos -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

Links open on the publisher's own site. Nothing here is reproduced on this page.

Reflection

  • Impatient for Worship to End (v.5) — Israel's merchants can barely wait for the Sabbath to be over so they can resume cheating their customers. Is your time with God something you rush through so you can get back to what you'd rather be doing?
  • God Never Forgets a Single Deed (v.7) — God declares He will never forget any of Israel's works, meaning every dishonest transaction and exploited person is recorded. What have you assumed was forgotten or overlooked that God actually remembers clearly?
  • Darkness at Noon (v.9) — God warns He will make the sun go down at midday, showing that even the brightest circumstances can turn dark the moment He withdraws His presence. What are you trusting for light in your life besides God Himself?
  • A Famine of Hearing God's Word (v.11) — The most severe judgment described isn't famine of bread but silence from God, where people search and find nothing. Are you taking for granted the access you currently have to Scripture, teaching, and conviction?