“‘Therefore,
I will take you
Into exile,
Beyond Damascus.’
Says Yahweh.
His name is
The God of hosts.”
Amos ends this chapter with an oracle from Yahweh, who was going to send them into exile, beyond Damascus into Assyria. This was Yahweh, the God of the heavenly armies or hosts.
“Therefore,
Thus says Yahweh!
The God of hosts!
The Lord!
‘In all the squares.
There shall be wailing.
In all the streets,
They shall say.
‘Alas!
Alas!’
They shall call
The farmers
To mourning.
They shall call
Those skilled
In lamentation,
To wailing.
In all the vineyards,
There shall be wailing.
I will pass through
The midst of you.’
Says Yahweh.”
Amos has this oracle of Yahweh that talks about the coming wailing and mourning all over the place. Yahweh, the God of the heavenly army or hosts is the Lord who speaks to them. In the streets and the squares of the town, there will be wailing and mourning. They will cry out, “alas, alas.” The farmers will mourn. They will need skilled mourners because of the great grief that they face. The people with vineyards will wail and mourn also. Yahweh was going to pass through them the middle of them.
“By the word of Yahweh,
The heavens were made.
Their entire host came to be,
By the breath of his mouth.
He gathered the waters of the sea
As in a bottle.
He put the deep areas in storehouses.”
The heavens came to be with the simple word of Yahweh, the creator God. All that exists, the hosts of things, were created by the breath of Yahweh. Yahweh gathered all the seas and waters as if he poured it out of a bottle. He had storehouses for the depths of the seas. In very colorful anthropomorphic language, Yahweh speaks, breathes, and gathers water in a bottle as the creator of the world.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 