47 Fun Facts About Book of Amos

Whose Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery carries Amos 5:24, 'until justice rolls down like waters'?

Maya Lin drew on King's use of the verse in his 'I Have a Dream' speech, so water flows over a black granite table carved with the names of the movement's martyrs.

Besides herding, which crop did Amos say he gathered when he denied being a prophet's son at Bethel?

Sycamore figs made Amos a working farmer, not a prophet by birth or guild: the LORD, he said, took him 'as I followed the flock' and sent him to Israel.

Amos 1:1 dates his prophecy to 'two years before' which event, traced in an excavation layer in Jerusalem?

An earthquake: long after, Zechariah 14:5 still told people to flee 'like as ye fled from before the earthquake', so deep was the memory it left.

Amos 8:9's sun going down at noon may echo a 763 BC eclipse recorded by which empire?

Assyria's eponym list notes an eclipse of the sun in the year of Bur-Sagale, dated to 15 June 763 BC, a fixed point that helps date the ancient Near East.

Beds of which luxury material, later excavated by the hundred at Samaria's palace, did Amos denounce?

Ivory inlays in Phoenician style turned up at Samaria, recalling the 'ivory house' that 1 Kings says Ahab made, and Amos warned that 'the houses of ivory shall perish'.

Which prophet was 'the son of Amoz', a name spelled differently from Amos in Hebrew?

Isaiah: Talmudic tradition holds that a prophet whose father is named was a prophet's son, so Amoz would have prophesied too, yet Amos insisted he was no prophet's son.

A man in Amos 5:19 escapes a lion and a bear, leans on a wall at home, and is bitten by what?

A serpent finishes the chain of escapes that fail, Amos's picture of a 'day of the LORD' that no one will slip away from.

Which insects did Amos see the Lord form 'after the king's mowings' in the first of his five visions?

Locusts (the KJV's 'grasshoppers') came at the late growth, the crop left after the king had taken his share, so the threat was total famine. Amos pleaded for Jacob and the LORD relented.

Which builder's tool did Amos see the Lord holding as he stood upon a wall in the third vision?

A plumb line tests whether a wall stands true, and the LORD told Amos he would set one 'in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more'.

Under which king, whose 41-year reign was the northern kingdom's most prosperous, did Amos preach?

Jeroboam II pushed Israel's borders back to 'the entering of Hamath', a boom built on olive oil and wine that Amos saw breeding arrogance and the oppression of the poor.

Which 52-year king of Judah, struck with leprosy for burning incense in the Temple, is named in Amos 1:1?

Uzziah, a leper to the day he died, lived apart in a separate house, while his son Jotham ran the palace and judged the people for him.

Which prophet's book shares Amos 1:2's line that the LORD will roar 'and utter his voice from Jerusalem'?

Joel 3:16 has the line almost word for word, but there the roar ends with the LORD as 'the hope of his people', not their judge.

Amos is widely counted as the first prophet to do what with the messages he received?

Write them down: tradition makes Amos the first prophet to do so, and prophets after him followed his example in an almost unbroken line of books.

Which image did the northern kingdom's first king set up at Bethel, the shrine Amos denounced, to rival Jerusalem?

A golden calf, with a twin at Dan, and the books of Kings go on to fault one king of Israel after another for keeping those calves.

Which king of Aram, whose 'house' Amos said fire would devour, seized Israel's land east of the Jordan?

Hazael was the man Elisha wept over, foreseeing his cruelty to Israel, and Amos's 'threshing instruments of iron' probably recall his wars in Gilead.

Which Philistine city opens Amos's second oracle, accused of handing 'the whole captivity' over to Edom?

Gaza's wall gets the fire, and the oracle goes on to cut off Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron, so that 'the remnant of the Philistines shall perish'.

To which place did Amos say the people of Aram would go captive, the land Amos 9 says they came from?

Kir is where 2 Kings says Tiglath-Pileser carried off the people of Damascus after taking the city, fulfilling Amos's warning.

From where did Amos 9:7 say the LORD brought the Philistines, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt?

Caphtor is traditionally identified with Crete, and Amos's point is that the Exodus gave Israel no monopoly on divine rescue.

Amos called the pampered women of Samaria the 'kine', or cows, of which region famed for rich pasture?

Bashan was cattle country east of the Jordan, home of Psalm 22's 'strong bulls', and Amos's cows crush the needy while telling their husbands, 'Bring, and let us drink.'

Which constellation does Amos 5:8 pair with 'the seven stars' as the work of the God Israel must seek?

Orion's maker, the same verse goes on, also 'calleth for the waters of the sea' and pours them out over the land.

What did Amos say 'the day of the LORD' would bring those who longed for it?

Darkness, not light, is the twist: many expected a day when God would beat Israel's enemies, and Amos made Israel the enemy.

Amos 3:3 opens a run of cause-and-effect riddles: can two walk together unless they have what?

Agreed is the KJV's word, and the chain of riddles it starts ends at 3:8, 'the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?', Amos's reason he cannot keep quiet.

Amos 1:1 says Amos was among the herdmen of which town?

Tekoa: a town of that name is where Joab found the 'wise woman' who, posing as a grieving widow, talked King David into bringing Absalom home.

Which warning closes Amos 4's list of famine, drought, blight and pestilence that Israel ignored?

Prepare to meet thy God follows disaster after disaster that failed to bring Israel back, so the next encounter would be with God himself.

What euphemism does Amos 4:6 use for the famine the LORD sent to 'all your cities'?

Cleanness of teeth means nothing to chew: it is the first of the disasters Amos lists in chapter 4, each ending 'yet have ye not returned unto me'.

For what did Amos 2:6 say Israel sold the poor, the first charge in the oracle against Israel itself?

A pair of shoes, sandals in modern versions: whether a debt that trivial or a bribe that cheap, the poor were sold for a trifle, a charge Amos repeats in 8:6.

Which young men did Amos 2 say Israel gave wine to drink, while ordering the prophets, 'Prophesy not'?

Nazirites, like Samson from birth, were sworn off wine, so pressing it on them made them break the very vow God had raised them up to keep.

Amos 6 opens with a woe on those 'at ease' where, alongside those who 'trust in the mountain of Samaria'?

Zion is included so that Judah's elite are condemned with Israel's: both sets of grandees are 'named chief of the nations' and equally complacent.

Who quoted Amos's promise to raise 'the tabernacle of David' at the Acts 15 council on admitting Gentiles?

James, the brother of Jesus, quoted Amos 9:11–12 mostly from the Greek version, then proposed what became known as the Apostolic Decree.

Which speaker in Acts 7 quotes Amos's 'tabernacle of Moloch' charge, moving the exile to 'beyond Babylon'?

Stephen's speech before the Sanhedrin follows the Greek Amos, with 'the star of your god Remphan' for the Hebrew Chiun, the speech that made him the church's first martyr.

Amos twice turned the LORD from judgment by pleading 'by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is' what?

Small is Amos's whole argument, weakness rather than innocence, and twice the text says 'The LORD repented for this' before the third vision closes the door.

What title did the priest of Bethel give Amos, 'O thou ___', when ordering him to flee to Judah?

Seer is the priest's word, and Amos's reply that he was 'no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son' disowns the professional visionary the title implies.

Which two measures did Amos 8:5 accuse merchants of rigging, shrinking one and inflating the other?

The ephah and the shekel were the grain measure and the silver weight, so a short ephah and a heavy shekel cheated buyers twice, on top of 'falsifying the balances by deceit'.

Amos 8:11 foretells a famine, 'not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water', but of what?

Hearing the LORD's words will be what people starve for, Amos says, wandering 'from sea to sea' to seek the word and not finding it.

Whose 'top' does Amos 1:2 say will wither when the LORD roars and the shepherds' pastures mourn?

Carmel's withering, the lush coastal ridge turning brown, is the first sign of judgment, and Amos returns to it in 9:3 as a hiding place the LORD will search out.

Which king's records boast of deporting Israelites from Samaria around 720 BC, ending the kingdom Amos had warned?

Sargon II took the credit, though 2 Kings says his predecessor Shalmaneser began the siege, and the Israelites carried off are remembered as the Ten Lost Tribes.

Where, in Amos 5, is judgment to be 'established', the same place where the man who rebukes is hated?

In the gate is where a town's elders sat to judge, so to 'hate him that rebuketh in the gate' is to despise honest justice; Amos's cure is 'Hate the evil, and love the good'.

Amos 5:11 warns the rich who built houses of what, trampling the poor, that they would never live in them?

Hewn stone houses and 'pleasant vineyards' will go unused by their builders, Amos says, because they took 'burdens of wheat' from the poor.

Which patriarch's name does Amos 7:9 apply to the northern kingdom, in 'the high places of' whom?

Isaac stands for the north here and in 7:16, and the Greek Septuagint, reading the name's meaning, turned 'Isaac' into 'laughter'.

With which planet did Ibn Ezra and Kimchi identify 'Chiun', the star-god named in Amos 5:26?

Saturn is what Chiun means in Arabic and Persian ('Chevan'), the medieval commentators noted, and the Greek Bible turns the name into Rephan or Remphan.

In Amos 3:12, a shepherd rescues from a lion's mouth two legs or a piece of what?

An ear, or a scrap of one: Amos means that when Samaria falls, only worthless remnants of its people will be pulled out alive.

What did a 1910 dig at Samaria find over a hundred of, recording deliveries of aged wine and refined oil?

Inscribed pottery shards, the Samaria Ostraca, date largely to the reign Amos preached under and record the very trade in oil and wine that bankrolled the luxury he attacked.

Which shrine 'shall surely go into captivity' in Amos 5:5, right before 'Beth-el shall come to nought'?

Gilgal took its name, Joshua 5:9 says, from God rolling away Egypt's reproach, and Amos's pun 'hag-gilgal galoh yigleh' has the place itself rolled away into exile.

Amos 5:24 asks that judgment 'run down as waters' and righteousness as what?

A mighty stream, or an ever-flowing one, is what Amos wants in place of the feasts and offerings God says he hates: justice that never runs dry.

Which priest of Bethel accused Amos of conspiracy and ordered him back to Judah to 'eat bread' there?

Amaziah called Bethel 'the king's chapel', and Amos answered that the priest himself would die 'in a polluted land' as Israel went into captivity.

What did Amos see in a basket in his fourth vision, after which the LORD declared 'the end is come'?

Summer fruit is qayits in Hebrew, and the vision turns on its sound-alike qets, 'end': like the year's last harvest, Israel was ripe to be cut off.

Where did Amos see the Lord stand in the fifth vision, ordering the lintel hit so the posts shook?

Upon the altar, most likely Bethel's, the Lord declares that none will escape: though they dig into hell or climb to heaven, his hand will take them. Amos makes no plea this time.