Amos 7:3

"When they finished eating the grass of the land, then I said, “Lord GOD, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”"

Key Reflection

Amos 7:3 reflects Amos's plea to the Lord for mercy and forgiveness, highlighting the dire situation of Israel as depicted in the preceding vision. The imagery of the land’s grass being eaten suggests a severe famine, which would have been understood by the original audience as a divine judgment on the nation. Amos’s exclamation “How could Jacob stand? For he is small” underscores the severity of the crisis and his recognition that Israel's status before God was precarious due to its sins, prompting a plea for divine intervention.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

The Lord repented for this -God is said to “repent, to have strong compassion upon” or “over” evil, which He has either inflictedDeuteronomy 32:36;1 Chronicles 21:15, or has said that He would inflictExodus 32:12;Joel 2:13;Jonah 3:10;Jeremiah 18:8, and which, upon repentance or prayer, He suspends or checks. Here, Amos does not intercede until after the judgment had been, in part, inflicted. He prayed, when in vision the locust “had made an end of eating the grass of the land,” and when “the fire had eaten up a part.” Nor, until Israel had suffered what these visions foretold, was he “small,” either in his own or in human sight, or in relation to his general condition.

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