Amos 1:3-5
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
II. Oracles Against the Nations[a]
Aram
3 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Damascus, and now four—[b]
I will not take it back—
Because they threshed Gilead
with sledges of iron,
4 I will send fire upon the house of Hazael,
and it will devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad.[c](A)
5 I will break the barred gate of Damascus;
From the Valley of Aven[d] I will cut off the one enthroned,
And the sceptered ruler from Beth-eden;
the people of Aram shall be exiled to Kir,(B) says the Lord.
Footnotes
- 1:3–2:16 All the nations mentioned here may have been part of the ideal empire of David-Solomon (cf. 1 Kgs 5:1; 2 Kgs 14:25). Certain standards of conduct were expected not only in their relations with Israel but also with one another.
- 1:3 For three crimes…and now four: this formula (n, n + 1) is frequent in poetry (e.g., Prv 6:16–19; 30:18–19). The progression “three” followed by “four” here suggests a climax. The fourth crime is one too many and exhausts the Lord’s forbearance.
- 1:4 Hazael…Ben-hadad: kings of the Arameans whose capital was Damascus (v. 5); they fought against Israel (2 Kgs 13:3) and had long occupied the region of Gilead (v. 3) in Transjordan.
- 1:5 Valley of Aven: lit., “valley of wickedness,” perhaps a distortion of a place name in Aramean territory, identity unknown. Beth-eden: an Aramean city-state on the Euphrates, about two hundred miles northeast of Damascus, called Bit-adini in Assyro-Babylonian texts. Kir: cf. 9:7; probably to be identified with the city of Emar on the Euphrates, a major Aramean center in the Late Bronze Age. One text from this site calls the king of Emar “the king of the people of the land of Kir.”
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