What Does Amos 3:14 Mean?
In the day that I visit upon him the rebellions of Israel, I will also visit the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
That in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Beth-el: and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground.THE KEY
The same divine accounting reaches both Israel’s rebellion and the altar that gives it sacred form.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks of judgment reaching the transgressions of Israel and the altars of Beth-el: the altar’s horns are cut off and fall to the ground. The same act of attention reaches both the people’s breach and the sacred structure itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sacred structure cannot shield the wrongdoing attached to it; the verse places the altar itself within the judgment.
THE ROOT
פקד
paqad
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, muster, or appoint; here, to inspect and call to account.
The Hebrew repeats פקד (paqad) for both Israel’s transgressions and Beth-el’s altars. “Visit” carries the sense of directed attention: what is brought under that attention is the rebellion and the place where its worship is centered.
ALSO GROWS
paqīd: An appointed official or overseer
פָּקִיד
This branch shows the root’s link to assigning responsibility and placing someone under oversight.
pequddah: Oversight, an appointed charge, or a visitation
פְּקֻדָּה
Its sense of oversight and visitation echoes the verse’s repeated act of bringing people and altars into account.
מִזְבְּחוֹת
mizbechot
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter or offer a sacrifice.
“altars” in this verse is mizbechot. The word for altar grows from זבח (zavach), the root of slaughter and sacrifice. The judgment falls on a concrete place organized around sacrifice, not only on an inward attitude toward worship.
ALSO GROWS
zavach: To slaughter or offer a sacrifice
זָבַח
The verb names the sacrificial act for which an altar is used.
zevach: A slaughter or sacrifice
זֶבַח
This noun makes the altar’s connection to the act of sacrifice explicit.
קַרְנוֹת
qarnot
GROWS FROM
קרן
Horn; by extension, something that projects outward like a horn or ray.
The altar’s horns are its projecting points, and the verse says they are severed and fall. The related verb קָרַן (qāran), “to send out rays” or “shine,” uses the same consonants, linking the image of a horn with something that projects outward.
ALSO GROWS
qeren: A horn or ray; also an image of strength
קֶרֶן
The singular form shows the concrete image behind the altar’s severed horns.
qāran: To shine or send out rays
קָרַן
This related verb shares the root’s projecting image, which gives the fallen horns a sense of outward prominence being cut away.
THE PATTERN
When wrongdoing is brought to account, the sacred practices and structures bound up with it are also exposed to judgment.
I hate, I cast off your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.Stop bringing empty gifts. The smoke is sickening to me. The new moons and the sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot bear. It is emptiness, even the restrained assembly.Look, your house is left to you, empty.THE THREAD
Only you have I known, out of all the families of the ground. Therefore I will visit upon you all your crookednesses.The Hebrew verb translated “punish” is פקד (paqad), the same root repeated as “visit” in Amos 3:14. The shared root links the accounting of Israel’s iniquities with the judgment that reaches Beth-el’s altars.
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