What Does Amos 4:7 Mean?
And also I held back the rain from you while three months remained to the reaping. I rained upon one city, and upon another city I did not rain. One piece was rained upon, and the piece where it did not rain dried up.
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
And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.THE KEY
The drought is divided: one city and one plot receive rain while others are left to wither.
THE MEANING
God withholds rain from you, sends it upon one city but not another, and leaves one plot watered while another withers. The difference shows in the ground itself: the places do not share one outcome.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that provision reaching one place means the surrounding places are also sustained.
THE ROOT
וְהִמְטַרְתִּי
wĕhimṭartî
GROWS FROM
מטר
m-ṭ-r
rain; cause rain to fall
“I rained” in this verse is wĕhimṭartî. The same root names rain as a thing and the action of causing it to fall. In this verse, rain is directed to one city and withheld from another, making its uneven distribution part of the action itself.
ALSO GROWS
māṭār: Rain as a noun; Deuteronomy 11:17 uses this word for rain that does not fall.
מָטָר
The noun and the verb in Amos share the same root: the rain withheld from one place is the rain directed onto another.
himṭîr: A causative form of the same root; Genesis 2:5 says the LORD God had not yet caused rain upon the earth.
הִמְטִיר
The same verb links rain with the conditions for growth, opening Amos’s image of an unwetted plot that withers.
מָנַעְתִּי
mānaʿtî
GROWS FROM
מנע
m-n-ʿ
withhold; keep back
“held back” in this verse is mānaʿtî. This root describes something being kept from reaching its recipient. Amos applies it to rain; elsewhere it describes what is withheld from a person, so the verse’s drought belongs to a broader language of held-back provision.
ALSO GROWS
mānaʿ: To keep something back; Genesis 30:2 uses the root for the fruit of the womb being withheld.
מָנַע
The same verb can name rain kept from the land or fruitfulness kept from a person.
yimnaʿ: A form meaning “will withhold”; Psalm 84:11 says the LORD will not withhold any good thing.
יִמְנַע
The root makes the withholding in Amos legible as an act of keeping a gift from reaching its recipient.
תִּיבַשׁ
tibbāsh
GROWS FROM
יבש
y-b-sh
be dry; dry up
“dried up” in this verse is tibbāsh. The word translated “withered” belongs to the same root as the word for “dry land.” The plot’s fate is described as becoming dry, making the absence of rain visible in the state of the ground.
ALSO GROWS
yabbāšāh: The dry ground named in Genesis 1:9.
יַבָּשָׁה
The root links Amos’s withered plot with the Hebrew name for dry land.
yāvēshāh: The earth “was dried” in Genesis 8:14, using this root.
יָבְשָׁה
As in Amos, the root describes a change in the earth itself as it dries.
THE PATTERN
Ground yields according to whether it receives water: withheld rain leaves the land without fruit, while rain allows it to bring fruit forth.
Then the burning of the LORD's anger will flare against you, and he will shut the heavens, so that there is no rain, and the ground will not give its yield, and you will perish swiftly from upon the good ground which the LORD gives you.Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.And again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth sprouted her fruit.THE THREAD
And no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no grass of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no human to serve the ground.Genesis uses the same root, מטר (māṭār, rain; cause rain to fall), in the verb “had not caused it to rain.” It places rain before plant growth; Amos shows the withering that follows where rain does not reach.
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