What Does Amos 5:3 Mean?
For thus says the Lord GOD, the city that went out by a thousand shall leave a hundred, and the one that went out by a hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.
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
For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.THE KEY
The verse turns every boast of scale into a count of what remains: a thousand becomes a hundred, and a hundred becomes ten.
THE MEANING
The LORD GOD declares a city decimated: of the thousand who go out, a hundred remain, and of the hundred, ten. The dwindling numbers make the scale of loss explicit; the remnant measures the devastation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a large force can secure a city: the thousand is still reduced to a hundred, and the hundred to ten.
THE ROOT
תַּשְׁאִיר
tash'ir
GROWS FROM
שׁ־א־ר
sh-ʾ-r
Remain, be left over; in this form, leave or retain.
The verb translated “shall leave” comes from a root centered on what remains or is left behind. Its repetition makes the survivors, not the force that goes out, the measure of the loss.
ALSO GROWS
nish'ar: Be left; remain.
נִשְׁאַר
This form makes explicit the condition the verse counts: what is left after the city’s losses.
she'erit: Remnant; remainder.
שְׁאֵרִית
The same root names the survivors as a remnant, linking the verse’s arithmetic to the idea of what remains after devastation.
THE PATTERN
When a people is brought low, the survivors are counted as a small remnant of what once seemed numerous.
And you will be left as a counted handful, though you were like the stars of the heavens for abundance, because you would not hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your God.For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will turn back. The running out, decreed, will overflow with alignment.Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, "Even if the number of the children of Israel is like the sand of the sea, what is left behind will be delivered."THE THREAD
For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will turn back. The running out, decreed, will overflow with alignment.The Hebrew root שׁ־א־ר (sh-ʾ-r), meaning “remain” or “be left,” names what the city retains in Amos and appears in Isaiah’s word for “remnant.” Amos gives the remainder as one-tenth; Isaiah describes that remnant as returning.
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