What Does Amos 7:6 Mean?
The LORD relented concerning this. This also shall not be, says the Lord GOD.
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
The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GOD.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “repented” also forms “comfort,” joining a turn away from threatened harm to a movement that relieves distress.
THE MEANING
The LORD relents, and the threatened harm does not arrive. For the reader now, this line keeps a feared outcome from becoming a finished verdict: a course can still turn.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a threatened outcome is already inevitable: here the LORD withdraws the harm, and “This also shall not be” names the change.
THE ROOT
וַיִּנָּחֶם
wayyinnāḥem
GROWS FROM
נחם
A response to distress: comfort or consolation in one stem, relenting in another.
Here, וַיִּנָּחֶם (wayyinnāḥem, relented) names a changed course; the same root also forms נַחֲמוּ (naḥămū, comfort). The word-family gathers the withdrawal of harm and the relief of distress into one movement.
ALSO GROWS
wayyinnāḥem: To relent or be moved to withdraw an announced course.
וַיִּנָּחֶם
In this verse it names the turning that makes “This also shall not be” possible.
naḥămū: To comfort or console.
נַחֲמוּ
The same root’s comfort branch joins relenting with relief from distress.
THE PATTERN
When a plea meets divine responsiveness, an outcome that seems set can turn.
And the LORD relented from the harm he had spoken of doing to his people.And God saw their deeds, because they turned back from their harmful way; and God relented from the harm he had spoken to do to them, and he did not do it.Then Jesus answered and said to her, O woman, great is your trust. Let it be for you as you will. And her daughter was healed from that very hour.THE THREAD
And the LORD relented from the harm he had spoken of doing to his people.Exodus uses the same root נחם for the LORD’s relenting. Side by side, the verses show the word holding an announced harm and its withdrawal in one movement.
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