What Does Amos 3:5 Mean in the King James?
Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
A bird’s fall points to a snare already set, and a sprung snare points to something it has caught.
THE MEANING
The verse lets you read a visible event backward: where a bird falls, a trap is there; where a snare is lifted, something has been caught. What looks sudden is attached to a hidden setup and its result. A consequence carries the trace of what set it in motion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that outcomes simply appear from nowhere, without any condition already at work.
THE ROOT
מוֹקֵשׁ
moqesh
GROWS FROM
יקש
y-q-sh
To set a snare or ensnare.
“snare” in this verse is moqesh. The English “gin” sounds like an object, but the Hebrew word grows from a root of ensnaring. The verse points to an arrangement made to catch: the bird’s fall has a hidden setup beneath it.
ALSO GROWS
yaqash: To set a snare; to ensnare.
יָקַשׁ
The verb makes the trap’s purpose audible: it is an arrangement for taking hold.
yequshim: Fowlers; bird-catchers.
יְקוּשִׁים
This same root names the ones who work the snare, revealing the hidden agent behind the capture.
לָכוֹד
lakod
GROWS FROM
לכד
l-k-d
To catch, seize, or capture.
English separates “snare” from “taken,” but Hebrew repeats the root ל־כ־ד in “catching, it will catch nothing?” That repetition binds the trap’s movement to its catch: what happens to the snare reveals whether something has been caught.
ALSO GROWS
malkodet: A trap or snare.
מַלְכֹּדֶת
The same root names the device by the act it performs: catching.
nilkad: Was caught or captured.
נִלְכַּד
This form shows the result of the root’s action: something has been taken hold of.
THE PATTERN
A visible outcome points back to a condition already set in motion.
As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.The same יקש root that names the snare in Amos appears in “fowlers” here. Amos shows the setup and capture; the Psalm shows that the snare can break and the bird can escape.
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