What Does Amos 4:3 Mean in the King James?
And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.
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
The breach becomes a forced route: the opening that lets people out can also be the way they are driven through.
THE MEANING
Each woman is driven straight ahead through an opening made by a break, then cast toward the palace; the verse holds the violence of that movement without softening it. The Hebrew names “each woman” (אִשָּׁה, ishah, woman), while the KJV carries the cattle image forward from the surrounding lines.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An exit is not always chosen freedom; a breach can become the passage through which people are forced.
THE ROOT
פְּרָצִים
peratsim
GROWS FROM
פרץ
p-r-ts
Break through, burst open
“breaches” in this verse is peratsim. English gives a static gap, but פרץ holds the act of breaking through inside the word: the opening is the result of a break. Here that opening becomes a route for forced passage.
ALSO GROWS
parats: To burst through or break out
פָּרַץ
The verb keeps the force of the break inside the breach: this is an opening made by rupture.
perets: A break or breach
פֶּרֶץ
The noun names the opening left by the breaking, which becomes the passage in Amos.
וְהִשְׁלַכְתֶּנָה
vehishlakhtenah
GROWS FROM
שלך
sh-l-k
Throw, cast
“cast” in this verse is vehishlakhtenah. This verb pictures an imposed transfer: people are hurled from one place toward another. The same root casts a burden onto the LORD (Psalm 55:22) or idols away (Isaiah 2:20); here the women themselves undergo the violent casting.
ALSO GROWS
hashlekh: To cast or throw
הַשְׁלֵךְ
Psalm 55:22 uses this root to cast a burden onto the LORD, showing that the verb marks a transfer of what is carried.
hishlikh: To throw or cast aside
הִשְׁלִיךְ
Isaiah 2:20 uses this root for casting away idols; in Amos, the same forceful motion is turned upon people.
THE PATTERN
A broken boundary becomes a passage, and who controls that passage determines whether it opens into release or expulsion.
The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) and the king went the way toward the plain.And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.THE THREAD
The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.Micah’s “breaker” and “broken up” echo פרץ (parats, break through), the root behind Amos’s “breaches.” The shared root holds two outcomes together: a break can open a route out, while Amos shows people being driven through that opening.
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