What Does Amos 6:2 Mean in the King James?
Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?
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 question turns size and status into a test of security, and leaves every boundary looking like a limit.
THE MEANING
The verse places your confidence beside other kingdoms and asks what their reach or reputation proves. A wider border does not, by itself, make a kingdom better or secure. The comparison leaves the reader facing the limits of what land and status can guarantee.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that greater reach or higher status makes you exempt from loss.
THE ROOT
גְּבוּל
gevul
GROWS FROM
גבל
To mark or set a boundary.
“border” in this verse is gevul. גְּבוּל (gevul) can mean a boundary or the territory it encloses. The question measures one kingdom against another by its edge, then exposes that edge as a limit rather than proof of safety.
ALSO GROWS
gābal: To border or set a boundary.
גָּבַל
The verb shows the act behind the territory: an edge is marked out.
higbil: To bound or set limits.
הִגְבִּיל
This form makes the limit explicit: what is enclosed also has an outer edge.
רַב
rav
GROWS FROM
רבב
To be many, increase, or abound.
The word for ‘greater’ carries the sense of abundance and extent. Amos places apparent abundance beside the question of whether these kingdoms are actually better, loosening the assumed link between having more and being secure.
ALSO GROWS
rov: Abundance or the greater part.
רֹב
It carries the same measure of quantity that hangs over the comparison.
rabbim: Many or numerous.
רַבִּים
The branch makes clear that greatness here can be counted as multitude or extent.
THE PATTERN
Visible wealth, territory, or status can feel like a wall of protection, but its size cannot guarantee security.
The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit.Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.The Hebrew word translated ‘border’ in Amos is גְּבוּל (gevul), the same word translated ‘landmark’ here. Deuteronomy treats that boundary as a marked inheritance; Amos turns the same edge into a question about whether territory makes a kingdom better or secure.
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