What Does Amos 7:1 Mean in the King James?

Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.

Amos 7:1 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The first sign of regrowth is also the moment the next loss takes shape.

THE MEANING

The verse shows you a threat forming as new growth begins after the king’s cut. The field is not simply barren: something is rising, and something is being shaped to consume it. Recovery and danger occupy the same moment.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It dissolves the belief that visible regrowth proves the danger has passed: here, the threat is already forming as the new growth begins.

THE ROOT

יֹצֵר

yotser

GROWS FROM

יצר

To form, shape, or fashion.

English “formed” can sound like a neutral preparation, but yatsar is the shaping word used for a potter’s work and for what takes shape within the heart. Here, the locusts are already taking shape as the latter growth begins.

ALSO GROWS

yotser: Former or potter.

יֹצֵר

Isaiah 64:8 uses this word for the potter; the locusts in Amos are likewise described through the language of active shaping.

yetser: Formation, intention, or inward frame.

יֵצֶר

The same root can name what is formed within, as in Genesis 6:5; in Amos it names what is being formed outside the field.

גִּזֵי

gizzei

GROWS FROM

גזז

To shear or cut away.

“Mowings” comes from the language of shearing and cutting. The phrase holds the new growth against what has already been taken away: the locusts are formed just as growth rises after the cut.

ALSO GROWS

gez: Mown grass.

גֵּז

Psalm 72:6 uses this word for grass after cutting, making Amos’s field a picture of growth emerging from what was cut down.

gozzeha: Her shearers.

גֹּזְזֶיהָ

Isaiah 53:7 uses the same root for shearers; the king’s mowings carry that same act of cutting away.

THE PATTERN

What remains or begins to grow after a loss can still be exposed to forces that consume it.

And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field:

Exodus 10:5 · KJVThe locusts reach what survived the hail and what is growing in the field, as the swarm in Amos meets the latter growth.

That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.

Joel 1:4 · KJVEach wave consumes what the previous one leaves, showing how what remains after loss can face another consuming force.

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

Mark 4:7 · KJVNew growth emerges while the force that chokes it grows around it, echoing the danger that meets the field’s latter growth.

THE THREAD

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:7 · KJV

Amos describes the locusts with yatsar, the same root used when the LORD forms the human from the ground. That shared word makes the vision more unsettling: even the coming swarm is described as something taking shape.

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