What Does Amos 7:17 Mean in the King James?

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

Amos 7:17 · 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 verse ends with galah, a Hebrew root used both for exile and for uncovering, so its captivity clause carries the image of a people laid bare.

THE MEANING

This verse confronts you now with an unsoftened sentence of dispossession: the addressee’s wife becomes a prostitute in the city, his sons and daughters fall by the sword, his land is divided, he dies on unclean ground, and Israel is driven from its land. Family, body, soil, and communal belonging are all struck.

THE ROOT

גָּלֹה יִגְלֶה

gālō yigleh

GROWS FROM

גלה

To uncover or reveal; in another well-attested use, to go into exile.

“shall surely go into captivity” in this verse is gālō yigleh. The emphatic phrase gālō yigleh intensifies the exile: Israel will surely be removed from its land. The same root can describe uncovering or revelation, giving this departure the image of a people exposed and stripped of their place.

ALSO GROWS

galah: To uncover, disclose, or reveal.

גָּלָה

This is the root’s revealing sense; Isaiah 40:5 uses it for the LORD’s glory being revealed.

golah: Exile, or a community living in exile.

גּוֹלָה

This noun names displacement from home, the condition Israel faces in this verse.

THE PATTERN

When judgment removes a people from their land, scripture names the loss through bodies, sword, and exile together.

And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

Leviticus 26:33 · KJVLike Amos, this verse joins the sword, the loss of the land, and the scattering of the people.

I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.

Jeremiah 9:16 · KJVHere too, exile and the sword fall together as a sentence against a people.

And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Luke 21:24 · KJVThe verse again holds death by the sword and removal from the land in the same judgment.

THE THREAD

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Isaiah 40:5 · KJV

The Hebrew verb translated “shall be revealed” in Isaiah and “go into captivity” in Amos comes from the same root, ⁨גלה⁩ (galah), meaning to uncover or reveal and also to go into exile. Amos names a people removed from their land; Isaiah names what is unveiled for all flesh to see.

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