What Does Amos 7:5 Mean in the King James?
Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.
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 plea turns Jacob’s smallness into a question about who can stand up for him, rather than a demand that he rise by his own strength.
THE MEANING
Your smallness is named without disguise, and the plea asks the LORD to stop what is consuming you. Rising becomes a question about who can stand for you, not proof that you first have enough strength on your own. Your limit is spoken directly before the one addressed as Lord GOD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that you must be strong enough to rise before you can be helped; the verse asks who will stand for you precisely because you are small.
THE ROOT
יָקוּם
yaqūm
GROWS FROM
קום
qûm
to stand, rise, remain, or be established
“Arise” also carries the sense of standing and being established in קום (qûm). Its word family links a standing-place with the act of raising or establishing, so Amos’s question asks who can make Jacob stand when Jacob is small.
ALSO GROWS
maqom: place; standing-place
מָקוֹם
The word for a place carries the same root’s sense of standing, joining having a place with being able to stand.
heqim: raise up; establish
הֵקִים
This form makes the action explicit: someone can raise or establish Jacob when he cannot stand by his own strength.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places the lowly one’s rising in God’s action, not in the lowly one’s own size.
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and he hath set the world upon them.He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.Amos repeats the same Hebrew question about who will stand for Jacob because he is small. The request shifts from asking for release to asking that the devastation cease, while Jacob’s need for someone to stand for him remains.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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