What Does Amos 9:3 Mean in the King James?
And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:
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 final hiding place becomes the launch point of the blow: the sea floor is where the commanded serpent strikes.
THE MEANING
Whether the fugitives hide on Carmel’s summit or below the sea, God searches, takes them, and commands the serpent to bite. For the reader now, the verse places even the deepest concealment within the reach of judgment, with no refuge offered at the end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that enough secrecy or distance guarantees escape collapses here: the sea floor itself cannot hide them from the sentence.
THE ROOT
וּנְשָׁכָם
ūnĕšākām
GROWS FROM
נשך
to bite
The bite in this line belongs to נשך, the same root behind נֶשֶׁךְ (nešeḵ), “interest” or “usury,” named as a bite. English separates bodily attack from financial extraction; Hebrew places both in one word family, keeping the threat concrete while carrying the image of something that bites away at its target.
ALSO GROWS
nāšaḵ: To bite.
נָשַׁךְ
This is the action the serpent carries out against the fugitives.
nešeḵ: Interest or usury, literally “a bite.”
נֶשֶׁךְ
The same root also names a taking that bites into what is owed, echoing the force of the serpent’s attack.
וּלְקַחְתִּים
ūləqaḥtîm
GROWS FROM
לקח
to take or receive
“take” in this verse is ūləqaḥtîm. Here the verb’s force is removal: God takes them from their hiding place into the attack. The same root also gives לֶקַח (leqaḥ), “instruction” or “teaching”, what is received or taken in, without making this violent seizure benign.
ALSO GROWS
lāqaḥ: To take, seize, or receive.
לָקַח
The verse uses this verb for taking the fugitives out of their refuge.
leqaḥ: Instruction or teaching.
לֶקַח
This noun shares the root’s sense of receiving, showing how the same consonants can name both physical taking and what is taken in.
יַחְבְּאוּ
yaḥbəʾû
GROWS FROM
חבא
to hide oneself
“hide themselves” in this verse is yaḥbəʾû. This root names both the act of hiding and a hiding place. Amos strips the hideaway of its promise, moving from Carmel’s summit to the sea floor while the pursuit still reaches it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāḇāʾ: To hide oneself.
חָבָא
This is the verb used for the fugitives’ attempt to conceal themselves.
maḥăḇōʾ: A hiding place or refuge.
מַחֲבֹא
The related noun makes concealment a place as well as an action, but the verse shows that even a place of hiding cannot shield them.
THE PATTERN
A refuge cannot shield the one judged when the pursuing power reaches inside it.
There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:THE THREAD
See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself, and come ye again to me with the certainty, and I will go with you: and it shall come to pass, if he be in the land, that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah.The verb translated “hideth himself” comes from חבא, the same root as “hide themselves” in Amos. Here the root names both the act of concealment and the lurking places themselves; Amos carries that same hiddenness from mountain peak to sea floor, where it still cannot stop the pursuit.
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