What Does Amos 9:4 Mean in the King James?
And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
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
Captivity does not end the pursuit: the sword reaches them there, and God’s gaze is set toward harm.
THE MEANING
Even when you are carried before your enemies, the sword is commanded there, and God’s gaze is fixed toward harm rather than good. Here, divine attention is a terrifying judgment, not a promise of protection.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that being removed from one danger guarantees safety: the captive remains within judgment’s reach.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
חרב
ḥ-r-b
To become dry, waste, or desolate.
The word for sword, חֶרֶב (ḥerev), shares its consonants with חָרַב (ḥārav), “become desolate.” The sound-shape joins the weapon to the ruin it brings: the sword does not merely threaten harm; it makes desolation.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārav: To become desolate or laid waste.
חָרַב
It echoes the sword’s consonants and names the ruin the sword brings in this verse.
ḥorbāh: Desolation, ruin.
חָרְבָּה
It extends the same sound-shape from the weapon to the devastated state left behind.
רָעָה
rāʿāh
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be bad or cause harm.
“evil” in this verse is rāʿāh. Here, לְרָעָה (lə-rāʿāh) names harm or calamity as the direction of God’s attention, set against טוֹבָה (ṭovāh), good or welfare. The contrast makes the gaze’s purpose explicit: harm, not benefit.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil, harmful.
רַע
It shares the root’s sense of what brings harm, clarifying the force of “for evil.”
hērēaʿ: To do harm or act badly.
הֵרֵעַ
It carries the root from a condition of harm into the act of causing it, matching the verse’s threatened judgment.
THE PATTERN
When scripture places the divine eyes on someone, the gaze marks a directed relation, toward protection or judgment, not detached observation.
Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.THE THREAD
Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.Amos 9:8 repeats the image of the LORD’s eyes upon a people and ties that gaze to destruction, then names a limit to total destruction. It shows that the eyes in 9:4 express active judgment, not mere watching.
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