What Does Amos 9:7 Mean in the King James?
Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?
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
One Hebrew verb of bringing up governs Israel’s exodus and the migrations of other peoples, so Israel’s rescue does not make it God’s only concern.
THE MEANING
The verse meets every claim that one people owns divine attention: Israel stands before the LORD as no less accountable than the Cushites. The same verb of bringing up names Israel’s emergence from Egypt and, by implication, the movements of the Philistines and Arameans. A people’s rescue does not make it the only people God moves or place it beyond judgment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“God once brought my people through a crisis, so God favors us exclusively and cannot judge us.”
THE ROOT
הֶעֱלֵיתִי
heʿeliti
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
rise, ascend, go up
The Hebrew explicitly says “I brought up” for Israel, then places the Philistines and Arameans in the same coordinated list, with that verb understood for them too. Their movements sit beneath the same verb, revealing Israel’s exodus as one among the movements God directs, not a claim to exclusive attention or immunity.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To rise or move upward.
עָלָה
This is the verb’s basic form; it keeps the ascent in “brought up” audible beneath the English phrasing.
ʿaliyah: An upward journey or ascent.
עֲלִיָּה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of directed movement, echoing the passage’s account of peoples moving from one place to another.
THE PATTERN
The LORD directs the movements and boundaries of peoples across nations, not one lineage alone.
Meddle not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth; because I have given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;THE THREAD
Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:The verb עָלָה (ʿālāh, “ascend”) appears in “climb up to heaven,” where ascent cannot put people beyond the LORD’s reach. Beside the same root in “I brought up” in verse 7, it shows that upward movement, whether escape or migration, does not create exemption.
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