July 11th, 2021

For the Old Testament Reading on the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, this time we go to one of the so-called ‘minor’ prophets. (They were called that because of the length of their works and not because of the frivolity in their messages.) The text is from Amos 7[:7-15].

Sometimes prophets are quickly and easily dismissed. But they usually have some very good and important things to say. This prophet will be quoted twice in the book of Acts, once at the very important Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15).

Councils are important, and Amos mentions an extremely important council somewhat earlier in the book. Here is a somewhat-literal translation of 3:7:

Specifically, the Lord Yahweh will not do a thing, specifically, unless he reveals his ‘plan’ to his servants, the prophets.

This word translated ‘plan’ here is much more complicated than just having one word as its equivalent. In Holladay’s ‘concise’ lexicon, the definition of ‘confidential conversation’ is given for its occurrence here [William L. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament; Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Eerdmans Publishing, 1971; page 254]. The verses that are cross-referenced within the Concordia Self-Study Bible are the following: Genesis 18:17, I Samuel 3:7, Daniel 9:22, John 15:15, and Revelation 10:7. There are the LORD’s plans from literally Genesis to Revelation. Plans are important, and prophets are important throughout the Old and New Testaments; they often reveal the LORD’s plans.

Some people have described the Old Testament as the LORD gradually becoming less involved than he was before, and that can certainly be seen in some ways. It seems as though the LORD was used to walking in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. And then things, of course, started to fall apart.

Then things continued to fall apart even more. The prophets usually promised that some bad things would happen in the future. That seemed to be pretty normal, but, they were still despised, and people did not want to hear this bad news. That is pretty normal as well.

Amos was one of the first of the minor prophets (about 700 years before Christ), and there were more after him, but you can tell that, at this point in time, the people wanted to hear some good news.

As things continued on through the centuries, this desire for good news continued to grow. And it may also be seen in the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. What follows are a couple of examples of this.

In the Greek translation of Amos 5:8, the LORD is not described as one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion (this is, incidentally, the only time, other than the book of Job, where these constellations are mentioned), but, very simply, he ‘who makes all things.’ It seems that the mention of these two constellations was somewhat negative and that the translator wanted to be more positive.

At Amos 7:7, the Hebrew text simply has the following: ‘This he showed me.’ But the Greek, ‘This the Lord showed me.’ The translator wanted to make sure that the reader knew who was talking.

And one of the most interesting changes is in Amos 4:13. Here is the Hebrew text in a somewhat-literal translation:

Specifically, behold, one forming mountains and one creating wind and one revealing to man what is his thought, and one making dawn, darkness, and one walking upon the high places of the earth, Yahweh, God of hosts, his name.

Here is the Greek translation of the same verse:

For, behold, I am strengthening thunder and creating wind and proclaim to men his Christ, forming morning and darkness, and mounting upon the high places of the earth; Lord, the God, the ruler of all, his name.

Did you catch the most significant difference? The Greek starts with a first-person reference, and this is not that important. But instead of ‘what is his thought’ (in the Hebrew—and that phrase is very similar in its letters to the one word for ‘Messiah’), the text has the anointed one, the Christ (in Greek). People were waiting for the Christ for a LONG time.

When the Christ finally came, he came with a special prophet who prepared the way for him. But he surprised the people by the way this Christ acted, going to the cross. And this Anointed One continues to surprise, since we are often so focused on ourselves.