Passage

Amos 3.2

Book: Amos · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

Hear this word that Jehovah hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying,

2. You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.

Shall two walk together, except they have agreed? 4. Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? (Amos 3:1-4, ASV)

WEB

Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying:

2. “I have only chosen you of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins.”

Do two walk together, unless they have agreed? 4. Will a lion roar in the thicket, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing? (Amos 3:1-4, WEB)

KJV

Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying,

2. You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. ^{punish: Heb. visit upon}

Can two walk together, except they be agreed? 4. Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? ^{cry: Heb. give forth his voice} (Amos 3:1-4, KJV)

YLT

Hear ye this word that Jehovah hath spoken concerning you, O sons of Israel, concerning all the family that I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying:

2. Only you I have known of all families of the land, Therefore I charge on you all your iniquities.

Do two walk together if they have not met? 4. Roar doth a lion in a forest and prey he hath none? Give out doth a young lion his voice from his habitation, If he hath not caught? (Amos 3:1-4, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Amos of Tekoa, a herdsman (noqed, sheep breeder) and tender of sycamore figs from Judah, speaking the word of the LORD.
Audience: The northern kingdom of Israel, addressed at the height of its prosperity under Jeroboam II.
Location: Delivered in the northern kingdom, principally at Bethel, the royal sanctuary and state temple (Amos 7:13).
Time period: c. 760-750 BC, in the reigns of Uzziah of Judah and Jeroboam II of Israel, "two years before the earthquake" (Amos 1:1). Amos is generally reckoned the earliest of the writing prophets.

Theological reading

The verse is the sharpest statement of election-as-liability in the Hebrew Bible, and its force sits entirely in the word therefore.

"Known" is covenant language, not information. The verb is yada, which in Hebrew ranges far past propositional awareness into acknowledgment, choice, and intimate relation. God is plainly not saying He lacked data about the other families of the earth; the WEB renders the sense correctly with "I have only chosen you." The same relational use of yada stands behind Genesis 18:19 ("I have known him, so that he may command his children") and Jeremiah 1:5 ("before I formed you in the womb I knew you").

The inference runs the opposite way to the one the audience expected. Chosen status was being heard in Samaria as a guarantee of protection, which is exactly the theology Amos 5:18 attacks with the Day of the LORD. Amos grants the premise and reverses the conclusion: privileged relation is the ground of stricter accounting, not exemption from it. The same logic reappears in Luke 12:48 ("from everyone who has been given much, much will be required") and 1 Peter 4:17 ("judgment begins with the household of God").

"Visit upon" is judicial. The Hebrew paqad is the language of an official inspection with consequences attached, and its object here is avon (H5771 - avon), iniquity considered as accumulated liability. The oracle is an audit notice, not a rejection: the covenant relation is what makes the audit possible.

The verse is a standard citation in discussions of divine knowledge, because it shows the biblical vocabulary of knowing operating in a register that has nothing to do with acquiring facts. See God Is Surprised Objection Defeater.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

H5771 - avon, avon, Strong's H5771
H3045 - yada, yada, Strong's H3045

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Lexicon:

Passages:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.