James R. Linville, «Visions and Voices: Amos 7–9», Vol. 80 (1999) 22-42

The final chapters of Amos are read synchronically to highlight the relationship between the divine voice, which demands that its hearers prophesy (Amos 3,8), the voice of Amos, and those of other characters. Amos’ intercessions soon give way to entrapping word-plays and these are related to the rhetorical “traps” in Amos 1–2. Divine and prophetic speech defy the wish of human authority that they be silent. The figure of Amos eventually disappears from the reader’s view, but not before the prophet has been used as a focal point for the readers’ projections of themselves into the literary world of the text. As the scenes change from ultimate destruction to restoration, the readers appropriate the prophetic voice themselves, especially in the final verse which ends with a declaration of security uttered by “your God”.

This initial section establishes the tension and promise of the rest of the closing chapters of the book; it foreshadows the eventual reconciliation with Israel and yet sets the stage for the violent images of the intervening passages; the word will not be withheld.

III. Coercion and Suppression:
The Third Vision and the Bethel Encounter

        The third vision (Amos 7,7-9) seems to begin in a way similar to the first two, but soon something new is encountered.

This he showed me: Behold, my lord was standing on a wall of )anak (Kn) probably tin or perhaps lead)²⁰ and in his hand (was) tin.
And YHWH said to me, "What do you see, Amos"?
And I said, "tin".
And my lord said, "See me setting )anak (sighing/myself) in the midst of my people Israel. Never again will I pass them by" (Amos 7,7-8).

        Then is described how Israel’s sanctuaries will be destroyed and the house of Jeroboam vanquished by the sword (v. 9). The identification and significance of the Kn) is one of the most difficult linguistic issues in the book, as the term is used four times here and nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Many scholars now employ arguments from cognate languages to argue that it refers to the metal tin, and not, as was widely understood earlier, to a piece of lead used as a plummet, although this is still defended in some quarters. Others hold that the Akkadian cognate term may have referred to a variety of metallic substances²¹. To fairly estimate the problem is