Bible Strands
Amos 4:10
“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD speaks through the prophet Amos to the northern kingdom of Israel, immediately following a catalog of agricultural judgments. This declaration functions as the third item in a repeated rhetorical sequence listing divine interventions.
The words — The text foregrounds שִׁלַּחְתִּי (shi.Lach.ti), meaning "I sent," and דֶּבֶר (de.ver), meaning "pestilence" or "plague." These terms anchor the claim that both biological disaster and military slaughter were direct divine actions.
The thread — The comparison to Egyptian plagues reappears in Deuteronomy 28:60 as a covenant threat, while the sword against young men mirrors the judgment described in Leviticus 26:25. The reference to destroyed horses aligns with the military collapse detailed in 2 Kings 13:7.
Why it lands — The passage asserts that historical calamities were deliberate divine acts rather than natural occurrences. It requires the reader to confront the reality that repeated punishment without repentation confirms entrenched rebellion.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 28:60 He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.
- Leviticus 26:25 And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
- 2 Kings 13:7 Jehoahaz had no army left, except fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, because the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them like the dust at threshing.
- Joel 2:20 The northern army I will drive away from you, banishing it to a barren and desolate land, its front ranks into the Eastern Sea, and its rear guard into the Western Sea. And its stench will rise; its foul odor will ascend. For He has done great things.
- Exodus 9:3 then the hand of the LORD will bring a severe plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks.
- Deuteronomy 7:15 And the LORD will remove from you all sickness. He will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you.
- Deuteronomy 28:26 Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.
- Psalms 78:49 He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.
- Exodus 8:19 “This is the finger of God,” the magicians said to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.
- Leviticus 26:16 then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.