Bible Strands
Amos 7:1
This is what the Lord GOD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord Yahweh shows this vision to the prophet Amos during the agricultural window following the king’s harvest and the emergence of the late spring crop. The revelation occurs immediately before the locust devastation that threatens Jacob’s survival in the following verse.
The words — The Hebrew יוֹצֵר (yo.Tzer) translates literally as "forming" or "preparing," paired with גֹּבַי (goyAi) for "locusts." The introductory כֹּה (koh) "thus" frames the event as a direct divine demonstration rather than a distant prediction.
The thread — Swarming locusts as instruments of judgment recur in Joel 1:4 and Isaiah 33:4, where they depict systematic consumption and plunder. Amos 8:1 mirrors this visionary structure with a basket of summer fruit, preserving the pattern of God displaying impending judgment to the prophet.
Why it lands — The text establishes that agricultural cycles and food supply are directly governed by divine action, not human policy. It requires the reader to accept that judgment follows immediately when divine preparation concludes, demanding sober readiness rather than denial.
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
Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.
Cross-references
- Joel 1:4 What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
- Amos 8:1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit.
- Isaiah 33:4 Your spoil, O nations, is gathered as by locusts; like a swarm of locusts men sweep over it.
- Joel 2:25 I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.
- Amos 4:9 “I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Nahum 3:15 There the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down and consume you like a young locust. Make yourself many like the young locust; make yourself many like the swarming locust!
- Exodus 10:12 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that the locusts may swarm over it and devour every plant in the land—everything that the hail has left behind.”
- Jeremiah 1:11 And the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “I see a branch of an almond tree,” I replied.
- Jeremiah 24:1 After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD.
- Ezekiel 11:25 I told the exiles everything the LORD had shown me.