Bible Strands
Amos 7:3
So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator reports that Yahweh responds to Amos’s intercession for Jacob immediately after a vision of a locust plague consumes the land. Yahweh addresses the prophet directly, halting the threatened destruction.
The words — The Hebrew verb נִחַם (ni.Cham) carries the literal sense “he relented,” paired with the declaration לֹא תִהְיֶה (lo tih.Yeh), meaning “it will not be.”
The thread — This motif of divine restraint appears in Jonah 3:10, where God relents from a threatened disaster, and in Hosea 11:8, where Yahweh questions surrendering Israel to judgment.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to recognize that prophetic warnings operate within a framework of divine responsiveness rather than fixed inevitability, demanding sober attention to intercession.
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
The Lord repented for this: It shall not be, saith the Lord.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 32:36 For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.
- Jonah 3:10 When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.
- Hosea 11:8 How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!
- Psalms 106:45 And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.
- Joel 2:14 Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him—grain and drink offerings for the LORD your God.
- Amos 7:6 So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen either,” said the Lord GOD.
- Jeremiah 26:19 Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone else in Judah put him to death? Did Hezekiah not fear the LORD and seek His favor, and did not the LORD relent of the disaster He had pronounced against them? But we are about to bring great harm on ourselves!”
- James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.
- 1 Chronicles 21:15 Then God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and relented from the calamity, and He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.