Chapter 1: Scripture --- The Text of Amos 7:1

Overview

This chapter examines the central textual question: what does Amos 7:1 actually say? The Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Septuagint preserve meaningfully different readings of this verse, and the difference is not a simple translation choice --- it reflects either a different underlying Hebrew text (Vorlage) or a different vocalization of the same consonants. Understanding this requires careful attention to the Hebrew, the Greek, the consonantal text, and the broader context of Amos’s vision cycle.

Key Principle: All other components (Christocentrism, Antiquity, Reality) must align with Scripture. But when the text itself is disputed --- when we are asking which Scripture --- we must weigh the manuscript evidence with humility.

The Central Passage

Amos 7:1 --- Masoretic Text (MT)

“Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed 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.” --- Amos 7:1 (KJV)

Hebrew (MT):

כֹּה הִרְאַנִי אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה וְהִנֵּה יוֹצֵר גֹּבַי בִּתְחִלַּת עֲלוֹת הַלָּקֶשׁ וְהִנֵּה לֶקֶשׁ אַחַר גִּזֵּי הַמֶּלֶךְ

Key phrase: gizzey hammelek (גִּזֵּי הַמֶּלֶךְ) --- “the king’s mowings/shearings”

Amos 7:1 --- Septuagint (LXX)

Greek (LXX):

οὕτως ἔδειξέν μοι κύριος καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐπιγονὴ ἀκρίδων ἐρχομένη ἑωθινή καὶ ἰδοὺ βροῦχος εἷς Γωγ ὁ βασιλεύς

Key phrase: Gog ho basileus (Γωγ ὁ βασιλεύς) --- “Gog the king”

The LXX differs from the MT in several striking ways:

“a brood of locusts coming in the morning” (epigone akridōn erchomene heōthine) replaces the MT’s “he was forming locusts at the beginning of the coming up of the latter growth.” The Hebrew b’thillat ‘alot hallaqesh (“at the beginning of the coming up of the latter growth”) has been rendered as erchomene heōthine (“coming in the morning”) --- as if the translator read ‘alot as relating to dawn rather than to the sprouting of the second growth.
“one locust-larva” (brouchos heis) --- the MT’s plural swarm is singularized into one creature. The word brouchos refers to a wingless locust or locust in its larval stage. The numeral heis (“one”) is emphatic --- this is not a swarm but a single, identifiable figure.
“Gog the king” (Gog ho basileus) --- the most dramatic difference. Instead of “after the king’s mowings,” the LXX names this single locust “Gog the king.” The article ho before basileus is significant: this is not “a king named Gog” but “Gog, THE king” --- a title, suggesting a known figure.

Translation Comparison:

Translation	Key Rendering	Notes
KJV	”the king’s mowings”	Follows MT
ESV	”the king’s mowings”	Follows MT
NASB	”the king’s mowing”	Follows MT
LSB	”the king’s mowing”	Follows MT
NIV	”the king’s share had been harvested”	Interpretive, follows MT
LXX (NETS)	“Gog the king”	Follows LXX Greek
Vulgate	tonsionem regis (“the king’s shearing”)	Follows MT
Peshitta	follows MT	”the king’s mowings”
Targum Jonathan	follows MT	”the king’s mowings” (with Aramaic expansion)

The Textual Problem

The Consonantal Question

This is the heart of the text-critical problem. The relevant consonantal strings are:

MT reading: גזי המלך (g-z-y h-m-l-k) = gizzey hammelek = “the king’s mowings”

LXX presupposed: גוג המלך (g-w-g h-m-l-k) = Gog hammelek = “Gog the king”

The crucial question is whether g-z-y could be read as g-w-g. Several observations:

The letters zayin (ז) and waw (ו) are visually similar in some paleo-Hebrew and early square script forms. In the transitional period between paleo-Hebrew and the Aramaic square script (roughly 5th-3rd centuries BCE), these letters could be confused. However, confusing zayin and waw twice in three letters (g-z-y to g-w-g) and also confusing yod (י) and gimel (ג) would require two separate graphic errors in a three-letter word. This is possible but not highly probable as a simple misreading.
Different word division offers an alternative approach. If the consonantal text before the Masoretes added vowel pointing was written as a continuous string (or with different word breaks), a different parsing could yield Gog. However, the construct chain gizzey hammelek is a natural grammatical unit and difficult to re-parse as Gog hammelek without also re-parsing the preceding words.
The more likely scenario (per most text critics) is one of two options:
- The LXX translator had a genuinely different Hebrew Vorlage that read גוג (Gog) rather than גזי (gizzey). The Dead Sea Scrolls have demonstrated that multiple text forms of biblical books circulated in the Second Temple period.
- The LXX translator interpretively rendered the text, perhaps reading the consonants g-z-y but understanding them as relating to Gog through a theological association with the Ezekiel tradition.
Emanuel Tov has argued that the LXX Minor Prophets (the Twelve) as a whole show evidence of a Hebrew Vorlage that differs from the proto-MT in numerous places. The Gog reading could be one such variant.
The morphology is unproblematic. Joüon-Muraoka (A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, section 88Mh) notes the construct plural gizzey as a standard formation from gez. The MT reading requires no special grammatical explanation.

Key Terms

Gez (גֵּז) --- “Mowing/Shearing”

Hebrew: גֵּז (gez)
Strong’s: H1488
Root: גזז (gazaz) --- “to shear, cut”
Semantic range: A cutting, mowing, or shearing --- used for both sheep-shearing and mowing of grass
Cognates: Akkadian gizzu (“fleece”)
Usage in key passages:
- Deuteronomy 18:4 --- “the first of the fleece (gez) of thy sheep, shalt thou give him”
- Psalm 72:6 --- “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass (gez): as showers that water the earth”
- Job 31:20 --- “the fleece (gez) of my sheep”
In Amos 7:1: The construct plural gizzey (גִּזֵּי) means “the mowings/shearings of” --- referring to the royal prerogative of the first hay cutting

Gog (גּוֹג)

Hebrew: גּוֹג
Strong’s: H1463
Etymology: Uncertain; possibly from a root meaning “high” or “mountain,” or possibly derived from the Akkadian Gugu (Gyges of Lydia)
Usage in key passages:
- Ezekiel 38:2-3 --- “Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him”
- Ezekiel 39:1 --- “prophesy against Gog”
- 1 Chronicles 5:4 --- “The sons of Joel; Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son” (a Reubenite --- a different, non-apocalyptic figure)
- Revelation 20:8 --- “shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle”

Gobay (גֹּבַי) --- “Locusts”

Hebrew: גֹּבַי / גּוֹב
Strong’s: H1462
Semantic range: Locust, grasshopper (a swarming type)
Usage in key passages:
- Amos 7:1 --- “he formed locusts (gobay)”
- Nahum 3:17 --- “thy crowned are as the locusts (gobay)“

Brouchos (βροῦχος) --- “Locust-Larva” (Greek)

Greek: βροῦχος
Meaning: A wingless locust; a locust in its larval/nymph stage
Significance: In the LXX of Amos 7:1, the plural swarm of the MT is singularized into “one locust-larva” (brouchos heis) who is identified as “Gog the king.” This personification transforms the vision from an agricultural disaster into an apocalyptic prophecy --- the locust swarm becomes a single, named figure.

Laqesh (לֶקֶשׁ) --- “Latter Growth”

Hebrew: לֶקֶשׁ
Strong’s: H3954
Meaning: The late growth, second crop --- the grass or grain that springs up after the first mowing
Significance: The timing is crucial. The latter growth is what remains for the common people after the king has taken the first cutting. The locusts strike precisely when the people are most vulnerable.

The Agricultural Context

Understanding the MT reading requires knowing the agricultural practice behind “the king’s mowings.” In ancient Israel, the king had the right to the first cutting of hay --- a form of royal taxation. The first growth of spring grass was mowed and taken for the king’s horses and livestock (cf. 1 Kings 18:5, where Ahab searches desperately for grass to save the royal horses and mules during drought). The second growth --- the laqesh, or “latter growth” --- was what remained for the common people and their animals.

“And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts.” --- 1 Kings 18:5 (KJV)

Amos’s vision is devastating precisely because of its timing: the locusts devour the latter growth after the king has already taken his share. The poor have nothing left. This reading fits seamlessly with Amos’s repeated concern for the oppression of the poor (2:6-8, 3:15, 4:1, 5:11-12, 6:4-6, 8:4-6).

The Ancient Versions

Vulgate (Jerome, c. 405 AD)

Haec ostendit mihi Dominus Deus: et ecce fictor locustae in principio germinantium serotini imbris, et ecce serotinus post tonsionem regis.

Jerome translates tonsionem regis --- “the shearing/mowing of the king” --- following the Hebrew MT. Jerome knew both the Hebrew and the LXX and consistently preferred the Hebraica veritas (the Hebrew truth).

Targum Jonathan (c. 1st-2nd century AD)

The Aramaic Targum follows the MT reading, rendering the phrase as the equivalent of “the king’s mowings” with characteristic Aramaic expansion. The Targum does not read “Gog” here, which is notable because the Gog tradition was well known in Jewish interpretive circles. The LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch read “Gog” instead of “Agag” in Numbers 24:7, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan references “the armies of Gog” in Numbers 24:17 --- yet here in Amos 7:1, the Targum follows the MT without introducing Gog.

Peshitta (Syriac, c. 2nd-3rd century AD)

The Syriac Peshitta follows the Hebrew MT, reading “the king’s mowings.” The Peshitta generally follows the proto-MT for the prophetic books.

Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion (“The Three”)

Evidence from Origen’s Hexapla (as preserved in marginal notes and catenae) suggests:

Aquila (early 2nd century CE): Known for hyper-literal translations that slavishly follow the MT. According to Jerome, Aquila rendered the phrase as post gazae regem (“after the king of Gaza”), which Jerome suspected was a scribal corruption. The original rendering likely followed the MT.
Symmachus (late 2nd century CE): Known for elegant, idiomatic Greek that nonetheless follows the MT. Symmachus would have followed the MT reading, though the specific wording does not survive for this verse.
Theodotion (late 2nd century CE): A revision of the LXX toward the MT. Theodotion would have revised “Gog the king” back toward “the king’s mowings.”

The “Gog” reading is unique to the Old Greek (LXX). Every other ancient version follows the MT.

Cross-References

The Amos Vision Cycle (Amos 7:1 --- 9:4)

Amos 7:1—9:4 contains five visions arranged in a carefully structured sequence:

Vision	Reference	Content	Amos Responds	God’s Response
1	7:1-3	Locusts devouring the land	Intercedes: “Forgive!”	Relents
2	7:4-6	Fire consuming the great deep	Intercedes: “Cease!”	Relents
3	7:7-9	A plumb line	No intercession	Judgment announced
4	8:1-3	A basket of summer fruit	No intercession	Judgment announced
5	9:1-4	The Lord on the altar	No intercession	Total judgment

The structure reveals a devastating progression. In visions 1 and 2, Amos intercedes and God relents. In visions 3-5, there is no intercession and no relenting. The turning point is vision 3 --- the plumb line --- where God declares “I will not again pass by them any more” (7:8). The first vision is the most hopeful moment in the sequence: God shows judgment, the prophet pleads, and mercy prevails.

How the two readings affect interpretation:

With “the king’s mowings” (MT): The vision is an agricultural disaster. The timing is significant: the locusts come after the king has taken his first cut, when only the second growth remains for the common people. The vision emphasizes economic oppression --- a key Amos theme --- and the poor are squeezed between the king’s taxation above and natural disaster below. Amos intercedes because “Jacob is small” --- the common people cannot bear this additional blow.

With “Gog the king” (LXX): The vision becomes apocalyptic. The locust swarm is personified as Gog, the eschatological enemy. The single locust (brouchos heis) who is Gog transforms the vision from agricultural realism to prophetic symbolism. In this reading, the first vision already anticipates the theme of cosmic judgment that becomes explicit in vision 5 (9:1-4). The locusts are not merely insects but an invading army led by a named king.

Most commentators who favor the MT note that the progression from concrete (visions 1-2: locusts, fire) to symbolic (visions 3-4: plumb line, summer fruit) to direct (vision 5: God on the altar) is a deliberate rhetorical escalation. The agricultural reading of vision 1 fits this progression: it starts with the most mundane, recognizable disaster and escalates toward cosmic judgment.

Those who favor the LXX counter that the apocalyptic dimension is present from the start in Amos (cf. the cosmic theophany in 1:2, the Day of the LORD in 5:18-20) and that identifying the locust-king as Gog deepens rather than breaks the literary progression.

The Complete First Vision (Amos 7:1-3)

“Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed 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. And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small. The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD.” --- Amos 7:1-3 (KJV)

Amos’s intercession is remarkable: “by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small” (ki qaton hu’). This is a plea based on Israel’s weakness, not Israel’s righteousness. Amos does not argue that Israel deserves mercy --- only that Israel is too small to survive the blow. Whether the threat is locusts after the king’s mowing or an invasion by Gog the king, the prophetic response is the same: compassionate intercession for a helpless people.

Ezekiel 38-39: The Gog Oracles

“Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” --- Ezekiel 38:2-3 (KJV)

If the LXX reading of Amos 7:1 is original, it would place the earliest biblical reference to Gog as a hostile figure in the 8th century BCE (Amos’s active period, c. 760-750 BCE), predating Ezekiel’s Gog oracles (c. 593-571 BCE) by nearly two centuries. This would mean:

Gog would not be Ezekiel’s invention. Ezekiel would be drawing on and expanding an existing prophetic tradition about a hostile king named Gog.
The locust-army connection becomes foundational. The association of Gog with a locust swarm in Amos would explain why Joel describes a locust invasion in military terms (“a great people and a strong,” Joel 2:2; “like the noise of chariots,” Joel 2:5) and why Ezekiel describes Gog’s army as a numberless horde that “covers the land” (Ezekiel 38:9, 16) --- echoing the imagery of a locust swarm.
The tradition would develop: Amos (8th c.) --- brief reference to Gog as locust-king —> Joel (uncertain date) --- locusts as military invasion —> Ezekiel (6th c.) --- Gog as the eschatological invader from the north —> Revelation 20:8 --- Gog and Magog as the final cosmic enemies.

The Extra-Biblical Gog Tradition

The most common identification for the historical Gog is Gyges of Lydia (Akkadian: Gugu), who reigned c. 680-644 BCE. Gyges is mentioned in Ashurbanipal’s annals as “Gugu, king of Luddi.” The Akkadian Gugu is phonetically close to Hebrew Gog. Gyges was a powerful ruler from the far north/west (from an Israelite perspective) who was eventually killed by Cimmerians. If this identification is correct, Gog entered Israelite consciousness as a powerful, distant, semi-legendary king from the north --- which is exactly how Ezekiel portrays him (“out of the north parts,” Ezekiel 38:15, 39:2).

Problem for the Amos connection: Gyges reigned c. 680-644 BCE, which is after Amos (c. 760 BCE). If Amos 7:1 originally referenced Gog, it cannot be referring to Gyges of Lydia, unless the name was inserted into the text later.

Joel 1-2: The Locust Invasion

Joel’s locust invasion shares vivid imagery with Amos 7:1. In Joel, the locusts are described in military terms:

“A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it.” --- Joel 2:2 (KJV)

The connection between locusts and military invasion is well-established in prophetic literature. If the LXX of Amos 7:1 identifies the locust swarm with Gog, this aligns with the prophetic tradition of using locusts as figures for invading armies.

Dead Sea Scrolls Evidence

Qumran Manuscripts of Amos

The Minor Prophets are preserved in several Qumran scrolls, but the coverage most relevant to our question is fragmentary:

4QXIIc (4Q78) --- a Hasmonean-period scroll (c. 75-50 BCE) that preserves Amos 7:1-16, making it the most relevant manuscript. The surviving fragments preserve the opening of the verse (כֹּה הִרְאַנִי אֲדֹנָי, “Thus the Lord showed me”), but the critical phrase gizzey hammelek / Gog hammelek falls in the lacuna where the leather is damaged or missing. Published in DJD XV, pp. 237-251. High-resolution infrared images of the fragments are available at the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library (Plate 161).
4QXIIg (4Q82) --- the most extensive Minor Prophets manuscript from Qumran (c. 25 BCE), preserving Amos 7:1 along with 7:7-12 and 7:14-17. The surviving text preserves “the Lord showed me,” “the latter growth,” and “and behold” --- but again, the critical phrase is not legible on the extant fragments. Published in DJD XV, pp. 271-318. Infrared images are available at the Leon Levy Digital Library (Plates 1143-1163; the Amos 7:1 fragment is on Plate 1146, Fragment 4).
4QXIIb (4Q77) --- contains fragments of several Minor Prophets but does not include Amos 7:1.
Wadi Murabba’at scroll (MurXII / Mur88) --- a 2nd-century CE manuscript very close to the MT. Its coverage of Amos chapter 7 begins at verse 3 (7:3-16), so it does not preserve 7:1. Published in DJD II. Images available at the Leon Levy Digital Library (Plates 64-65).

The situation: While at least two Qumran manuscripts (4Q78 and 4Q82) include Amos 7:1 in their extant range, the fragments are too damaged at the critical point to settle the question of whether they read gizzey or Gog. In both manuscripts, the opening words of the verse survive but the leather deteriorates precisely where the disputed phrase would appear. The editors of DJD XV reconstruct the text following the MT, but this reconstruction is based on scholarly convention, not legible ink. The full DJD XV transcriptions and photographic plates (Russell E. Fuller, in Ulrich, Cross, et al., Qumran Cave 4, X: The Prophets, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) should be consulted for the most current assessment of legibility.

The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr)

This scroll (published by Emanuel Tov in DJD VIII, 1990) is a kaige recension Greek text of the Minor Prophets, dating to approximately the late 1st century BCE to early 1st century CE. Its purpose was to revise the Old Greek (LXX) translation toward the proto-MT Hebrew text. The scroll preserves portions of Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Zechariah. It does not preserve Amos 7:1.

However, the scroll’s revisional character is telling: wherever it can be checked, 8HevXIIgr consistently moves the Greek text toward the MT and away from the distinctive LXX readings. If it had preserved Amos 7:1, we would expect it to read something like “the king’s mowings” rather than “Gog the king.”

The existence of the kaige recension shows that already in the 1st century BCE/CE, Jewish scholars were aware that the Greek Minor Prophets translation differed from the Hebrew text they considered authoritative, and they undertook systematic revision.

What Is Clear

The Hebrew MT reads “the king’s mowings” (gizzey hammelek), and this reading is supported by the Vulgate, Peshitta, Targum Jonathan, and the revisional Greek translations (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion).
The Greek LXX reads “Gog the king” (Gog ho basileus), and this reading stands alone among the ancient versions.
The consonantal texts are sufficiently different (g-z-y vs. g-w-g) that a simple visual confusion is hard to explain without positing a different Vorlage or a deliberate interpretive choice.
Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts that include Amos 7:1 (4Q78, 4Q82) are too fragmentary at the critical point to settle the question.
Both readings are grammatically and contextually coherent --- the MT fits Amos’s agricultural context and social justice themes; the LXX fits the prophetic tradition of locust-army imagery and the developing Gog tradition.
Amos’s intercession and God’s relenting (7:2-3) work with either reading.

What Is Debated

Which reading is original? The weight of versional evidence favors the MT (Vulgate, Peshitta, Targum, and the Three all agree with it). But the LXX sometimes preserves genuinely older readings even when all other versions follow the MT.
Did the LXX translator have a different Hebrew text? Or did the translator misread or reinterpret the consonants?
If the LXX reading is original, how does this reshape the Gog tradition? Amos would predate Ezekiel as the earliest Gog reference.
If the MT reading is original, why did the LXX translator introduce Gog? Was it a scribal error, or a deliberate apocalyptic reinterpretation?
Does the singularization of the locust swarm into “one locust, Gog the king” suggest a deliberate interpretive move by the translator?

Summary

The textual evidence presents a genuine puzzle. The Masoretic Text’s “king’s mowings” has strong external support (every ancient version except the LXX agrees with it), fits Amos’s agricultural setting and social justice themes, and requires no special explanation. The Septuagint’s “Gog the king” stands alone but cannot be dismissed as mere error --- the LXX Minor Prophets translator is generally competent, and the Dead Sea Scrolls have demonstrated that variant Hebrew texts circulated in the Second Temple period.

The scholarly consensus leans toward the MT as more likely original, with the LXX reading understood as either a different Vorlage or a translator’s apocalyptic reinterpretation. But this consensus is not unanimous, and responsible scholars on both sides acknowledge the genuinely open character of the question.

What is certain is that both readings carry theological weight: the MT emphasizes God’s concern for the poor who are oppressed by both king and catastrophe, while the LXX situates the vision within a grand prophetic narrative of God’s ultimate victory over the enemies of his people. Both readings culminate in the same place: a small, vulnerable people, a compassionate prophet, and a God who relents when his servant intercedes.