Amos 7:1: King's Mowings or King Gog?

“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)

The Question

A single verse in the book of Amos contains one of the most intriguing textual puzzles in the Old Testament. The Hebrew Masoretic Text --- the basis for nearly every English Bible --- reads “the king’s mowings” (gizzey hammelek): a mundane agricultural reference to the royal tax on the first cutting of hay. But the ancient Greek Septuagint --- the Bible of the early church --- reads something startlingly different: “Gog the king” (Gog ho basileus), introducing the apocalyptic figure from Ezekiel 38-39 into a prophetic vision about locusts.

How did the same text produce two such different readings? And what difference does it make for understanding Amos’s vision?

This study examines the question through the SCAR Quadrilateral framework: Scripture, Christocentrism, Antiquity, and Reality. The goal is not to pick a winner but to present the evidence honestly and let the reader weigh it.

What Scripture Says

The Hebrew text reads gizzey hammelek --- “the king’s mowings.” The word gez (Strong’s H1488) means “a mowing” or “a shearing,” and the construct plural gizzey is grammatically unremarkable. In the agricultural context of 8th-century Israel, the king had the right to the first cutting of hay for his royal horses and livestock. The “latter growth” (laqesh) --- the second crop that springs up after the first mowing --- was what remained for the common people. When God shows Amos a locust swarm devouring this latter growth, the vision is devastating: the poor have nothing left.

The Greek Septuagint tells a different story. Instead of a locust swarm, it describes “one locust-larva, Gog the king” (brouchos heis, Gog ho basileus). The swarm is singularized into a single figure, named and titled. This transforms the vision from agricultural disaster to apocalyptic prophecy --- the locust is not an insect but a personified enemy, the eschatological king who threatens God’s people.

Every other ancient version --- the Vulgate, the Peshitta, the Targum Jonathan, and the revisional Greek translations of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion --- follows the Hebrew “king’s mowings.” The LXX stands alone. But the LXX is also the oldest translation (2nd century BCE), and the Dead Sea Scrolls have shown that multiple Hebrew text forms circulated in the Second Temple period.

(Chapter 1 provides the full Hebrew and Greek analysis, the consonantal question, the Dead Sea Scrolls evidence, and a detailed word study of every key term.)

What Jesus Taught

Jesus does not quote Amos 7:1. But the Christocentric lens reveals something important: the New Testament authors predominantly used the Septuagint as their Scripture. Most strikingly, at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, James quotes the LXX text of Amos 9:11-12 --- a passage where the Greek differs significantly from the Hebrew --- and the apostolic decision rests on the LXX wording. This does not automatically validate every LXX variant, but it demonstrates that the early church was willing to find theological truth in the Greek text of Amos even where it diverged from the Hebrew.

Jesus’s own example teaches us to read Scripture with humility before ambiguity, compassion for the vulnerable, and a preference for mercy. These are exactly the virtues this textual question requires.

(Chapter 2 examines the NT’s use of the Septuagint, the Gog tradition in Revelation 20:8, and Jesus’s hermeneutical priorities.)

What the Earliest Christians Practiced

For the first four centuries of Christianity, the church lived with both readings. Greek-speaking Eastern Christians read “Gog the king” from the Septuagint and actively identified him with a concrete historical figure. Cyril of Alexandria declared “Gog, that is the Assyrian” and identified him as Sennacherib, citing Ezekiel 38-39. Theodoret of Cyrrhus saw Gog as a comparison to the vast Scythian army: the locusts were the Assyrians, the locust-larva the Babylonians, and “Gog the king” indicated the immense scale of the invasion. Theodore of Mopsuestia went further, identifying Gog as a literal Scythian vassal-king whose forces served as auxiliaries to the Assyrian and Babylonian armies. Latin-speaking Western Christians --- Jerome above all --- followed the Hebrew “king’s mowings” and eventually established this as the dominant reading through the Vulgate.

Rabbinic tradition universally supports the MT reading. Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Radak all explain “the king’s mowings” as a reference to royal taxation --- the king’s right to the first cutting of hay for his cattle --- without engaging the Greek variant. The Targum Jonathan follows the Hebrew, even though the Gog tradition was well known in Jewish circles (the LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch read “Gog” in Numbers 24:7, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan references “the armies of Gog” in Numbers 24:17).

The most remarkable observation may be the simplest: the church lived with textual plurality on this verse for centuries, and it did not create a doctrinal crisis. Eastern and Western Christians read different texts, produced different but faithful commentaries, and agreed on what mattered: God’s judgment, the prophet’s intercession, and divine mercy.

(Chapter 3 documents the full patristic, rabbinic, and ancient version evidence.)

The Major Views Today

View 1: The Masoretic Text Is Original

The majority view. The “king’s mowings” fits Amos’s agricultural background (he was a shepherd and sycamore fig dresser from Tekoa), fits his social justice concerns (the poor are squeezed between royal taxation and natural disaster), and is supported by every ancient version except the LXX. The literary progression of the five-vision cycle --- from concrete to cosmic --- works best when vision 1 begins with the most mundane, recognizable disaster. Scholars like Wolff, Paul, Stuart, and Jeremias defend this position.

View 2: The Septuagint Preserves an Older Reading

A minority but serious position. The LXX translator did not randomly generate the name “Gog” --- something in the Vorlage prompted it. The coordinated changes (singularization of the swarm, personification, naming) suggest a coherent reading, not a simple error. The LXX’s early date means the translator was closer to the original than the Masoretes. Scholars like Tov, Dines, and Glenny provide the framework for taking this reading seriously.

View 3: Both Readings Reflect Valid Textual Traditions

A mediating position. Both readings may derive from different stages of the text’s transmission history. Rather than asking “which is original?”, this view asks “what does each reading contribute?” Andersen and Freedman, Nogalski, and Theocharous represent this approach.

(Chapter 4 presents each view at its strongest, with its best advocates’ arguments and honest challenges.)

What All Views Agree On

Regardless of which reading is original:

• God reveals coming judgment to his prophet. The vision is real, the threat is real.
• The prophet intercedes with compassion. “By whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.” Amos does not argue Israel’s merit --- only Israel’s vulnerability.
• God mercifully relents. “The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD” (Amos 7:3).
• The character of God is not in dispute. He is just, yet merciful when his servant pleads for the helpless.
• Textual criticism is not an enemy of faith. This variant does not affect any doctrine. It deepens our appreciation for the richness of Scripture’s transmission.

For the Reader

This study has attempted to present the evidence honestly, fairly, and without editorial verdict. The textual question in Amos 7:1 is genuinely open --- responsible scholars disagree, and the evidence does not permit certainty.

What is certain is the theological heart of the passage. Whether the devastation is locusts after the king’s mowing or the army of Gog the king, the God who hears the intercessor’s prayer is the same God, and his mercy is the same mercy. The prophet who pleads for the vulnerable models the compassion that every believer is called to embody.

If this question has drawn you deeper into Scripture --- into the Hebrew and Greek, into the ancient versions, into the church fathers and the rabbis --- then it has accomplished its purpose. The Bible rewards those who dig, and the God who inspired it is not diminished by our questions. He is magnified.

“The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD.” --- Amos 7:3 (KJV)

For the full analysis, begin with Chapter 1: Scripture, which provides the complete Hebrew and Greek text, word studies, and ancient version evidence. Or see the At a Glance page for a one-page summary.