“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.
Parallel translations
- WEB “I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and your fig trees and your olive trees have the swarming locust devoured: yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.
- KJV I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
- NKJV “Iblasted you with blight and mildew. When your gardens increased, Your vineyards, Your fig trees, And your olive trees, The locust devoured them; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the Lord.
- NASB “I struck you with scorching wind and mildew; The caterpillar was devouring Your many gardens and vineyards, fig trees and olive trees; Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.
- NLT “I struck your farms and vineyards with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured all your fig and olive trees. But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God struck their crops with blight, mildew, and locusts, yet they still would not return to him. Agricultural disasters were warnings they refused to heed.
Overview
Blight, mildew, and devouring locusts ruined gardens, vineyards, figs, and olives, the staples of their economy. These were covenant curses warning of God's displeasure (Deuteronomy 28). Each was an invitation to repent. The repeated refrain underscores their persistent, willful hardness despite God's patient appeals.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Hag 2:17I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the LORD.
- Deut 28:22The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.
- Joel 1:4What 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 7:1–2This 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.
- Amos 4:6“I beset all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Amos 4:8People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Isa 1:5Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
- Joel 2:25I 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.
- 2 Chr 6:28When famine or plague comes upon the land, or blight or mildew or locusts or grasshoppers, or when their enemies besiege them in their cities, whatever plague or sickness may come,
- Jer 5:3O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.
- Joel 1:7It has laid waste My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped off the bark and thrown it away; the branches have turned white.
- Jer 3:10Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD.
- Isa 42:24–25Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned? They were unwilling to walk in His ways, and they would not obey His law.
- Deut 28:42Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
- Job 36:8–13And if men are bound with chains, caught in cords of affliction,
- 1 Kgs 8:37When famine or plague comes upon the land, or blight or mildew or locusts or grasshoppers, or when their enemy besieges them in their cities, whatever plague or sickness may come,
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Christ at the center
Amid judgment on injustice, Amos promises the raising up of David's fallen tent — read by James in Acts 15 as the ingathering of the nations into the kingdom of the risen Christ.
How Amos 4:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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