And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
Parallel translations
- WEB The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
- BSB “In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”
- NKJV And the songs of the temple Shall be wailing in that day,” Says the Lord God— “Many dead bodies everywhere, They shall be thrown out in silence.”
- NASB The songs of the palace will turn to wailing on that day,” declares the Lord God. “The corpses will be many; in every place they will throw them out. Hush!”
- NLT In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”
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
On that day the temple songs will turn to wailing, with many corpses cast out in silence. Joyful worship gives way to the silence of death.
Overview
The festive temple music becomes funeral lament as judgment fills the land with the dead. The 'silence' conveys both the magnitude of death and the stunned hopelessness of survivors. This reversal of joy into mourning shows the bitter fruit of sin, which only the resurrection life of Christ can finally overturn into lasting joy.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Amos 6:9–10And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.
- Amos 5:23Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
- Jer 9:21–22For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.
- Amos 5:16Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.
- Lev 10:3Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
- Amos 8:10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
- Zech 11:1–3Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.
- Nah 3:3The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:
- Isa 37:36Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
- Hos 10:5–6The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.
- Ps 39:9I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.
- Jer 22:18Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!
- Joel 1:13Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
- Amos 4:10I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
- Joel 1:5Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
- Joel 1:11Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.
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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 8:3 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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