{"id":77076,"date":"2020-07-08T13:59:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T10:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=77076"},"modified":"2020-07-08T13:59:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T10:59:26","slug":"not-three-but-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/not-three-but-four\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Three, But Four"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"77076","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"520","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"1,2,3,4 - what are we being punished for?\r\n\r\n","content":"

Our chapter begins: \u201cFor three transgressions of Moab, for four I will not revoke it because he burned the bones of the King of Edom to lime.\u201d Thereby, Amos continued his rebuke of Israel and the surrounding nations, utilizing a distinctive feature of biblical poetry and lyrical prose that has been designated, variously, as: \u201cthe numerical sequence x\/x+1\u201d or \u201cthe model of the ascending number.\u201d While some 30 such examples have been noted in Tanakh and traceable back to Ugaritic and Mesopotamian literature as well, Amos seems to be distinctive in his use exclusively of the sequence of 3 and 4.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some scholars see its use as idiomatic, resembling such everyday phrases as \u201cone or two\u201d and signifying an unspecified number. In this case, Amos is saying that Moab has committed many, perhaps innumerable, sins, of which their treatment of the Moabite king is particularly egregious. Others, however, accord it greater precision signifying \u201cnot three, but [exactly] four.\u201d The medieval exegetes appear to have taken the latter approach, citing in evidence Job 33:29: \u201cTruly God does all these things two or three times to a man,\u201d which they uniformly interpret to mean that while God may overlook 2 or 3 sins\u2014since He is famously \u201cforgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin\u201d (Exodus 34:7)\u2014He will not acquit the fourth.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cidiomatic\u201d approach sees its evidence in the fact that in nearly all the examples cited by Amos only a single sin is mentioned, arguably proving that the numbers are only figurative.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cprecise\u201d view, however, observes that regarding Israel\u2014which must be acknowledged as the crux of all of these similar prophetic utterings\u2014Amos actually enumerated four sins (verse 6-8):<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cBecause they have sold for silver those whose cause was just, and the needy for a pair of sandals.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. You who trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the ground and make the humble walk a twisted course!<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Father and son go to the same girl, and thereby profane My holy name.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. They recline by every altar on garments taken in pledge, and drink in the House of their God wine bought with fines they imposed.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","image":{"ID":77078,"id":77078,"title":"amos2-1234","filename":"amos2-1234.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/not-three-but-four\/amos2-1234\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"amos2-1234","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":77076,"date":"2020-07-08 10:59:04","modified":"2020-07-08 10:59:12","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1027,"height":637,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-300x186.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":186,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-768x476.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":476,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-1024x635.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":635,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","1536x1536-width":1027,"1536x1536-height":637,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","2048x2048-width":1027,"2048x2048-height":637,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","post_full_size-width":1027,"post_full_size-height":637,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-677x420.png","home_baner-width":677,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Not Three, But Four","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"1,2,3,4 - what are we being punished for?","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":77078,"id":77078,"title":"amos2-1234","filename":"amos2-1234.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/not-three-but-four\/amos2-1234\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"amos2-1234","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":77076,"date":"2020-07-08 10:59:04","modified":"2020-07-08 10:59:12","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1027,"height":637,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-300x186.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":186,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-768x476.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":476,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-1024x635.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":635,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","1536x1536-width":1027,"1536x1536-height":637,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","2048x2048-width":1027,"2048x2048-height":637,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234.png","post_full_size-width":1027,"post_full_size-height":637,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/amos2-1234-677x420.png","home_baner-width":677,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77079,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77076\/revisions\/77079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}