Duping the Prophet: On ‭דסא‬ (Amos 7.8b) and Amos's Visions*

Abstract

The logic and imagery of Amos's third vision (Amos 7.7-9), which centers on the obscure word K , have been the subject of much debate. This essay advances a new interpretation of the third vision that presupposes that God, in both the third and fourth visions, prevents Amos from interceding on Israel's behalf (as Amos had done after the first and second visions) by having the prophet himself unwittingly mouth Israel's sentence. The third vision, like the fourth, depends on a pun that only a native northerner, and not a native southerner like Amos, would have sniffed out.