The Curious Case of Amos 5:26-27
A Difficult Text and its Reception History
Amos 5:26-27 stands among the most complex passages in biblical literature, in terms of transmission, translation, and reception history. When later readers encountered this prophetic declaration with its obscure references to “Sikkuth” and “Kiyyun,” they faced genuine challenges. These terms, now understood as references to ancient Near Eastern deities, posed difficulties for translators and interpreters who approached the text with little or no access to its historical background and with theological perspectives very different from those of eighth-century BCE Israel. The resulting translations and interpretations in the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, Targums, and Rabbinic tradition demonstrate not just literary transformation but theological adaptation.
The book of Amos as a whole, perhaps because of these literary difficulties, appears to have stimulated exceptional interpretive creativity across these multiple traditions. Interpreters and translators throughout history have somehow found in Amos’ words the inspiration to adapt the text to address their contemporary concerns while attempting to maintain a connection to tradition. The interpretive freedom evident in how communities engaged with Amos, and especially Amos 5:26-27, demonstrates a dynamic, and often unexpected, relationship between text and community in the ancient world. To summarize it succinctly, the text of Amos, and how it was read over time, was messy.
The Masoretic reading of Amos 5:26-27 reflects a particular form of interpretive intervention that may have significantly shaped how other readers understood the text. The vocalization pattern appears to have deliberately altered these names to echo the Hebrew word for “abomination,” transforming references to foreign gods into pejorative terms. Since Hebrew has no vowels, this modification would have allowed the written letters to remain intact while undermining its original references.1 If this analysis is correct, it would represent rare method of textual reinterpretation that preserves the written form while altering the oral tradition, allowing a potentially problematic passage to be recited in a way that aligned with later theological polemics.
You did not bring me sacrifices and grain offerings during the 40 years you spent in the wilderness, family of Israel. You will pick up your images of Sikkuth, your king, and Kiyyun, your star god, which you made for yourselves, and I will drive you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord. He is called the God of Heaven’s Armies. (Amos 5:25-27)
Did you bring me offerings and sacrifices in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? And you took along the tent of Molech and the star of your god Kaiwan, the images of them that you made for yourselves. So I will resettle you beyond Damascus,” says the Lord; the Almighty God is his name. (LXX Amos 5:25-27)2
The Septuagint translation represents another significant interpretive approach to this challenging passage, one that may have directly influenced subsequent translations including the Latin Vulgate and Peshitta. When confronted with the mysterious term “Sikkuth,” the Septuagint translator appears to have interpreted it not as a proper name but based on the similar (but not identical) Hebrew word which is a common noun meaning “tent” or “booth.”3. The choice to render the term as “tent” rather than a deity name could also reflect theological considerations, as it effectively neutralizes potential polytheistic references. This translation choice ended up creating a new, distinct tradition that persisted for centuries.
Ephraim detached itself from Judah, and all the renegades were delivered up to the sword; but those who remained steadfast escaped to the land of the north ... As he said: I will deport the tent of your King and the Kiyyun of your images away from my tent to Damascus ... The books of the law are the Sukkat ... (4Q266, Damascus Document)4
The community behind the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrates perhaps the most creative interpretive engagement with this passage in the Damascus Document, where Amos 5:26-27 undergoes a significant transformation. Rather than seeing the passage as a threat of punishment through exile, the Qumran interpreters appear to have recast it as a promise of divine protection and restoration. This dramatic reinterpretation likely stems from their distance - both chronological and cultural - from the original context of Amos. Probably unaware of the ancient Near Eastern background involving Mesopotamian deities, these interpreters approached the passage with an extraordinary midrashic freedom. They also read the deity name “Sikkuth” as “tent” and connected it with the promise in Amos 9:11 about raising up “David's fallen tent.” This interpretive strategy radically transformed a prophecy of judgment into one of hope, buttressing the community’s self-understanding as a faithful remnant.5 This offers potential insight into the broader interpretive processes at work … while the Damascus Document represents the most explicit example of such creative reinterpretation, similar processes that created a new context for the text may well have been operating in other communities, although perhaps with more subtlety.
But God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel? But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship, but I will deport you beyond Babylon.’ Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he had seen. (Acts 7:42-44)6
The quotation of Amos 5:26-27 in Acts 7:42-44 presents what appears to be a kind of middle ground in the interpretive spectrum of this passage. The text of Acts follows the Septuagint’s rendering of “Sikkuth” as “tent” yet it simultaneously demonstrates its own interpretive freedom by changing the destination of exile from “beyond Damascus” to “beyond Babylon.” This change likely reflects a desire to make the source text more relevant to its audience. The Babylonian exile had become a narrative center point in Jewish literature by the first century CE, and replacing “Babylon” with “Damascus,” served the rhetorical purpose within Stephen's speech, creating a stronger thematic connection.7 The dual nature of this quotation -connected to the Septuagint tradition while introducing its own significant modification - again illuminates how a developing community could simultaneously operate within established translation traditions and adapt texts to address their particular concerns.
Did you bring holy sacrifices and offerings before me for forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You carried Sikkut your statue and Kiyyun your idol, your astral images which you had made for yourselves. So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord; the God of hosts is his name. (Targum Jonathan Amos 5:25-27)8
The Aramaic Targum tradition offers another approach to this passage, reflecting the attitude of the Rabbinic period. In this rendering of Amos 5:26-27, the translator emphasizes the material nature of the objects being carried - “your statue”, “your idol”, “your images” - while notably de-emphasizing any deifying language found in other traditions.9 This shift likely reflects an important theological development: by the time of the Targum’s composition, the idea that foreign deities might have any genuine existence had become practically intolerable. Where earlier traditions might have tacitly allowed for the existence of foreign gods while rejecting their worship, the Targum’s approach reduces these entities entirely to their material representations. The Targum does preserve a reference to “astral images,” but frames them clearly as human-made artifacts rather than representing actual heavenly powers as it would have been understood in Amos’ own time.
The textual and interpretive journey of Amos 5:26-27 is a key example of the challenges presented by difficult biblical passages. What may seem to be a straightforward text becomes, upon closer examination, a tangle of ambiguities, cultural references, and theological problems that ancient interpreters struggled to pick up on and unravel. The results - sometimes conflicting, often creative - reveal quite a bit about how communities adapt when they are forced to messily engage with what they inherit, particularly when the background behind that inheritance has faded away.
Toorn, K. van der Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (p. 478) Eerdmans, 1999
Cooley, Jeffrey L. Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East: The Reflexes of Celestial Science in Ancient Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Israelite Narrative (pp. 237-238) Eisenbrauns, 2013
Eidevall, Göran “Shifting Emphasis: Examples of Early and Modern Reception of the Book of Amos” in Townsend, John T., and Isaac Kalimi (eds.) Bridging between Sister Religions: Studies of Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of Prof. John T. Townsend (pp. 31-41) Brill, 2016
Pervo, Richard I., and Harold W. Attridge Acts: A Commentary (p. 189) Fortress Press, 2009
Cathcart, Kevin J., and Robert P. Gordon The Targum of the Minor Prophets (p. 87) Glazier, 1989