He showed me: behold, the LORD was standing/I had another vision from the LORD. In it I saw him standing. On the charge of speaker and the fact that this is another vision, see 7.4. Here the Hebrew text is shorter than the other visions. Like in the other visions the LORD is the one who showed Amos, and translations have to say so in most languages (so rightly Moffatt, New American Bible, Good News Translation). This will probably mean changing to a pronoun in what follows: I saw him standing; “The LORD Eternal showed me this, showed me himself standing…” (Moffatt); “Then the Lord GOD showed me this: he was standing…” (New American Bible).

Behold. See 7.1.

Beside a wall built with a plumb line (Hebrew: a wall of a plumb line), with a plumb line in his hand/beside a wall that had been built with the use of a plumb line, and there was a plumb line in his hand. The LORD is seen as standing on or by a wall which in Hebrew is called “a wall of a plumb line” (if plumb line is itself correct—see below). Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation as well as The Translator’s Old Testament all try to make sense out of this by saying something like a wall … built with the use of a plumb line. On the other hand it may be better to follow most modern English translations (Smith-Goodspeed, Moffatt, New American Bible, New English Bible) as well as many commentators who have something like “standing by a wall with a plumb line in his hand.” They consider “of a plumb line” to be the result of a copying mistake.

Plumb line. The translation is not fully certain but no other suggestion is as good. A plumb line is a cord with a lead weight used by builders to be sure that walls are straight up and down. In many cultures the only similar tool is the water-level, and such Pidgin English words as “wataplan” have often become part of the vocabulary. This measures the horizontal rather than the vertical, but might serve the purpose for the picture in this vision. A better solution would sometimes be to use a short descriptive phrase. In addition, some kind of illustration to show the shape and use of the tool might be helpful.

A possible way of translating into some languages would be “The LORD caused me to see again in a vision. I saw him on the top of a wall stretching out the cord to see whether the wall was straight.”

Quoted with permission from de Waard, Jan & Smalley, William A. A Handbook on Amos. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1979. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .