Who builds his upper chambers in the heavens/The LORD builds his home in the heavens. In Hebrew it is not clear what the LORD is building. Most scholars understand the meaning to be “room” or “rooms.” The poetic picture is that of building a home, and something equivalent would make a good translation in other languages.

And founds his vault upon the earth/and over the earth he puts the dome of the sky. Practically everybody agrees that it is a vault (also Smith-Goodspeed, Moffatt) or dome which is really meant here. Good News Translation translates the meaning clearly. (Compare also The Translator’s Old Testament: “and sets the sky as a dome over the earth.”) This is a useful model for many languages. However, there may be problems in others. People may have a different picture of how the earth and sky go together, and in some languages there may be no word for dome. One possibility for translation is something like “He makes the sky cover the earth.”

Who calls for/He calls for. The rest of verse 6 is the same as 5.8b and, if possible, should be translated in the same way. However, in 9.6 the meaning may be destruction and punishment rather than creation (Appendix, Section 3.9).

The LORD is his name/His name is the LORD! See 4.13.

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 .