A Basket of Summer Fruit

The book of Amos rages with disturbing images. Because of Israel’s harsh treatment of poor people, God’s judgment is coming with furious destruction. Toward the end of the book, just before describing a new round of horrors, God shows the prophet Amos a basket of summer fruit. Without explaining the fruit basket, the text jumps to God’s coming judgment. Here’s the passage:
 
This is what the LORD God showed me: a basket of summer fruit.

He said, “Amos, what do you see?”

I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”

Then the LORD said to me,

“The end has come upon my people Israel;

I will never again forgive them.

On that day, the people will wail the temple songs,”

says the LORD God;

“there will be many corpses,

thrown about everywhere.” (Amos 8:1-3 CEB)

 
Most English readers of this text are left confused. Why did God show Amos the summer fruit? How could that be terrifying? What on earth does it have to do with what follows?
 
The text actually makes perfect sense in Hebrew… This word is associated with the last crop to be picked during the agricultural calendar. In fact, one of the oldest inscriptions from Israel is a tenth-century BCE calendar that lists what farming activities take place during the year.
 
The last word in this inscription is what we have here: “summer fruit.” This word sounds similar to the Hebrew word for “end” that God uses to talk about Israel’s demise in this passage: This word evokes ideas of death not only here but also when it’s used to describe Noah’s flood (Gen 6:13) and the destruction of Jerusalem (Lam 4:18; Ezek 7:2-3).
 
So, although in English the words “summer fruit” and “end” look and sound nothing alike, in Amos the two are closely related. God shows Amos a basket of qayits as an ominous sign of Israel’s qets. English readers wonder what’s horrifying about a fruit basket, but Hebrew readers see the ominous potential in Amos’s vision. Together, qayits and qets make over one hundred appearances in the Bible.
 

--- Matthew Richard Schlimm, 70 Hebrew Words Every Christian Should Know. Abingdon Press.