The Vision of the Basket of Summer Fruit. The account of the visions is now resumed. This time the prophet sees a basket of summer fruit (Amos 8:1), and Yahweh explains (Amos 8:2) that the summer fruit (kayiṣ?) symbolises the end (kçṣ?) of the people of Israel. Thus we have a play upon words (as in Jeremiah 1:11 f.). In that day (Amos 8:3) the songs in the palace (not temple) shall be turned into wailing. There shall be dead bodies everywhere, and these shall be cast away in silence without burial. This scene of the dead demands dead silence.
3. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings: lit. and the songs of the palace shall wail. Read with Hoffmann and others, shâ rô th for shî rô th, and the singing women of the palace shall wail. Translate, A multitude of carcases.