Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.
Amos 7:1-17 consists of two parts: First (Amos 7:1-9), PROPHECIES ILLUSTRATED BY THREE SYMBOLS:
(1) A vision of grasshoppers, or young locusts, which devour the grass, but are removed at Amos' entreaty;
(2) Fire drying up even the deep, and withering part of the land, but removed at Amos' entreaty;
(3) A plumb-line to mark the buildings for destruction. (3) A plumb-line to mark the buildings for destruction.
Secondly (Amos 7:10-17), NARRATIVE OF AMAZlAH'S INTERRUPTION OF AMOS IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE FOREGOING PROPHECIES, AND PREDICTION OF HIS DOOM.
Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me; and, behold - the same formula prefaces the three visions in this chapter, and the fourth, in Amos 7:1.
He formed grasshoppers - rather, locusts in the caterpillar state х gobay (H1462), from a Hebrew root, gaabaah (H1362)]; Arabic, Jabaa, to creep forth; in the autumn the eggs are deposited in the earth; in the spring the young come forth from the eggs, which have been hatched by the heat (Maurer).
In the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth - namely, of grass, which comes up after the mowing. They do not in the East mow their grass and make hay of it, but cut it off the ground as they require it.
And, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings - the first-fruits of the mown grass, tyrannically exacted by the king from the people. 'The hay harvest was some time before the grain harvest, and the "latter growth," or the after-grass ( halaaqesh (H3954)), began to spring up at the time of the latter rain (malqowsh). It was at this critical season that Amos saw the locusts making an end of eating the grass of the land' - i:e., the green herb, which is for the sustenance of man as well as beast. The literal locusts, as in Joel, are probably symbols of human foes: thus the growth of grass after the king's mowings will mean the political revival of Israel under Jeroboam II. (2 Kings 14:25), after it had been mown down, as it were, by Hazael and Ben-hadad of Syria (2 Kings 13:3; 2 Kings 13:22). (Grotius.)