Amos 8:1 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. Behold a basket of summer fruit - "summer fruit;" Hebrew, Kaitz. In Amos 8:2, "end" is in the Hebrew Keetz. The similarity of sounds implies that, as the summer is the end of the year, and the time of the ripeness of fruits, so Israel is ripe for her last punishment, ending her national existence. As the fruit is plucked when ripe from the tree, so Israel from her land. The fruit-gathering, like our 'crop', was called from cutting; so also the word end is from the same root х qaatsats (H7112), cutting off].