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1. Investigating Structure 37
should be taken to avoid selectivity in pointing to correspondences
between one part of a passage and another.
Attention may be drawn to the following repetitions in ch. 5:
•jan v. 7 'turn justice to wormwood'
v. 8 'turns deep darkness into morning' (cf. ~|Btf v. 8)
pan 'ishuf? vv. 7-8
"Ui> v. 5 (with the centre of the chiasmus)
v. 17 'I will pass through the midst of you'
K6u v. 1; cf. M&, see below; cf. D'pn, v. 2
D"O vv. 11, 17
-iKtf v. 3; cf. tv-iKtf v. 15
*pv vv. 6, 15
DS0n vv. 7, 15
mp vv. 8, 16
irp vv. 12, 16
-u»J vv. 10, 12, 15
•7'DtoQ V. 13, Cf.? VOD V. 8
an, nan vv. 13, 14
This is not the place to put forward an alternative theory about the
structure of this passage. I simply note that we cannot be satisfied with
an analysis which leaves so much of the data unaccounted for. A much
more wide-ranging and thorough investigation is needed.
Verses 10-12 is considered by de Waard to be a chiastic unit to
which v. 13 has been added secondarily. Thus we have: 1
a no justice in the gate v. 10
b oppressing the poor v. lla
b 1 oppressing the poor v. 12ba
a 1 c
no justice in the gate v. 12bp
This looks fine, but 'in the gate' occurs also in v. 15; 'hate' occurs in
bothv. 10 andv. 15, as well as in v. 21 (otherwise only 6.8 in Amos).
De Waard's solution is to put vv. 4-6 opposite vv. 14-15 and simply
to note the secondary relationship among vv. lOa, 12b and 15b 'in
the gate'. He does not draw attention to 'hate', nor to 'vineyards'
in vv. lib, 17a. We are entitled to ask about the lack of verbal
1. He adds: '. .. when one considers in detail the objects mentioned in this
structure a-b-c-b'-a', one gets the following chiastic figure: pnx-D'nn ~m (a-b') and
D'jvnu-Vi (b-a')'. This is an interesting observation, which could perhaps be confirmed
by a detailed study of chiasmus achieved by recognized word pairs.