608. Cultivation of Figs

By: James M. Freeman

Narrator: Chris Genthree

Amos 7:14 • 1 min. read • grade level: 11

Amos 7:14¹⁴Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: (Amos 7:14). A gatherer of sycamore fruit.

This shows his humble position, since none but the poorest cultivate or use this fruit. Henderson, speaking of the word boles, “gatherer,” says: “The particular mode in which the ancients cultivated fig-trees the LXX appear to have had in their eye when they rendered it by κνίζων, a nipper or scratcher; for we are informed by Theophrastus that iron nails or prongs were employed to make incisions or scratches in the tree, that, by letting out some of the sap, the fruit might be ripened” (Commentary in loco). Gesenius sustains this rendering of the Septuagint, but Keil dissents. He says that nipping cannot be shown to be implied by the word boles, and further declares that the eating, and not the cultivation, of the fruit is what is meant.

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