Book of Amos Trivia
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47 free Book of Amos trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Amos was a herdsman from the hills of Judah who walked north to tell a rich, confident kingdom that its feasts, shrines and fine houses counted for nothing while the poor were sold for the price of a pair of sandals. His short book gave the Bible some of its most quoted lines on justice, and a priest at the royal shrine tried to run him out of the country for saying them. These 47 questions follow the book from its opening thunder against the neighbouring nations to its closing promise of restored vineyards: the crimes charged to each kingdom, the kings who date the prophecy, the pampered women of Samaria, the day of the LORD, the five visions and the confrontation at Bethel. A few step outside the text to the archaeology of Samaria, the Septuagint, the New Testament writers who quoted Amos and the civil rights movement that made one verse famous. It suits a Bible study, a church quiz night or anyone preparing an Old Testament lesson: play on your phone with instant explanations, or print it and read it aloud. Every answer is cited to the chapter text or to a reference page.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Whose Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery carries Amos 5:24, 'until justice rolls down like waters'?
Maya Lin
Maya Lin drew on King's use of the verse in his 'I Have a Dream' speech, so water flows over a black granite table carved with the names of the movement's martyrs.
Q 02Besides herding, which crop did Amos say he gathered when he denied being a prophet's son at Bethel?
Sycamore figs
Sycamore figs made Amos a working farmer, not a prophet by birth or guild: the LORD, he said, took him 'as I followed the flock' and sent him to Israel.
Q 03Amos 1:1 dates his prophecy to 'two years before' which event, traced in an excavation layer in Jerusalem?
An earthquake
An earthquake: long after, Zechariah 14:5 still told people to flee 'like as ye fled from before the earthquake', so deep was the memory it left.
Q 04Amos 8:9's sun going down at noon may echo a 763 BC eclipse recorded by which empire?
Assyria
Assyria's eponym list notes an eclipse of the sun in the year of Bur-Sagale, dated to 15 June 763 BC, a fixed point that helps date the ancient Near East.
Q 05Beds of which luxury material, later excavated by the hundred at Samaria's palace, did Amos denounce?
Ivory
Ivory inlays in Phoenician style turned up at Samaria, recalling the 'ivory house' that 1 Kings says Ahab made, and Amos warned that 'the houses of ivory shall perish'.
Q 06Which prophet was 'the son of Amoz', a name spelled differently from Amos in Hebrew?
Isaiah
Isaiah: Talmudic tradition holds that a prophet whose father is named was a prophet's son, so Amoz would have prophesied too, yet Amos insisted he was no prophet's son.
Q 07A man in Amos 5:19 escapes a lion and a bear, leans on a wall at home, and is bitten by what?
A serpent
A serpent finishes the chain of escapes that fail, Amos's picture of a 'day of the LORD' that no one will slip away from.
Q 08Which insects did Amos see the Lord form 'after the king's mowings' in the first of his five visions?
Locusts
Locusts (the KJV's 'grasshoppers') came at the late growth, the crop left after the king had taken his share, so the threat was total famine. Amos pleaded for Jacob and the LORD relented.
Q 09Which builder's tool did Amos see the Lord holding as he stood upon a wall in the third vision?
A plumb line
A plumb line tests whether a wall stands true, and the LORD told Amos he would set one 'in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more'.
Q 10Under which king, whose 41-year reign was the northern kingdom's most prosperous, did Amos preach?
Jeroboam II
Jeroboam II pushed Israel's borders back to 'the entering of Hamath', a boom built on olive oil and wine that Amos saw breeding arrogance and the oppression of the poor.
Q 11Which 52-year king of Judah, struck with leprosy for burning incense in the Temple, is named in Amos 1:1?
Uzziah
Uzziah, a leper to the day he died, lived apart in a separate house, while his son Jotham ran the palace and judged the people for him.
Q 12Which prophet's book shares Amos 1:2's line that the LORD will roar 'and utter his voice from Jerusalem'?
Joel
Joel 3:16 has the line almost word for word, but there the roar ends with the LORD as 'the hope of his people', not their judge.
Q 13Amos is widely counted as the first prophet to do what with the messages he received?
Write them down
Write them down: tradition makes Amos the first prophet to do so, and prophets after him followed his example in an almost unbroken line of books.
Q 21What did Amos say 'the day of the LORD' would bring those who longed for it?
Darkness
Darkness, not light, is the twist: many expected a day when God would beat Israel's enemies, and Amos made Israel the enemy.
Q 22Amos 3:3 opens a run of cause-and-effect riddles: can two walk together unless they have what?
Agreed
Agreed is the KJV's word, and the chain of riddles it starts ends at 3:8, 'the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?', Amos's reason he cannot keep quiet.
Q 23Amos 1:1 says Amos was among the herdmen of which town?
Tekoa
Tekoa: a town of that name is where Joab found the 'wise woman' who, posing as a grieving widow, talked King David into bringing Absalom home.
Q 14Which image did the northern kingdom's first king set up at Bethel, the shrine Amos denounced, to rival Jerusalem?
A golden calf
A golden calf, with a twin at Dan, and the books of Kings go on to fault one king of Israel after another for keeping those calves.
Q 15Which king of Aram, whose 'house' Amos said fire would devour, seized Israel's land east of the Jordan?
Hazael
Hazael was the man Elisha wept over, foreseeing his cruelty to Israel, and Amos's 'threshing instruments of iron' probably recall his wars in Gilead.
Q 16Which Philistine city opens Amos's second oracle, accused of handing 'the whole captivity' over to Edom?
Gaza
Gaza's wall gets the fire, and the oracle goes on to cut off Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron, so that 'the remnant of the Philistines shall perish'.
Q 17To which place did Amos say the people of Aram would go captive, the land Amos 9 says they came from?
Kir
Kir is where 2 Kings says Tiglath-Pileser carried off the people of Damascus after taking the city, fulfilling Amos's warning.
Q 18From where did Amos 9:7 say the LORD brought the Philistines, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt?
Caphtor
Caphtor is traditionally identified with Crete, and Amos's point is that the Exodus gave Israel no monopoly on divine rescue.
Q 19Amos called the pampered women of Samaria the 'kine', or cows, of which region famed for rich pasture?
Bashan
Bashan was cattle country east of the Jordan, home of Psalm 22's 'strong bulls', and Amos's cows crush the needy while telling their husbands, 'Bring, and let us drink.'
Q 20Which constellation does Amos 5:8 pair with 'the seven stars' as the work of the God Israel must seek?
Orion
Orion's maker, the same verse goes on, also 'calleth for the waters of the sea' and pours them out over the land.
Q 24Which warning closes Amos 4's list of famine, drought, blight and pestilence that Israel ignored?
Prepare to meet thy God
Prepare to meet thy God follows disaster after disaster that failed to bring Israel back, so the next encounter would be with God himself.
Q 25What euphemism does Amos 4:6 use for the famine the LORD sent to 'all your cities'?
Cleanness of teeth
Cleanness of teeth means nothing to chew: it is the first of the disasters Amos lists in chapter 4, each ending 'yet have ye not returned unto me'.
Q 26For what did Amos 2:6 say Israel sold the poor, the first charge in the oracle against Israel itself?
A pair of shoes
A pair of shoes, sandals in modern versions: whether a debt that trivial or a bribe that cheap, the poor were sold for a trifle, a charge Amos repeats in 8:6.
Q 27Which young men did Amos 2 say Israel gave wine to drink, while ordering the prophets, 'Prophesy not'?
Nazirites
Nazirites, like Samson from birth, were sworn off wine, so pressing it on them made them break the very vow God had raised them up to keep.
Q 28Amos 6 opens with a woe on those 'at ease' where, alongside those who 'trust in the mountain of Samaria'?
Zion
Zion is included so that Judah's elite are condemned with Israel's: both sets of grandees are 'named chief of the nations' and equally complacent.
Q 29Who quoted Amos's promise to raise 'the tabernacle of David' at the Acts 15 council on admitting Gentiles?
James
James, the brother of Jesus, quoted Amos 9:11–12 mostly from the Greek version, then proposed what became known as the Apostolic Decree.
Q 30Which speaker in Acts 7 quotes Amos's 'tabernacle of Moloch' charge, moving the exile to 'beyond Babylon'?
Stephen
Stephen's speech before the Sanhedrin follows the Greek Amos, with 'the star of your god Remphan' for the Hebrew Chiun, the speech that made him the church's first martyr.