“For three transgressions, even four”
For three transgressions of Damascus, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they threshed Gilead with sledges of iron. (Amos 1:3 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A precise count of exactly three or four specific sins.
The cultural key
A modern reader may try to tally three or four particular offenses. The phrasing is a set idiom, not arithmetic. Hebrew poetry often uses an ascending 'x, even x+1' pattern (as in 'there are three things too wonderful for me, four that I do not understand,' Proverbs 30:18) to mean 'more than enough, one after another, the full measure.' So 'for three transgressions, even four' means the guilt of the nation has piled up past overflowing, sin upon sin until the limit is reached and judgment becomes irrevocable, 'I will not revoke My judgment.' Amos drives the formula like a drumbeat against nation after nation, Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and finally Israel itself, each time naming the crowning atrocity that tipped the scales. The number is not a literal count but a rhetorical way of saying the cup of iniquity is full.
Recovered meaning
'For three transgressions, even four' is a Hebrew idiom for a full, overflowing measure of guilt, not a literal count. It means sin has piled up past the limit, so God's judgment can no longer be held back.