Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, And turns the shadow of death into the morning, And makes the day dark with night; Who calls for the waters of the sea, And pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name,
The changing of day and night, and the sending of rain upon the earth are usually thought to be what is indicated by the balance of this verse; and certainly there is good reason for so construing it; but Keil was of the opinion that a reference to the deluge which came upon sinful men in the time of the Genesis flood is involved.  This may well be, for it would have been a most appropriate reminder in the context of Amos' prophecy of a similar doom upon Israel, and for exactly the same reasons, unbridled wickedness and rebellion against God. He wrote: