A couple weeks ago, I watched the videos for Amos 4:7, and I noticed a small feature in the middle part of the verse, covered in the second video:
וְהִמְטַרְתִּי עַל־עִיר אֶחָת וְעַל־עִיר אַחַת לֹא אַמְטִיר
In the ESV, this is translated as "I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city." The word order between the Hebrew clauses, however, is inverted so that it's more like: "I would send rain on one city, and on another city I would send no rain." That the structure is flipt from one clause to the other illustrates these opposites.
As I continued on in transcribing verses, I noticed that this section of Amos exhibits epistrophe.
6 "I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.7 "I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; 8 so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.9 "I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.10 "I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.11 "I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.
Each of these sections ends with "'yet you did not return to me,' declares the LORD." I thought of three functions that the epistrophe has here. In its most basic function, it illustrates simply the people's persistence in not returning.
It also illustrates an escalation. After God's various actions, the response of not returning is the same, so in a way, this refrain of "'yet you did not return to me,' declares the LORD" acts as a measuring stick of all that God has done to get His people to return.
This epistrophe could even function as an example for the people. In the same way that God keeps coming back to this same phrase, the people ought to return to Him. It's as if He's demonstrating what to do even in the manner in which He describes how the people haven't done it.
