The “tent” (ʾohēl) of David is identical with the “booth” (sukkâ) of David mentioned in Amos 9:11, terms apparently in use
among those in the post-disaster period who entertained hope for the eventual
restoration of the native dynasty. (Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah
1-39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 19; New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 300)
Moreover, a phrase roughly
equivalent to ‘booth of David’, אחל דוד (‘tent of David’), is
used for Jerusalem in Isa. 16:5: ‘then a throne shall be established in
steadfast love in the tent of David (אחל דוד)’. Here the tent of
David indicates the location of the king’s throne, namely, Jerusalem, an
interpretation supported by Ps. 122:5: ‘For there (Jerusalem) the thrones for
judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David’. Further, using the
image of a booth in a field for a city finds a close parallel in a Sumerian
text. In the Lament for Ur, a garden
hut that has been knocked down or pulled up functions as a metaphor for Ur’s
destroyed temple, but in subsequent lines of the lament, this metaphorical
language is extended to include the city. Thus, Ningal, the patron goddess of
Ur, cries, ‘My faithful house … like a tent, a pulled-up harvest shed, like a
pulled-up harvest shed! Ur, my home filled with things, my (well-)filled house
and city that were pulled up, were verily pulled up’ (ll. 125–32). Hence, the
idea of representing Jerusalem as a booth (סכה)
in Amos 9:11 is neither unique nor unexpected. (Kenneth E. Pomykala,
“Jerusalem as the Fallen Booth of David in Amos 9:11,” in God’s Word for Our
World: Biblical Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries, ed. J. Harold
Ellens, 2 vols. [London: T&T Clark, 2004], 1:287)
Zion in its capacity as a cultic
centre has already been depicted in Isaiah as a tent (Isa. 33:20; cf. 54:2) and
more specifically as the ‘tent of David’ (Isa. 16:5). (Tchavdar S. Hadjiev, Joel and Amos: An Introduction and
Commentary [Tyndale Commentaries 25; London; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP
Academic, 2020], 191)
In the tent of David
refers to much more than the tent, that is, the house, the king
will live in. The metaphor of a tent refers to the kingdom of David,
a kingdom that in David’s time actually included Moab. If translators wish to
retain the vocabulary of sitting on a throne in a palace, they can do
so. Tent
of David could also be a symbolic reference to Jerusalem, the center of
Davidic rule, but no version consulted makes this explicit. For gnb tent
of David is a reference to “David’s descendants.” (Graham S.
Ogden and Jan Sterk, A Handbook on Isaiah,
2 vols. [United Bible Societies’ Handbooks [Reading, UK: United Bible
Societies, 2011], 1:475)