Fish-hooks

Fish-hooks are mentioned in several prophetic passages where they appear as instruments of judgment and captivity. Amos 4:2 contains a striking oracle against the wealthy women of Samaria: "The days are coming when they will take you away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks" — a vivid image of exile as being dragged helplessly away like a caught fish. Similarly, Ezekiel 29:4 applies the image to Pharaoh and Egypt, whom God will hook in the jaw and drag out of the Nile.

The image draws on the common ancient practice of leading captives with hooks through the nose or jaw, documented in Assyrian reliefs and referenced in Isaiah 37:29 (God putting his hook in Sennacherib's nose and turning him back). Job 41:1-2 uses fish-hooks in describing the impossibility of catching Leviathan — the chaos creature that only God can subdue. Jeremiah 16:16 uses fishermen as an image of God's agents sent to bring scattered Israel back, though in a context of judgment rather than restoration.