Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
Parallel Translations
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Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
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Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
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Hear ye this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:
Cross-references (16)
Passages linked to Amos 5:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ezekiel 19:1 “Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,
- Jeremiah 7:29 Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
- Jeremiah 9:10 I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.
- Jeremiah 9:17 Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come.
- Jeremiah 9:20 Yet hear Yahweh’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing. Everyone teach her neighbor a lamentation.
- Ezekiel 19:14 Fire has gone out of its branches. It has devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong branch to be a scepter to rule.’ This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”
- Ezekiel 26:17 They will take up a lamentation over you, and tell you, “How you are destroyed, who were inhabited by seafaring men, the renowned city, who was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all who lived there!”
- Ezekiel 27:2 “You, son of man, take up a lamentation over Tyre;
- Ezekiel 27:27-32 Your riches, your wares, your merchandise, your mariners, your pilots, your repairers of ship seams, the dealers in your merchandise, and all your men of war, who are in you, with all your company which is among you, will fall into the heart of the seas in the day of your ruin. At the sound of the cry of your pilots, the pasture lands will shake. All who handle the oars, the mariners and all the pilots of the sea, will come down from their ships. They will stand on the land, and will cause their voice to be heard over you, and will cry bitterly. They will cast up dust on their heads. They will wallow in the ashes. They will make themselves bald for you, and clothe themselves with sackcloth. They will weep for you in bitterness of soul, with bitter mourning. In their wailing they will take up a lamentation for you, and lament over you, saying, ‘Who is there like Tyre, like her who is brought to silence in the middle of the sea?’
- Ezekiel 28:12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and tell him, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “You were the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
- Ezekiel 32:2 ‘Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, “You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas. You broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.”
- Ezekiel 32:16 “ ‘ “This is the lamentation with which they will lament. The daughters of the nations will lament with this. They will lament with it over Egypt, and over all her multitude,” says the Lord Yahweh.’ ”
- Amos 3:1 Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying:
- Amos 4:1 Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”
- Amos 5:16 Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways; and they will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.
- Micah 2:4 In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Some render the verse thus, “Hear ye this word,…
Some render the verse thus, “Hear ye this word, because upon you, or for you, I raise a lamentation:” but we shall hereafter speak more at large as to the proper rendering. Let us see what the subject is. The Prophet here denounces on the Israelites the punishment they had deserved; and yet they did not think that it was nigh; and they ferociously despised, I have no doubt, the denunciation itself, because no chance had as yet taken place, which might have pointed out such a destruction. Hence the Prophet and his threatenings were both despised.
He however threatens them here in severe terms with the judgment of God, which they feared not: and this is the reason why he says, Hear ye. It was not, indeed, without reason that he thus began and intimated that they greatly flattered themselves, nay, that they stopped their ears against wholesome counsels: the admonition would have been otherwise superfluous. The Prophet then indirectly reproves that supine indifference in which the Israelites indulged themselves.
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But with regard to the words, some, as I have before mentioned, refer this lamentation to Amos himself, as though he had said, that he lamented the state of the people, finding that they were so stupid, and did not perceive how dreadful the wrath of God is. Since, then, they thus flattered themselves in their sins, those interpreters think that the Prophet here assumes the character of a mourner for that irreclaimable people. Hear, he says, this word even because I lament over you. For the more refractory the people were, the more touched with grief the prophet no doubt was: for he saw how horrible the judgment of God was, which was nigh them, on account of their stubbornness. No wonder then that the Prophet says here, that he undertook or raised lamentation for the people; and this mode of speaking is common in Scripture.
But yet I rather think that another sense is more suitable to this place, which becomes evident by putting in an exegetic particle, Hear ye then this word which I raise upon you, even a lamentation, etc. The word משא, mesha, rendered burden, is derived from the verb נשא, nusha, which means to raise up: and there is a striking allusion to the subject treated of here. For the Prophet does not here simply teach the people, nor comfort them, nor does he only warn them, but he denounces on them the last punishment. We hence see the import of the expression, to raise up a word; it was the same as though he said, “I lay on you this prophecy:” for a burden is laid on the shoulders of men when God’s wrath is denounced.
It afterwards follows, Even a lamentation, O house of Israel; which means, “I raise upon you a word, which will constrain you to mourn and lament: though now ye are so refractory against God, that ye spurn all warnings, and reject all threatening; yet this word shall at last prove mournful to you.” This seems to be the genuine sense of the Prophet: in the first place, he reproves the stupidity of the people of Israel, by demanding a hearing; then he reproves their contempt of God in despising all threatenings; and he shows also that this prophecy would prove mournful to them for having so long trifled with God, “The lament of the house of Israel shall be this word, which I now raise up upon you.” it follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Amo 5:1 Hear ye this word which I take…
Amo 5:1 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, [even] a lamentation, O house of Israel.
Ver. 1. Hear ye this word] A new sermon, as appeareth by this new O yes; not unlike that of St Paul, Act 13:16, "Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience": or rather, that of Diogenes, who cried out at Athens, Aκουσατε ανδρες, Hear, O ye men. And when as (thereupon) a great sort of people resorted to him, expecting some great matter, he looked about him, and said, ανδρας εκαλεσα, ου καθαρματα, I called men, and not slaves. They were no better surely that our prophet had to deal with; "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers," Isa 1:4, children that were corrupters; they had forsaken the Lord, provoked the Holy One of Israel, they had increased revolt. Hence this onerosa prophetia, this word, this weighty word, this burdensome prophecy.
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Which I take up against you] Heb. lift up, being scarce able to stand under the burden of it, גשׁא, from this משׁא, onus. burden. {See Trapp on "Mal 1:1"} And it is against you, not for you; but that is your own fault; for "do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?" Mic 2:7. Excellently Austin, Adversarius est nobis quandiu sumus et ipsi nobis. The word of God is adversary to none but such as are adversaries to themselves; neither doth it condemn any but those that shall be assuredly condemned by the Lord except they repent. But we have in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, saith the apostle, 2Co 10:6, and if any man will hurt God’s faithful witnesses, for discharging their duties, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed, Rev 11:5, for Elisha had his sword as well as Jehu and Hazael, 1Ki 19:17. And when Elisha unsheatheth and brandisheth his sword, it is a fair warning that the sword of Jehu and Hazael are at hand, See Hos 6:5 Jer 1:18.
Even a lamentation] Heb. a very bitter lamentation, Eze 19:14, like those of Jeremiah for Judah, or of the mourners in Jerusalem, Eze 9:4, or of Christ weeping over that city, Luk 19:41-42. Or of Paul bewailing his wretched countrymen, Rom 9:3; Rom 10:1: or of the two witnesses clothed in sackcloth, Rev 11:3, the habit of mourners: or of Athanasius, who by his tears (as by the bleeding of a chaste vine) sought to cure the leprosy, and prevent the misery of that tainted age. Heu, heu, Domine Deus, Alas alas, Oh God, God, was the cry of the ancient Christians. Flete nefas magnum, nam toto flebitis orbe (Cardan.). Their books are like that in Ezekiel, written on both sides, and there was written therein, "lamentations, and mourning, and woe," Eze 2:10. This of Amos was a sad song, a doleful ditty, a lamentable prophecy of Israel’s utter destruction, as it followeth in the second verse, where (prophet-like) he speaketh of it as already done, notwithstanding their present prosperity and tranquillity. And have not England’s turtledoves groaned out for a great while the sad and lamentable tunes of woe and misery to this sinful nation; and plainly foretold what we have felt already, and have yet cause enough to fear. Ah! great be the plagues that hang over England (said Mr Philpot, martyr, long since). Happy shall that person be whom the Lord shall take out of this world, not to see them, &c. And the like said Rogers, our proto-martyr, Bradford, Ridley, Lever, &c., besides the concurrent predictions of God’s faithful servants lately, whose hearts and tongues he hath so guided, as that they all, as one man, have denounced heavy judgments, and taken up loud lamentations against us. Now, as before great storms cocks crow loud and thick: so is it here; and so it should be, Exo 32:31-32 Jer 18:20 Joe 2:17; else God will be displeased, Eze 13:5; Eze 22:30-31.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain This preface you have in the same words Amo…
This preface you have in the same words Amo 3:1, and in part also Amo 4:1; to which I now add, that the person here speaking may refer to the prophet and to the Lord who sent him, both speak this word.
A lamentation; which is very sad and mournful to all concerned in it, woeful news to the kingdom of the ten tribes.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain This chapter begins, as those two next foregoing began,…
This chapter begins, as those two next foregoing began, with, Hear this word. Where God has a mouth to speak we must have an ear to hear; it is our duty, it is our interest, yet so stupid are most men that they need to be again and again called upon to hear the word of the Lord, to give audience, to give attention. Hear this word. this convincing awakening word must be heard and heeded, as well as words of comfort and peace; the word that is taken up against us, as well as that which makes for us; for, whether we hear or forbear, the word of God shall take effect, and not a tittle of it shall fall to the ground. It is the word which I take up - not the prophet only, but the God that sent him. It is the word that the Lord has spoken, Amo 3:1. The word to be heard is a lamentation, a lamentable account of the present calamitous state of the kingdom of Israel, and a lamentable prediction of its utter destruction. Their condition is sad: The virgin of Israel has fallen (Amo 5:2), has come down from what she was; that state, though not pure and chaste as a virgin, yet was beautiful and gay, and had its charms; she looked high herself, and was courted by many as a virgin; but she has fallen into contempt and poverty, and is universally slighted. Nay, and their condition is helpless: She shall no more rise, shall never recover her former dignity again. God had lately begun to cut Israel short (Kg2 10:32), and, because they repented not, it was not long before he cut Israel down. 1. Their princes, that should have helped them up, were disabled: She is forsaken upon her land. Not only those she was in alliance with abroad failed her, but her friends at home deserted her; she would not have been carried captive into a strange land if she had not first been forsaken upon her own land and thrown to the ground there, and all her true interests abandoned by those that should have had them at heart. There is none to raise her up, none that can do it, not that cares to lend her a hand. 2. Their people, that should have helped them up, were diminished, Amo 5:3. "The city that had a militia, 1000 strong, and, in the beginning of the war, had furnished out 1000 effective men, able-bodied and well-armed, when they come to review their troops after the battle, shall find but 100 left; and, in proportion, the city that sent out 100 shall have but ten come back, so great a slaughter shall be made, and so few left to the house of Israel for the public service and safety." Scarcely one in ten shall escape of the hands that should relieve this abject, this dejected, nation. Note, The lessening of the numbers of God's spiritual Israel, by death or desertion, is just a matter for lamentation; for by whom shall Jacob arise, by whom shall the decays of piety be repaired, when he is thus made small?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Hear ye the word which I take up against…
Hear ye the word which I take up against you,.... And which was not his own word, but the word of the Lord; and which he took up, by his direction as a heavy burden as some prophecies are called, and this was; and which, though against them, a reproof for their sins, and denunciation of punishment for them, yet was to be heard; for every word of God is pure, and to be hearkened to, whether for us or against us; since the whole is profitable, either for doctrine and instruction in righteousness, or for reproof and correction. It may be rendered, "which I take up concerning you", or "over you" (z):
even a lamentation, O house of Israel; a mournful ditty, an elegiac song over the house of Israel, now expiring, and as it were dead. This word was like Ezekiel's roll, in which were written "lamentation, and mourning, and woe", Eze 2:10; full of mournful matter, misery, and distress, as follows:
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(z) "de vobis", Tigurine version, Mercerus, Piscator, Cocceius; "super vos", Pagninus, Montanus; "pro vobis", Vatablus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The deplorable condition of Israel, ver. 1-3. An exhortation…
The deplorable condition of Israel, ver. 1-3. An exhortation to seek God, ver. 4-15. Judgments denounced, ver. 16-20. Notwithstanding their outward services, ver. 21-27.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain This chapter opens with a tender and pathetic lamentation,…
CHAPTER V
This chapter opens with a tender and pathetic lamentation, in
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the style of a funeral song, over the house of Israel, 1, 2.
The prophet then glances at the awful threatening denounced
against them, 3;
earnestly exhorting them to renounce their idols, and seek
Jehovah, of whom he gives a very magnificent description, 4-9.
He then reproves their injustice and oppression with great
warmth and indignation; exhorts them again to repentance; and
enforces his exhortation with the most awful threatenings,
delivered with great majesty and authority, and in images full
of beauty and grandeur, 10-24.
The chapter concludes with observing that their idolatry was
of long standing, that they increased the national guilt, by
adding to the sins of their fathers; and that their punishment,
therefore, should be great in proportion, 25-27.
Formerly numbers of them were brought captive to Damascus, 2Kg 10:32-33;
but now they must go beyond it to Assyria, 2Kg 15:29; 2Kg 17:6.
NOTES ON CHAP. V
Verse 1. Hear ye this word] Attend to this doleful song which I make for the house of Israel.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Amo 5:1-3. Hear ye, &c. — It is justly…
Amo 5:1-3. Hear ye, &c. — It is justly observed by Grotius, that this verse would be translated more according to the Hebrew thus; Hear ye this word, even a lamentation, which I take up over you — It alludes to the lamentations made at funerals: so here the prophet bemoans the state of the kingdom of Israel as dead. The virgin of Israel — Such she was when first espoused to God, a chaste virgin to a husband: she was then peculiarly beloved and delighted in, and was under the peculiar protection and care of her heavenly Lord; but she is now fallen from her glory and felicity, and for her idolatries and other sins delivered up to the will of her enemies. She shall no more rise — That is, says Grotius, non iterum surget; she shall not rise again, namely, if she so goes on in the wicked way in which she now walks: for it was always understood in God’s threatenings against the Jewish people, that if they turned to him in true repentance they might, by that means, avert the judgments threatened. And there are repeated promises of the restoration of Israel as well as Judah; but these were all made on the condition of their repentance and reformation, which as they never performed in general, so they have not been restored in general, as the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin were. She is forsaken upon her land — She is abandoned of all, and there is none to assist her to rise up again: like an infant that is fallen upon the ground and hath none to take it up; or, broken to pieces upon her own land; and so left, as a broken vessel. The city that went out by a thousand, &c. — A city which was able to send out a thousand men fit for war, shall have but a hundred of them left. And so it shall be in proportion for any less number; only one in ten of them shall escape the sword and other chances of war.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain In order to impress Israel the more, Amos begins…
In order to impress Israel the more, Amos begins this his third appeal by a “dirge” over its destruction, mourning over those who were full of joy, and thought themselves safe and enviable. As if a living man, in the midst of his pride and luxury and buoyant recklessness of heart, could see his own funeral procession, and hear, as it were, over himself the “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” It would give solemn thoughts, even though he should impatiently put them from him. So must it to Israel, when after the tide of victories of Jeroboam II, Amos said, “Hear this word which I am lifting up,” as a heavy weight, to cast it down “against” or “upon you,” a funeral “dirge,” O house of Israel. Human greatness is so unstable, human strength so fleeting, that the prophet of decay finds a response in man’s own conscience, however he may silence or resent it. He would not resent it, unless he felt its force.
Dionysius: “Amos, an Israelite, mourneth over Israel, as Samuel did over Saul 1Sa 15:35, or as Isaiah says, “I will weep bitterly; labor not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people” Isa 22:4; images of Him who wept over Jerusalem.” “So are they bewailed, who know not why they are bewailed, the more miserable, because they know not their own misery.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Lamentation. Such canticles were usual, Isaias xiv. --- Israel.…
Lamentation. Such canticles were usual, Isaias xiv. --- Israel. It no longer formed a separate kingdom. (Calmet) --- When the people fear no evil, God laments for them. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Amos 5
Amos 5
3. Lament for Israel. The only Safety is in seeking the Lord. Woe to the Fools who desire the Day of the Lord
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1 Hear this word,
Which I raise over you as a lamentation,1O house of Israel.
2 Fallen is the virgin2Israel, she does not rise again,
She is stretched out upon her soil, no one raises her up.
3 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah,
The city which goes out by a thousand3
Shall retain a hundred,
And that which goes out by a hundred
Shall retain ten, for the house of Israel.
4 For thus saith Jehovah to the house of Israel,
Seek ye me, and ye shall live.4
5 And seek not Bethel,
And go not to Gilgal,
And pass not over to Beersheba.
For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,5
And Bethel shall come to naught.
6 Seek ye Jehovah, and ye shall live,
Lest he break forth like fire upon the house of Joseph,
And it devour,6 and there be none to quench it for Bethel.
7 They who turn justice into wormwood,
And cast righteousness down to the earth!
8 He who makes the Seven Stars7and Orion,
And turns the shadow of death into morning,
And darkens day into night;
Who calls to the waters of the sea,
And pours them over the face of the earth,
Jehovah is his name!
9 Who makes desolation to flash8 upon the strong,
And desolation comes upon the fortress.
10 They hate the reprover9 in the gate,
And him that speaketh uprightly they abhor.
11 Therefore, because ye trample10upon the poor,
And take from him a gift of wheat;
Houses of hewn stone ye have built
But ye shall not dwell in them,
Pleasant vineyards ye have planted,
But ye shall not drink their wine.
12 For I know that many are your transgressions,
And your sins are great,
Ye who oppress11 the righteous,
Who take a bribe,
And they push aside the poor in the gate from their right.
13 Therefore, the prudent at this time is silent,
For it is an evil time.
14 Seek good and not evil that ye may live,
And that so Jehovah, God of hosts, may be with you, as ye say.
15 Hate evil and love good,
And set up justice in the gate;
Perhaps Jehovah, God of hosts, will favor the remnant of Joseph.
16 Therefore thus saith Jehovah, God of hosts, the Lord,
In all streets wailing!
And in all the highways shall men say, Alas, alas,
And they call12 the husbandman to mourning,
And lamentation to those skilled in lamenting.
17 And in all vineyards shall be lamentation,
For I will pass through the midst of thee, saith Jehovah.
18 Woe to those who desire the day of Jehovah!
What good is it to you?
The day of Jehovah! it is darkness and not light.
19 As if a man fleeth before the lion,
And the bear meets him;
Or he goes into the house
And rests his hand upon the wall,
And the snake bites him.
20 Is not the day of Jehovah darkness and not light,
And gloom without any brightness?
21 I hate, I despise your feasts,13
And take no delight in your assemblies.
22 For if ye offer me burnt offerings,
Your food-offerings I will not accept,
And the thank-offering of your fatlings I will not regard.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs,
And the playing of your harps I will not hear.
24 And let judgment roll on like water,
And righteousness like an inexhaustible stream.14
25 Did ye offer me sacrifices and food offerings
In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
(No) but ye bore the tent of your king[15]
And the pedestal of your images,
The star of your God,
Which ye made for yourselves.
27 Therefore will I carry you away captive beyond Damascus,16
Saith Jehovah, whose name is God of hosts.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Amo_5:1-3. Lament over the fall of Israel. This word is further defined as a mournful song or dirge. The song follows in Amo_5:2. The virgin expresses the fact that the daughter of Israel had hitherto been unconquered (Isa_23:12). This now should have an end. Amo_5:3 briefly explains the dirge. Israel will perish in war even to a very small remnant.
2. Amo_5:4-17. The deeper ground of the dirge; For Israel might easily be saved if they would seek the Lord, but this they will not do.
(a.) Amo_5:4-6. What God desires is that they should seek Him and forsake idolatry. To live means in the first instance to remain in life, but naturally includes the whole welfare of the state, its independence, etc. Gilgal and Bethel, so far from helping those who resorted to them, should themselves perish. Beersheba, in Southern Judæ, must have been a place of idolatrous worship, to which people from the ten tribes resorted, and in so doing passed over the boundaries of their kingdom.
Amo_5:6. Once more is the seeking of Jehovah declared to be the means of life, and more strictly, the means of averting the judgment. The house of Joseph = Ephraim, the whole kingdom being named from the principal tribe. Bethel, as the chief seat of worship, was the central point of the kingdom.
(b.) Amo_5:7-9. By a peculiar asyndeton the two parties are placed in vivid contrast with each other; the people in their ungodly course, and Jehovah in his omnipotence, naturally with the implied thought, such a God can punish—ought to be feared.
Amo_5:7. Wormwood as a bitter plant is an image of bitter wrong, as in Amo_6:12; righteousness therefore is conceived as a sweet fragrant plant (cf. Deu_29:19). Casting down to the earth = trampling under foot.
Amo_5:8. Turns the shadow of death, etc. As these words are preceded by a reference to the stars and followed by a mention of natural phenomena, they are certainly to be understood in the same way, the aim of the entire passage being to cite the obvious manifestations God thus makes of himself, in support of the foregoing threatening. The tropical explanation—“he changes the deepest misery into prosperity,” does not suit here, but only the natural, literal meaning; although “the shadow of death” does not in itself signify the regularly recurring shades of night, but as, e.g. in Job_24:17, the appalling gloom of night. Here night in general is set forth under this point of view, and is compared with the shadow of death. For its gloom is conceived of as an image of the divine judgment, of the hiding of God’s face. But in any case the energy of the divine power in turning darkness into light is rendered so much the more prominent. [Keil and Pusey prefer the figurative meaning, which indeed is more in accordance with the constant usage of צַלְמַוֶת, but is certainly unnatural in this place in view of the literal references before and after.]—Who calls to the waters, etc., can refer only to fearful inundations by waves of the sea. [The allusion to the judgment of the Flood can hardly be overlooked. Keil.]
Amo_5:9. Whether the evil mentioned here is to be viewed as caused like the foregoing by manifestations of God’s power in the natural world, is doubtful, but not improbable. The reference might be to an earthquake or a storm.
(c.) Amo_5:10-13. They hate the reprover etc. The prophet returns to the conduct of Israel, which must be punished.
Amo_5:10. “In the gate,” shows that the reference is to judicial proceedings. “The reprover,” therefore, and “the one speaking uprightly” cannot be understood of the prophets, however natural such reference would be on other grounds.
Amo_5:11. Take a gift = do him justice only when they are paid for it. Houses of hewn stone are costly dwellings, Isa_9:10. The threat is borrowed from Deu_28:30.
Amo_5:12. Who take a bribe, may either indicate a fresh sin, i. e., taking atonement money in satisfaction for a murder, against the law in Num_35:31, or may belong to the foregoing, thus, ye who oppress (imprison) the righteous and then take a ransom, i. e., will release him only for a ransom. The former is more consistent with the prevailing use of the Hebrew term. [So Pusey and Keil; but certainly the word in one instance at least, 1Sa_12:3, is used to denote any sort of bribe.]
Amo_5:13. Manifestly belongs to what precedes, since it further describes the period of corruption. He who has prudence = whose counsel is wholesome, will be compelled to silence (cf. Amo_5:10, the upright speaker is abhorred); instead of attentive hearing he has only violence to expect.
(d.) Amo_5:14-17. Once more the way of deliverance is pointed out, at least for a remnant. But for the mass, nothing is to be expected but deep sorrow on all sides.
Amo_5:14. And that so … with you as ye say. That is, Then will that be really the case which ye now vainly imagine,—that God is with you.
Amo_5:15. Set up justice, etc.=maintain a righteous administration of justice. Then possibly there may be favor for a remnant. This does not refer to the existing condition of the ten tribes as reduced by Syrian conquests, for the kingdom under Jeroboam II. had recovered its former territorial limits. The remnant refers to that which would be left in future after the great chastisement, impending. See a similar allusion in reference to Judah in Joe_3:5, and Isa_6:13; Isa_10:21; Isa_10:23.
Amo_5:16. Therefore, introducing the threat, presupposes a denunciation of sins. The entire chapter is full of this, and therefore naturally, Amo_5:16-17 do not refer simply to Amo_5:14-15. Yet these latter do, indirectly at least, contain a reproof. The warning implies that the warned are not seeking good, etc. But only such seeking can save, and it is only too certain that these are not doing it; therefore, etc.,—general mourning. The sense is, on every hand there will be dead to weep for. There will be repeated what happened in Egypt at the smiting of the first born; as the words I will pass through the midst of thee, allude to Exo_12:12. As in the cities, so in the land, there will be such a death wail. And they call is to be supplied before the last clause. The skilled in lamenting, are the professional wailing women who were employed at funerals.
Amo_5:17. Even in the vineyards, usually the places of liveliest joy, wailing should resound. [“A vintage not of wine but of woe.”—Pusey.]
3. Amo_5:18-27. Woe to the confident who deceive themselves with false hopes.
(a.) Amo_5:18-20. Woe to those, etc. It would be foolish to expect help from the day of the Lord.
Amo_5:18. Who desire the day of the Lord. Since they fancied that the carnal Israel and the true people of God were identical, this day must of course bring to them deliverance from all distress, and also power and glory. But it is made clear that this day to them can only bring harm, can only be a day of destruction (Joe_2:2). Therefore, should they escape one danger (from a foe), they would only the more certainly fall into another. This in Amo_5:19 is set forth by a figure taken from common life, the meaning of which is clear.
Amo_5:20. Once more is the threatening character of the day of the Lord affirmed and repeated.
(b.) Amo_5:21-27. Even with festivals and sacrifices the people do not avert the judgment. For worship, rendered as a mere opus operatum, as it is by Israel, is worthless before God, and even offensive to Him. Since the question concerns the ten tribes, we may assume from the following representation that the worship they rendered was as to ritual substantially conformed to that at Jerusalem.
Amo_5:22. For. God’s displeasure at the feasts, etc., arise from his dislike of the sacrifices. The construction is interrupted, the first clause having no apodosis; but this is easily supplied from the second; and the sense is, I will accept neither your burnt offerings nor your meat offerings.
Amo_5:23. The singing is contemptuously called a noise of songs.
Amo_5:24. Such worship, instead of averting the judgment, rather provokes its full execution. It should pour over the land, like a flowing stream. It is wrong to interpret the verse [with Pusey, et al.] as an exhortation to the people to practice judgment and righteousness. The image of a flood of waters is much too strong for such a thought; it points rather to an act of God. [Yet, one may ask, is the expression any stronger here than in the cognate passage in Isa_48:18, “then had thy peace been as a river and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea?” But the connection manifestly favors the author’s view.]
(c.) Amo_5:25-27. Did ye offer, etc. No wonder that such a judgment impends over Israel. From of old they had been recreant to their God. Their present offensive worship was in reality only a continuation of the idolatry practiced in the wilderness.
Amo_5:25. Did ye offer to me sacrifices and food-offerings (=bloody and unbloody oblations)? The question implies a negative answer. The people therefore are described as having omitted the sacrifices to Jehovah for forty years, which certainly could be affirmed of the race as a whole, even if there were no express statements to that effect in the Pentateuch. Still, see e. g.Jos_5:5-7, for the neglect of circumcision. While the people thus omitted the service of Jehovah, they carried on in place of it, idol worship.
Amo_5:26. And—namely, in place of bringing me the appointed offerings—ye bore the tent of, etc. (see Text, and Gram.). The idolatry censured by the prophet here is of Egyptian origin. Certainly the worship of the sun was widely diffused there, but we cannot affirm its nature more precisely. The existence of a literal god of the stars cannot be historically sustained.
Amo_5:27. After Israel’s apostasy had been established from the history of their forefathers, the judgment (cf. Amo_5:24) is briefly described as a literal carrying away. Even more plainly does it appear that the prophet in his threatenings is thinking of Assyria as the power from which the downfall of Israel is to come. Far beyond Damascus, is only a sort of euphemism for Assyria. The conclusion is, as in the case of the preceding chapter, the phrase, Jehovah, whose name is the God of hosts, a token that here-another division ends.
[The Quotation by Stephen. In Act_7:42-43, the proto-martyr is represented as quoting Amo_5:26-27, in terms which vary considerably from our text. The explanation is as old as Jerome. “This is to be observed in all Holy Scripture, that Apostles and apostolic men, in citing testimonies from the Old Testament, regard not the words but the meaning, nor do they follow the words, step by step, provided they do not depart from the meaning.” (Quoted by Pusey in loc.) Stephen quoted from the Septuagint, because its variations, whether real or seeming, made no difference as to the force of the passage in establishing the fact that Israel in the wilderness worshipped false gods. Stephen also substitutes Babylon for Damascus in the closing clause of the quotation; but the idea is the same; for the prediction turned not upon the name, but the fact, namely, that God would scatter them into distant lands. Stephen was not guilty of an error or an inadvertence, but simply brought the prophecy, without any real change of meaning, into agreement with the historical associations of the people in relation to the Babylonish exile.]
DOCTRINAL AND MORAL
1. The prophet himself calls this chapter a wail over the house of Israel. Now as in such a wail the existing sorrow is touchingly expanded, but with it whatever can serve for its present and future amelioration, so in this lament the terribleness of sin and of the destruction to which it leads is sadly depicted, but at the same time are interwoven warnings to seek God so that in some measure the evil may be abated. (Rieger.) It is indeed remarkable; from what has gone before one would think Israel’s fate decided, that all admonition and warning were vain and nothing but punishment remained; and yet this chapter, far more than those which precede, gives admonition with a promise annexed. The sharper the threatening, the more the way of escape is pointed out, for “God desires not that any should perish.” Certainly it is the only way; therefore the admonition only states more emphatically the complaint; this only can save you, but you will none of it.
2. “Seek the Lord that ye may live.” Equally simple and definite are the monition and the promise. Man knows what he has to do, and what to expect. Not merely is warning given, but also promise and the reverse. The gain is certain if one fulfills the condition, but the condition is indispensable. Yet how little is asked—only to seek the Lord,—and at the same time how much! And on the other hand, how little apparently is promised—to live—and yet how much! Warning and promise therefore are connected together not merely by an outward, casual juxtaposition, but by an inward coherence. The result always follows upon the performance of the conditions; for it is the Lord from whom life and death proceed. Hence no other condition for the attainment of life can be imposed than just this, Seek the Lord; and no smaller gain can be promised to the fulfillment of that condition than this,—Life. How strong a testimony for the truth of religion is contained in a single maxim of this kind, and that one recorded in the Scriptures, even in the Old Testament! The condition imposed is in the first instance religious—“Seek the Lord, and cleave not to idols”—(Amo_5:5, also Amo_5:25-26), but this naturally involves also one of an ethical character. This is expressly stated, in accordance with the rigidly ethical character of the Old Testament, when afterwards (Amo_5:14) the demand is changed into, “Seek good and not evil,” with the same promise attached—“that ye may live.” Only he therefore seeks the Lord in truth, who seeks good, and vice versa. And this seeking of good is more closely defined as hating evil and loving good. Both must concur; then only is there a real seeking of good; for God does the one as well as the other. Evil must be earnestly repelled and shunned, otherwise the seeking of good lacks truth and energy; in like manner must good be grasped at, otherwise the attempt misses its aim and soon becomes fruitless. Piety must have an ethical element, must show itself by hating evil and loving good. A mere outward religiousness, however zealous in ceremonies, is worthless in the eyes of God. Amos pronounces most decidedly against a sacrificial service destitute of a corresponding disposition of heart, where the offerings and gifts are not the expression of inward devotion and obedience to God.
3. The “good” which men are to love and to do, appears here continually as rectitude, in opposition to the prevailing unrighteousness, “the turning justice into wormwood, and casting righteousness down to the earth.” This is the least that can be expected, yet in another sense it is the most important, for in vain do we look for the other, and, so to speak, rarer duties from the neglecter of justice, whereas he who sincerely observes this will soon reach something farther. Justice is the foundation of social order; when it is wanting, all in the end comes to ruin.
4. “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh” (Rom_8:3), appears clearly here as it does in the other prophets. Clearly and frankly the law declares God’s will, and tells man what he ought to do; notwithstanding, sin only increases, and apostasy becomes worse. For the law cannot along with its “Thou shalt” give to man the “I will.” Rather on account of his inborn depravity, its commands and prohibitions stir up the motions of sin, and lead them to a bolder outbreak. Then surely the whole curse of the law must at last light upon the transgressor; and the prophets announce this through the judgments with which they threaten the disobedient people. Thus the insufficiency of a legal position is ever more plainly set forth. The law cannot give a new heart—and this is really the question if sin is to be checked and perfect obedience secured,—but grace alone can, full and free grace. Israel had already, from the time of the Exodus, experienced many acts of grace from God, among which very properly the giving of the law itself may be ranked. But these were only benefits which address men from the outside, real benefits indeed, in which God expressed his love, but only in order thus to render his commands more acceptable. But there was wanting the peculiar, unparalleled manifestation of love which is made in Christ. He bore and suffered the full curse of the law; He took upon Himself the entire condemnation pronounced upon the transgressor. But this resulted in the largest grace to men, since He without sin took upon Himself that curse, and thus freed us from it; and through the Holy Spirit streaming into men united by faith in Him, there is created a new heart which wills what it should, which hates evil and loves good, and in which the power of the σάρξ is broken, so that “the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”
5. Upon the day of the Lord, see Joel 2 Doctrinal and Moral, 1. The reproof which Amos utters, stands, as we may confidently assume, in close relation to Joel, i. e., refers to an abuse which had been made of Joel’s announcement of the day of the Lord. It appears here again that this day is essentially one of judgment. It certainly brings to Israel as God’s people deliverance from their foes, but still only in so far as they are really God’s people. So far as they are unfaithful and put, themselves on a level with the heathen, that day is for them one of judgment, since it brings destruction upon all that is ungodly and anti-godly. The name, Israel, therefore, gives no license. Only in this sense is the announcement made. The people saw in this desired period one that would overthrow their foes and deliver them from their present distresses, without remembering that their guilt caused these distresses, and that they deserved punishment rather than deliverance. In this view, the announcement of the last day is still gladly welcomed. Men assign the evil, the punishment, to others, especially to those by whom they suffer, but claim the good for themselves, and anticipate the end of all sorrows and the dawn of cloudless prosperity. Hence results the security which is directly opposite to the watching and praying so earnestly enjoined by our Lord. Men then may long for the day of the Lord as a day of deliverance, but let them look well to the way in which they regard it, and see that this day finds them prepared and true to the Lord, so that He may recognize them as his own. Certainly it is not to be longed for in a spirit of revenge, i. e., in the view that the quicker it comes the sooner will God’s judgments fall upon a godless world. The true Christian rather appreciates the wisdom and long suffering with which God forbears to judge, and rejoices that room is left for the conversion of God’s foes, even if meanwhile he is to suffer by them. He who with carnal impatience wishes for God’s judgments upon others, will experience them himself, and truly in a different way from that of God’s people. Empty forms and lip-service, however zealously pursued, are no defense against the divine judgments, and no earnest of the salvation which proceeds thence for the true people of God. (See also under Homiletical and Practical.)
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Amo_5:1. As a lamentation. God is so gracious that He not only shows us our sins, but even mourns when. He must punish us for them (Luk_19:41). The accusation before punishment becomes a lament afterwards. Did we heed God’s charges, we should not need to hear his lament. [The bewailed who know not why they are bewailed, are the more miserable because they know not their own misery. Dion.]
Amo_5:2-3. God’s judgments increase in severity as they go on; if the earlier and milder are fruitless, at last comes total destruction. (Pf. B. W.) [Fallen. A dirge like that of David over Saul and Jonathan, over what was once lovely and mighty but had perished. (Pusey.) God had said, How should one chase a thousand! but the blessings of obedience are turned into the curses of disobedience. As the ancient Christian poet says, If the Lord is against us, our walls become cobwebs; but if the Lord is with us, our cobwebs become walls. (Wordsworth.)
Amo_5:4. Seek me and live. Four times repeated (Amo_5:6; Amo_5:8; Amo_5:14). Wonderful conciseness of the Word of God, which in two words comprises the whole of the creature’s duty and his hopes, his time and his eternity… The object of the search is God himself. Seek me, i. e., seek God for himself, not for anything out of Him, not for his gifts, not for anything to be loved with Him. This is not to seek Him purely. All is found in Him, but by seeking Him first, and then loving Him in all, and all in Him. (Pusey.)
Amo_5:5. Seek not Bethel. Israel pretended to seek God in Bethel. Amos sets the two seekings as incompatible. The god worshipped at Bethel was not the one God. To seek God there was to lose Him. Pass not to Beersheba. Jeroboam 1. pretended that it was to much for Israel to go to Jerusalem. And yet Israel thought it not too much to go to Beersheba, perhaps four times farther off. So much pains will men take in self-willed service, and yet not see that it takes away the excuse for neglecting the true.—Pusey. Gilgal shall surely, etc. Literally, “the place of rolling away,” so called because there God rolled away the reproach of Egypt from Israel (Jos_5:9). “Shall be clean rolled away.” This is the law of God’s dealings with man. He curses our blessings if we do not use them aright. Our holiest Gilgals—our sacraments, our Scriptures, our sermons, our Sundays,—which were designed by God to roll away from us the reproach of Egypt, will be rolled away from us if we do not use them aright; aud will roll us downward unto our destruction. Wordsworth.]
Amo_5:6. The same promise and the same warning,—a proof that there is no other way to life, and also that the warning cannot be given too often, alas, is so often in vain. Ye shall live. God’s gracious promises must be held before sinners, lest in despair they go from sin to sin. For how can one feel genuine repentance, if he has no hope? [None to quench for Bethel. Bethel, the centre of their idol hopes, so far from aiding them then, shall not be able to help itself, nor shall there be any to help it. Pusey.] God’s wrath is a consuming fire; only true repentance can extinguish it.
[Amo_5:8. Seek him that maketh, etc. Misbelief retains the name God, but means something quite different from the one true God. Men speak of “the Deity” as a sort of first cause of all things, but lose sight of the personal God who has made known his will. “The Deity” is no object of love or fear. For a First Cause who is conceived of as no more, is an abstraction, not God. God is the cause of all causes. All things are, and have their relations to each other as cause and effect, because He so created them. A “great first cause” who is thought of only as a cause, is a mere fiction of man’s imagining, an attempt to appear to account for the mysteries of being, without owning that since our being is from God, we are responsible creatures who are to yield to Him an account of the use of our being which He gave us. In like way probably Israel had so mixed up the thought of God with nature that it had lost sight of God as distinct from the creation. And so Amos, after appealing to their consciences, sets forth God to them as the creator, disposer of all things, and the just God who redresseth man’s violence and injustice. (Pusey.) Ye who worship the stars are rebelling against Him who made them. (Wordsworth.)]
Amo_5:10. Impatience at a well-meant and friendly rebuke is the mark of an evil and perverse spirit. Such rebuke should be esteemed a kindness, even a balsam upon the head. On the other hand, reproof is to be administered with discretion. (Pf. B. W.)
Amo_5:11-12. Because ye trample, etc. Men should shun the oppression of the poor. Whence comes the swift ruin of entire families? It is because the sighing of the poor before God testifies against them, (ibid.)
[Amo_5:13. The prudent is silent. So our Lord was silent before his judges, for since they would not hear, his speaking would only increase their condemnation. So Solomon said, “He that re-proveth a scorner getteth himself shame.” “When the wicked rise, then men hide themselves.” (Pusey.)
Amo_5:15. Hate evil, etc. He hateth evil who not only is not overcome by pleasure, but hates its deeds; and he loveth good who, not unwillingly nor of necessity nor from fear, doeth what is good, but because it is good. (Jerome.)] To hate evil and to love good belong together. (Rieger.) And set up justice, etc. Justice is a pillar of the state. To set it up when fallen is the duty of all men, but especially of those in posts of honor or profit.—Perhaps, etc. Temporal promises are made with an “It may be,” and our prayers must be made accordingly. (M. Henry.)
[Amo_5:16. Therefore saith Jehovah, etc. For the third time here as in the two preceding verses, Amos reminds them of Him in whose name He speaks, namely, the I Am, the self-existent God, the God of all things in heaven and earth, He who has absolute power over his creatures to dispose of them as He will. (Pusey.) Alas, alas! The terribleness of the prophecy lies in its truth. When war pressed without on the walls of Samaria, and within was famine and pestilence, woe, woe, woe must have echoed in every street; for in every street was death and the fear of worse. Yet imagine every sound of joy or din or hum of men, or mirth of children, hushed in the streets, and woe, woe, going up in one unmitigated, unchanging, ever-repeated monotony of grief. Such were the present fruits of sin. Yet what a mere shadow of the inward grief is its outward utterance! (Ibid.) Call the skilled in lamenting. The same feeling makes the rich now clothe their households in mourning, which made those of old hire mourners, that all might be in harmony with their grief. (Ibid.)
Amo_5:18. Woe to those who desire, etc. A similar spirit manifested itself in those who said in Jeremiah’s days, “The Temple of the Lord are these” (Amo_7:4), and who prided themselves on their national religious principles, but did not obey the Lord of the temple, and were therefore condemned by the Prophet. A like temper was manifested after the Captivity. The Hebrew nation was eager for the Messiah’s coming to the new built temple, but the prophets reminded them that his coming would be a day of fear and woe for the ungodly. Mal_3:2. (Wordsworth.)
Amo_5:19. As if a man fleeth before the lion, etc. The day of the Lord is a day of terror on every side. Before and behind, within and without, abroad under the roof of heaven or under the shelter of one’s own, everywhere is terror and death. (Pusey.)
Amo_5:20. Is not the day, etc. An appeal to men themselves, Is it not so? Men’s consciences are truer than their intellect. Intellect carries the question out of itself into the region of surmising and disputings. Conscience is compelled to receive it back into its own court and to give the sentence. Like the God of the heathen fable who changed himself into all sorts of forms, but when he was still held fast, gave at last the true answer, conscience shrinks back, twists, writhes, evades, turns away, but in the end will answer truly when it must. The prophet then turns round upon the conscience, and says, “Tell me, for you know.” (Ibid)
Amo_5:21-22. I hate, I despise, etc. Israel would fain be conscientious and scrupulous. What they offered was the best of its kind; whole burnt offerings, fatted beasts, full-toned chorus, instrumental music. What was wanting to secure the favor of God? Love and obedience. And so those things by which they hoped to propitiate God became the object of his displeasure. (Ibid.)
Amo_5:23. Take away the noise, etc. Here is a warning to all who think to please God by elaborate musical services in his house; while they do not take heed to worship Him with their hearts and to obey Him in their daily life. (Wordsw.)
Amo_5:24. Did ye offer unto me, etc. The ten tribes,) by approving and copying the false worship of their forefathers, made that sin their own. As the Church of God is at all times one and the same, so that great opposite camp, the city of the devil, has a continuous existence through all time. These idolaters were filling up the measure of their forefathers, and in the end of those who perished in the wilderness they might behold their own. As God rejected the divided service of their forefathers, so He would their’s. (Pusey.)—Unto me. This is emphatic. If God is not served wholly and alone, He is not served at all. As Jerome says, He regardeth not the offering, but the will of the offerer. (Ibid.)
Amo_5:25. Which ye made for yourselves. This was the fundamental fault. Whereas God made them for Himself, they made for themselves gods out of their own mind. All idolatry is self-will, first choosing a god and then enslaved to it. (Ibid.)
Amo_5:27. To break the force of the prophecy contained in this verse, De Wette says, “Although the kingdom of Israel had through Jeroboam recovered its old borders, yet careless insolence, luxury, unrighteousness must bring the destruction which the prophet foretells. He does but dimly forebode the superior power of Assyria.” To which Pusey justly answers, that decay does not involve the transportation of a people, but rather the contrary. A mere luxurious people rots on its own soil and would be left to rot there. It was the little remnant of energy and warlike spirit in Israel that brought its ruin from man. In the faults referred to, they were no worse than their neighbors, nor so bad; not so bad as the Assyrians themselves, except that, God having revealed Himself to them, they had more light. God has annexed no such visible laws of punishment to a nation’s sins that man could of his own wisdom or observation of God’s ways foresee it. They through whom He willed to inflict it in this case, and whom Amos pointed out, were not provoked by the sins De Wette specifies. There was no connection between Israel’s present sins and Assyria’s future vengeance. No eastern despot cares for the oppressions of his subjects so that his own tribute is collected. As far too as we know, neither Assyria nor any other power had hitherto punished rebellious nations by transporting them. Only He who controls the rebellious wills of men, and through their self-will works out his own all-wise will and man’s punishment, could know the future of Israel and Assyria, and how through the pride of Assyria, He would bring down the pride of Samaria.]
Footnotes:
[1]Amo_5:1.—קִינָה is the word used to denote David’s dirge over Saul and Jonathan, 2Sa_1:17. It is here in apposition with דָבָר.]
[2]Amo_5:2.—נִטְּשָׁה, E. V. forsaken is quite inadequate. Targum and Vulgate have cast down, but better is the literal meaning given above—stretched out, and therefore prostrate and helpless.
[3]Amo_5:3.—The numerals define more closely the manner of the going forth, i. e, to war.
[4]Amo_5:4.—The two imperatives, by a usage common in all languages, express command and result; e. g., Latin, divide et impera.
[5]Amo_5:5.—There is in גִלְגַל גַלֹה יִגלֶה, a play upon words which cannot be expressed in English. A similar paronomasia is suggested in the last clause, cf. Hos_4:15. [Pusey offers, as illustrative parallels, “Paris périra,” or “London is undone.”].
[6]Amo_5:6.—ואָֽכְלָה cannot be rendered as in E. V. “and devour,” as if Jehovah were the subject.
[7]Amo_5:8.—כִּימָה, the crowd, is the Seven Stars or Pleiades. כְּסִיל, the fool, but according to the old interpreters, [whom Fürst follows] the giant, is Orion. Both constellations are mentioned together in Job_9:9; Job_38:31. The connection between Amo_5:7-8 is, They are acting in this atrocious way, whereas Jehovah is the Almighty and can bring sudden destruction upon them.
[8]Amo_5:9.—מַבְלִיג, causes to break in. [Following an Arabic analogy, Keil and Wordsworth suppose an allusion to the swiftness of lightning, expressed in the version by flash. Pusey follows Aquila and Jerome, and renders maketh to smile. The E. V. followed a conjecture of Kimchi, and is clearly wrong, besides quite needlessly turning שֹׁד in both members from an abstract into a concrete noun.]
[9]Amo_5:10.—מוֹכִיח. Not merely a judge acting officially, but “any one who before a tribunal lifts up his voice against acts of injustice.” Cf. Isa_29:21.
[10]Amo_5:11.—בוֹשֵׁס. ἁπ. λεγ., a variant orthography for בוֹסס. Fürst derives it from בוֹשׁ, i. q. בָאַשׁ, to be loathsome, h. bad. Hiph., to bring evil upon.
[11]Amo_5:12.—צוֹרְרֵי. This and the following participle belong to the suffixes in the nouns preceding.
[12]Amo_5:16.—To proclaim mourning to the husbandman=to call him to mourning.
[13]Amo_5:21.—הַגִּים are the great yearly festivals. עֲצָרוֹת is of uncertain meaning, commonly explained, festive assemblies. Cf. Joe_1:14. [All agree that it denotes convocations in connection with religious observances, whether penitential or otherwise.] אָרִיתַ, lit. to smell, is an expression of satisfaction, in allusion to “the odour of delight” which ascended to God from the burning sacrifice. Cf. Lev_26:31; Gen_8:21; Eph_5:2.
[14]Amo_5:24.—אֵיתָן. The later critics give the primary meaning as constant, abiding, and hence when applied to streams, inexhaustible.
[15] Amo_5:26.—The words here are difficult, since סִכּוּתּ and כִיּוּן are ἁπ. λεγ. Perhaps they are proper names of idols, so that the adjoining words are in apposition, and we should render—Sikkuth, your king, and Chiun, your image. So Luther, and of later critics, Fürst. The name Sikkuth (in Syriac with another pointing כֶּיוָן, Chevan) has been explained to mean Saturn, who indeed in Arabic is called Kaiman, but it is not certain that this did not originate from the passage before us, and therefore “it has no more worth than that of an exegetical conjecture” (Keil.) The LXX., changing the word, make out of כִּיוּן an idol Ῥαιφάν (Act_7:43, Ρεμφαν), the meaning of which is equally uncertain, since the name does not occur elsewhere in the LXX., or in the writings founded upon that version. Keil therefore conjectures an exchange of letters; instead of כיון they read ריפן. Then the plural צַלמֵיכֶם becomes difficult, for although Fürst says that צְלָמִים is, like שִּׁקּוּצים ,גּלוּלִים, used here as a singular for an idol, that is a mere assertion Naturally then the appellative כּוֹכַב would belong to both the proper names. But that כוֹֽכַב אֱל׳ is not to be coördinated with the two preceding phrases, is plain from the omission, first of the אֵת which stands before each of those clauses, and then, of the וְ by which they are closely bound together.
More probable then is the appellative view of Sikkuth and Chiun. The former from סָכַן, hence a covering, a booth. So the LXX., σκηνη. (But they improperly take מַלְכְכֶם as a proper name, τον μολέχ.) Therefore, “tent of your king,” meaning doubtless a movable shrine in which the image of the god was kept; such as, according to Herod. ii. 63, and Diod. Sic. i. 97. were used by the Egyptians. Chiun is correspondingly explained as pedestal, from כּנּן, and allied to כֵן and מכוֹנָה, therefore, the pedestal or framework of your images, that by which they were carried about. What follows is to be considered as in explanatory apposition, viz. the star of your god = the star who was your god. Undoubtedly even this explanation has great difficulties. [But still it is easier than the others which have been proposed, and is sustained by the sanction of Ribera, Junius, Gesenius, Hengstenberg, Keil, and Wordsworth.] In any case we must understand by כּוֹכַב the image of a star, for the carrying it about is inconsistent with its being an actual star,—which ye have made refers either to this star-image or to “your god.”
[16]Amo_5:27.—מֵהָלְאָה לְדַבֶּשֶׂק. From a distance in respect to Damascus=far beyond Damascus.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1-3. A dirge.
1-3. A dirge.
Hear ye this word — Compare Amo_3:1; Amo_4:1.
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Lamentation — Hebrews kinah. A technical term for a dirge in memory of a departed friend. It is not a spontaneous expression of grief, but a formal composition, long or short, artificially constructed. These dirges are composed in a peculiar meter, the so-called kinah verse, in which the lines are longer than ordinarily in Hebrew poetry, each consisting of two parts, of which the second is a little shorter than the first, the ratio being about 3 to 2. The lament is contained in Amo_5:2-3; Amo_5:3 giving the explanation of Amo_5:2. The kinah meter is observed only in Amo_5:2; it may be restored approximately in Amo_5:3 by omitting the introductory words and “to the house of Israel” at the close. While it is not possible to reproduce exactly the meter of the Hebrew, the following rendering of Amo_5:2-3 (with the omissions suggested) indicates approximately the character of the kinah compositions: —(a) Fallen, no more shall she rise, (b) virgin Israel, (a) Flung down on her own ground (b) no one to raise her.
(a) The city that goeth forth a thousand (b) shall have left a hundred, (a) And she that goeth forth a hundred (b) shall have left ten.
Virgin of Israel — “The earliest extant example of the personification of a nation or community as a woman.” Later such personifications became quite common (Jer_18:13; Jer_31:4; Jer_31:21; compare Isa_10:32; Isa_37:22, etc.; see on Hos_2:2).
Is fallen — The prophetic perfect. The calamity is still future, but the prophet is so certain of its coming that he sings the dirge as if the nation had already died. The wounds inflicted are so grievous that she cannot rise, nor is there anyone to help her up.
Forsaken — R.V., “cast down.” The verb implies the use of force — flung down — and the abandonment to destruction (Eze_29:5; Eze_32:4). Amo_5:3 indicates the nature of the calamity that will reduce Israel to such sore straits; her fighting force is to be reduced to one tenth of its present numbers.
Went out — To battle.
A thousand — A city that can furnish a thousand fighting men must be of considerable size.
An hundred — A smaller town. Great and small cities shall suffer alike.
Justification of the judgment, and exhortation to repentance, 4-10. That Amos believed in the possibility of a universal “return” of Israel is nowhere stated or implied; that he hoped for some salutary effects of his preaching cannot be doubted; it is implied in Amo_5:15, and in the fact that he continues his exhortation to “seek Jehovah.” Who of the people would repent and who would persist in rebellion he could not know; therefore he must exhort all that he may “save some.” This he does in Amo_5:4 ff. At the same time his exhortation supplies the justification for the divine judgment; they have done the things that are not acceptable to God, and have left undone the things in which he takes delight. Notwithstanding the abruptness of transition from 1-3 to 4 the logical connection between the two parts is not difficult to see. In 1-3 the prophet bemoans the humiliation of Israel. He would have been unfit to act as a messenger of Jehovah had not the contemplation of this fate moved him to compassion and aroused a longing that the terrible calamity might be averted. In the anxiety of his heart he bursts forth in a new exhortation, hoping that, perchance, he may yet succeed in bringing at least some to repentance, and thus avert the doom. Harper interprets Amo_5:4-5 as injunctions given in the past, disobedience to which furnishes the reasons for the disaster described in Amo_5:2-3; and he makes Amo_5:6 the beginning of Amos’s exhortation. This interpretation is less natural; it certainly is no improvement over the one commonly accepted.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. a dirge] Heb. ḳînâh, which signifies, not a…
1. a dirge] Heb. ḳînâh, which signifies, not a spontaneous effusion of natural emotion, but a composition, longer or shorter as the case might be, constructed with some art in a definite poetical form, and chanted usually by women, whose profession it was to attend mourning ceremonies for the purpose (cf. Jer_9:17; and see below on Amo_5:16). To take up (i.e. on the lips) is said regularly of a ‘ḳînâh’: e.g. Jer_7:29; Eze_19:1; Eze_26:17; Eze_27:2, &c. The ḳînâh, which the prophet has here in view follows in Amo_5:2.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Ver. 1-ch. Amo_6:1-6) Therefore they shall go into captivity,…
Ver. 1-ch. Amo_6:1-6) Therefore they shall go into captivity, and the kingdom shall be utterly overthrown (vers. 7-11), because they act iniquitously and are self-confident (vers. 12-14).
Hear ye this word. To show the certainty of the judgment and his own feeling about it, the prophet utters his prophecy in the form of a dirge. (kinah, 2Sa_1:17; 2Ch_35:25) Which I take up against you; or, which I raise over you, as if the end had come. O house of Israel; in the vocative. The Vulgate has, Domus Israel cecidit; so the LXX But the present Hebrew text is most suitable, making the dirge beginat ver. 2. The ten tribes are addressed as in ver. 6.
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Vers. 1-3.
Israel"s elegy.
It is poor work singing the things that might have been. It means sweet dreams dispelled, fair hopes blighted, and human lives in ruins. Yet such is the prophet"s task in this passage writing Israel"s elegy among the graves of her dead millions. He had been denouncing nameless woes against the rebellious people, Here he changes his tone to that of a mournful spectator of accomplished ills. In imagination he throws himself forward out of the sinful present into the calamitous future, and in accommodation to the change of scene his denunciation becomes a dirge. It is a natural transition, and at the same time a new form of appeal. When ears become inattentive, the skilled musician will vary his tune. We have here
I A BROKEN IDEAL. The things that might have been with Israel were far enough from existing facts. The Israel of God"s ideal was:
1. A holy people. (Exo_19:6; Deu_28:9) Theoretically they were, as the word "holy" means, (Deu_7:6) a people separated from men, and sin and sot apart to God. But the fair ideal of their national life remained an ideal and nothing more. The reality never reached it, never approached it. They connected themselves freely with heathen men and heathenish sin. They at times outdid the nations (Amo_2:6-9) in avarice, injustice, spoiling the poor, abominable rites, and every nameless infamy.
2. An unconquered people. This is the force of the expression "virgin (of) Israel." God was to champion their cause, and to fight for them as his loyal people. (Deu_1:30, etc.) If, and so long as he did so, they would be invincible. But they never claimed his help on the appointed terms. His promise was doubted (Deu_1:32) and its conditions disregarded, with the inevitable result that it failed of fulfilment in many a critical time. Israel, theoretically "the unconquered," was practically the often vanquished, the twice carried captive, the soon-to-be-destroyed. God"s help comes surely, but comes only where there is attention to the conditions on which it is offered and given.
3. A prosperous people. Palestine, their national inheritance, was the very garden of the earth; unique in the combination of the highest agricultural capacities, with the finest commercial situation. The prosperity of an industrious, peaceful nation in it was, so far as favourable circumstances went, a foregone conclusion. But war had devastated, and mildew blighted, and drought laid bare its fertile fields. God saw his gifts abused and made the ministers of sin, and he was driven to destroy these in their hands. When temporal good begins to be made the occasion of moral evil, our tenure of it will soon end.
4. A happy people. A people prosperous, strong, and pure, could not but be happy as well. (Psa_144:15) And such was Israel in the Divine. (Deu_33:29) But the actual misery experienced was as complete as the theoretical happiness revealed. Happiness is nowhere so impossible, misery nowhere so intense, as with a people who have fallen beneath themselves. In proportion as the former might have been, will the latter be.
II AN ANTICIPATIVE DIRGE. Prescient of coming evil, the prophet"s lamentation becomes a funeral song.
1. A nation made shipwreck is a sight for tears. It is the destruction of magnificent possibilities of good. It is the failing of a tremendous reality of evil It is the ruin of most precious interests on a gigantic scale. If one soul lost is the occasion of grief to pure spirits and a travailing Saviour, what must the calamity be when multiplied a millionfold?
2. When the wicked fall the trust mourners are the righteous. Not the heathen who had seduced them, not the remnant of apostate Israel that might escape, but the prophet of God, who had kept himself unspotted in the midst of national corruption, was the tearful mourner by the ruined nation"s grave. The wicked are too selfish to care for any sorrows but their own. They are as the wolves, which would make a prey of the dead one"s remains, rather than any mourning for his fall. God and the God-like alone truly mourn when the wicked perish.
3. A prophetic sight of his own epitaph ought to stay the hand of thesuicide. Men supposed to be dead have lived to read their own obituary notice. It has enabled them to see themselves for once as others see them. And it ought to have a practical influence for good. Israel, reading beforehand the inscription on their own tomb, might have been warned away, if anything could have warned them, from the course in which they were rushing on. It showed them what was coming, and how it was being brought on, and how it looked, whether as a morality or a policy, in enlightened eyes. An adequate idea of sin must include its end and issues and place in history, and this it was in Israel"s power to learn from Amos"s prophetic wail.
III AN INSPIRED COMMENTARY. An act of God is an expression of his way. The way of God is a revelation of his purpose. All three are along the lines of the just and fitting. Now:
1. Adequate punishment means practical extermination. Sin is an infinite crime, merits an infinite punishment, and failing this will receive a punishment exhaustive of the criminal"s good. The proverbial question, "Wherefore doth a living man complain?", (Lam_3:39) is an understatement of the case. While a field, or a blessing, or a living man remained, Israel had not been punished as it deserved. When body and soul have been both destroyed, there will still be no more than justice done. If our sin have not its punishment in Christ, then that punishment must be utter destruction.
2. When wrath smites many, mercy spares a remnant. Nine-tenths were to be destroyed. The thousand should become a hundred, and the hundred ten. Neither the strength of the great nor the insignificance of the small should avail them for escape. With perfect impartiality, all should be made to suffer proportionally. Yet decimation was to stop short of utter extinction. A tenth part. (see Isa_1:9 Isa_6:13) should be spared. This less guilty remnant, taught and chastened by the judgments which swept away the bulk of the nation, might form the nucleus of a new and better Israel. When judgment has destroyed the "bread to the eater," mercy often steps in and saves a "seed to the sower." There is seldom a deluge without its ark and its Noah family, the conditions and materials of a fresh start for the reduced.
3. Israel decimated is Israel still. The remnant would retain the national name, and with it the covenant relation and privileges to which the name referred. (Gen_32:28) Toward the Gentile Church, for its sin "cast down but not destroyed," the same gracious policy was announced. (Isa_54:7-10) While a Mephibosheth remains the royal line of God"s anointed is not extinct. Chastisement makes a chaos only to bring out of it the young world of a new life and a new hope. (Psa_89:30-33)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Hear ye this word which I take up against…
Amo_5:1-3
Hear ye this word which I take up against you.
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The end of carnal security
Such words as these must have fallen like a thunderbolt into the midst of the corrupt and careless inhabitants of Samaria and the other cities of Israel among whom Amos prophesied. It is a dirge or lamentation, uttered by one who sees beyond the present prosperity of the land the future ruin of its proud idolaters.
I. Carnal security. Nothing about sin is more wonderful to the awakened soul than that blindness which hides from the ungodly the awful future. Noahs generation, on the eve of that signal punishment of the deluge, saw no sign of peril (Mat_24:39). The same spirit marked the society of Amoss time. The sinners forgot all fear. They lived in careless ease in their winter houses and summer houses, enjoying all manner of luxury, and no fear of God or man disturbed their rest, or made them pause either in oppression or idolatry. Such is the prevailing spirit of sin. It hills the soul to sleep till suspicion of danger scarcely ever comes to darken the spirit; like the little sailor lads who fell asleep on deck during the roar of the cannon in the great battle of the Nile, none of the dangers rouse them to seek safety (Php_3:19).
II. Gods way of breaking this security is by revealing its end. At every turn of this prophecy our wonder at the tact and resource of the prophet seems to grow. His Master took him aside to show him the future, and then, with those awful sights before his eyes, sent him forth to utter his solemn dirge over the vanished glories of the nation. What an effect such revelations must have had on all who were willing to understand their meaning. The virgin of Israel is fallen--she who was now adorned with tabrets and joined in the dances of those that made merry (Jer_31:4), should soon lie prostrate, not to rise again, forsaken of all her friends, and without any to lift her up or comfort her--none of her sons left to guide her, or take her by the hand in this day of calamity (Isa_51:18). Her glory gone, her pride humbled, her resources cut off. This is the picture of the end of that false security. It is accompanied by Gods message (verse 3), which give added terror to this revelation. A general decay similar to that mentioned in chap. 2:14-16 should fall upon the cities of the land. Application. Remember that sin blinds mens eyes. The god of this world has no hope of retaining his power save by blinding the eyes of them that believe not. Remember that warning voices are Gods messengers. (J. Telford, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Amos 5
2. FOR WORSHIP, JUSTICE
Amos 5
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In the next of these groups of oracles Amos continues his attack on the national ritual, and now contrasts it with the service of God in public life-the relief of the poor, the discharge of justice. But he does not begin with this. The group opens with an elegy, which bewails the nation as already fallen. It is always difficult to mark where the style of a prophet passes from rhythmical prose into what we may justly call a metrical form. But in this short wail, we catch the well-known measure of the Hebrew dirge; not so artistic as in later poems, yet with at least the characteristic couplet of a long and a short line.
"Hear this word which I lift up against you-a Dirge, O house of Israel":-
"Fallen, no more shall she rise, Virgin of Israel! Flung down on her own ground, No one to raise her!"
The "Virgin," which with Isaiah is a standing title for Jerusalem and occasionally used of other cities, is here probably the whole nation of Northern Israel. The explanation follows. It is War. "For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The city that goeth forth a thousand shall have a hundred left; and she that goeth forth a hundred shall have left ten for the house of Israel."
But judgment is not yet irrevocable. There break forthwith the only two promises which lighten the lowering darkness of the book. Let the people turn to Jehovah Himself-and that means let them turn from the ritual, and instead of it purge their civic life, restore justice in their courts, and help the poor. For God and moral good are one. It is "seek Me and ye shall live," and "seek good and ye shall live." Omitting for the present all argument as to whether the interruption of praise to the power of Jehovah be from Amos or another, we read the whole oracle as follows.
"Thus saith Jehovah to the house of Israel: Seek Me and live. But seek not Bethel, and come not to Gilgal, and to Beersheba pass not over"-to come to Beersheba one had to cross all Judah. "For Gilgal shall taste the gall of exile"-it is not possible except in this clumsy way to echo the prophets play upon words, "Ha-Gilgal galoh yigleh"-"and Bethel," Gods house, "shall become an idolatry." This rendering, however, scarcely gives the rude force of the original; for the word rendered idolatry, Aven, means also falsehood and perdition, so that we should not exaggerate the antithesis if we employed a phrase which once was not vulgar: "And Bethel, house of God, shall go to the devil!" The epigram was the more natural that near Bethel, on a site now uncertain, but close to the edge of the desert to which it gave its name, there lay from ancient times a village actually called Beth-Aven, however the form may have risen. And we shall find Hosea stereotyping this epigram of Amos, and calling the sanctuary Beth-Aven oftener than he calls it Beth-el. "Seek ye Jehovah and live," he begins again, "lest He break forth like fire, O house of Joseph, and it consume and there be none to quench at Bethel. He that made the Seven Stars and Orion, that turneth the murk, into morning, and day He darkeneth to night, that calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out on the face of the earth-Jehovah His Name. He it is that flasheth out ruin on strength, and bringeth down destruction on the fortified." This rendering of the last verse is uncertain, and rightly suspected, but there is no alternative so probable, and it returns to the keynote from which the passage started, that God should break forth like fire.
Ah, "they that turn justice to wormwood, and abase righteousness to the earth! They hate him that reproveth in the gate"-in an Eastern city both the law-court and place of the popular council-"and him that speaketh sincerely they abhor." So in the English mystics Vision Peace complains of Wrong:-
"I dar noughte for fere of hym fyghte ne ehyde."
"Wherefore, because ye trample on the weak and take from him a present of corn, ye have built houses of ashlar, but ye shall not dwell in them; vineyards for pleasure have ye planted, but ye shall not drink of their wine. For I know how many are your crimes, and how forceful your sins-ye that browbeat the righteous, take bribes, and bring down the poor in the gate. Therefore the prudent in such a time is dumb, for an evil time is it" indeed.
"Seek good and not evil, that ye may live, and Jehovah God of Hosts be with you, as ye say" He is. "Hate evil and love good; and in the gate set justice on her feet again-peradventure Jehovah God of Hosts may have pity on the remnant of Joseph." If in the Book of Amos there be any passages, which, to say the least, do not now lie in their proper places, this is one of them. For, firstly, while it regards the nation as still responsible for the duties of government, it recognizes them as reduced to a remnant. To find such a state of affairs we have to come down to the years subsequent to 734, when Tiglath-Pileser swept into captivity all Gilead and Galilee-that is, two-thirds, in bulk, of the territory of Northern Israel-but left Ephraim untouched. In answer to this, it may of course, be pointed out that in thus calling the people to repentance, so that a remnant might be saved, Amos may have been contemplating a disaster still future, from which, though it was inevitable, God might be moved to spare a remnant. That is very true. But it does not meet this further difficulty, that the verses (Amo_5:14-15) plainly make interruption between the end of Amo_5:13 and the beginning of Amo_5:16; and that the initial "therefore" of the latter verse, while it has no meaning in its present sequence, becomes natural and appropriate when made to follow immediately on Amo_5:13. For all these reasons, then, I take Amo_5:14-15 as a parenthesis, whether from Amos himself or from a later writer who can tell? But it ought to be kept in mind that in other prophetic writings where judgment is very severe, we have some proof of the later insertion of calls to repentance, by way of mitigation.
Amo_5:13 had said the time was so evil that the prudent man kept silence. All the more must the Lord Himself speak, as Amo_5:16 now proclaims. "Therefore thus saith Jehovah, God of Hosts, Lord: On all open ways. lamentation, and in all streets they shall be saying, Ah woe! Ah woe! And in all vineyards lamentation, and they shall call the ploughman to wailing and to lamentation them that are skillful in dirges"-town and country, rustic and artist alike-"for I shall pass through thy midst, saith Jehovah." It is the solemn formula of the Great Passover, when Egypt was filled with wailing and there were dead in every house.
The next verse starts another, but a kindred, theme. As blind as was Israels confidence in ritual, so blind was their confidence in dogma, and the popular dogma was that of the "Day of Jehovah."
All popular hopes expect their victory to come in a single sharp crisis-a day. And again, the day of any one means either the day he has appointed, or the day of his display and triumph. So Jehovahs day meant to the people the day of His judgment, or of His triumph: His triumph in war over their enemies, His judgment upon the heathen. But Amos, whose keynote has been that judgment begins at home, cries woe upon such hopes, and tells his people that for them the day of Jehovah is not victory, but rather insidious, importunate, inevitable death. And this he describes as a man who has lived, alone with wild beasts, from the jungles of the Jordan, where the lions lurk, to the huts of the desert infested by snakes.
"Woe unto them that long for the day of Jehovah! What have you to do with the day of Jehovah? It is darkness, and not light. As when a man fleeth from the face of a lion, and a bear falls upon him; and he comes into his home, and, breathless, leans his hand upon the wall, and a serpent bites him. And then, as if appealing to Heaven for confirmation: Is it not so? Is it not darkness, the day of Jehovah, and not light? storm darkness, and not a ray of light Upon it?"
Then Amos returns to the worship, that nurse of their vain hopes, that false prophet of peace, and he hears God speak more strongly than ever of its futility and hatefulness.
"I hate, I loathe your feasts, and I will not smell the savor of your gatherings to sacrifice." For with pagan folly they still believed that the smoke of their burnt-offerings went up to heaven and flattered the nostrils of Deity. How ingrained was this belief may be judged by us from the fact that the terms of it had to be adopted by the apostles of a spiritual religion, if they would make themselves understood, and are now the metaphors of the sacrifices of the Christian heart. {Eph_5:2 etc.} "Though ye bring to Me burnt-offerings and your meal-offerings I will not be pleased, or your thank-offerings of fatted calves, I will not look at them. Let cease from Me the noise of thy songs; to the playing of thy viols I will not listen. But let justice roll on like water, and righteousness like an unfailing stream."
Then follows the remarkable appeal from the habits of this age to those of the times of Israels simplicity. "Was it flesh or meat offerings that ye brought Me in the wilderness, forty years, O house of Israel. That is to say, at the very time when God made Israel His people, and led them safely to the promised land-the time When of all others He did most for them-He was not moved to such love and deliverance by the propitiatory bribes, which this generation imagine to be so availing and indispensable. Nay, those still shall not avail, for exile from the land shall now as surely come in spite of them, as the possession of the land in old times came without them. This at least seems to be the drift of the very obscure verse which follows, and is the unmistakable statement of the close of the oracle. But ye shall lift up your king and your god, images which you have made for yourselves; and I will carry you away into exile far beyond Damascus, saith Jehovah-God of Hosts is His Name!" So this chapter closes like the previous, with the marshaling of Gods armies. But as there His hosts were the movements of Nature and the Great Stars, so here they are the nations of the world. By His rule of both He is the God of Hosts.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain CRITICAL NOTES.] This word] A mournful song (2Sa_1:17-27). Take…
CRITICAL NOTES.] This word] A mournful song (2Sa_1:17-27). Take up] Lit. lift up as if to cast down upon them.
Amo_5:2. Virgin] The Israelite state unsubdued by foreigners. Fallen] Violent death (2Sa_1:19-25), a figure of the overthrow of the kingdom. Rise] in the existing order.
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Amo_5:3. Went] to war. The depopulated city is touchingly described (Deu_28:62).
HOMILETICS
THE FUNERAL DIRGE.—Amo_5:1-3
“In order to impress Israel the more, Amos begins this his third appeal by a dirge over its destruction, mourning over those who were full of life and thought themselves safe. A dirge like that of David over Saul and Jonathan, over what once was lovely and mighty, but which had perished” [Pusey].
I. The death of the nation. Israel was spiritually dead and debased. Like a virgin, she had lost her purity and fealty to God.
1. The state was destroyed. “She hath fallen.” Fallen by her sins and from her dignity.
(1) Inwardly destroyed. “She is forsaken upon her land.” Her true interests were neglected by her friends. She was forsaken by her own rulers and guides. With all her strength and resources she was morally helpless and none could defend her.
(2) Violently destroyed. “Cast down upon her soil.” She was prostrated by inward tendency and outward force. “Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field” (Eze_29:5; Eze_32:4).
(3) Hopelessly destroyed. “There is none to raise her up.” Weakened by moral corruption and intestine strife; despised by men and forsaken by God, she could rise no more. Nothing can prop up a rotten nation, nor save a doomed people. Ichabod may be written when God has departed from us.
2. The people were decimated. The city from which thousands went equipped for war could scarcely muster one hundred. The people, cut off by sword and pestilence, could not furnish more than a tithe of their population. One common doom befell larger and smaller cities. The whole kingdom was helpless and ruined. “And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God.”
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
where wealth accumulates, and men decay.”
II. The mourning for the nation. God is gracious in showing to us our sins, and if we heed the accusation we may escape the lamentation. But people are obstinate and opposed to God.
1. The prophet mourned. This word which I take up against you.” He views the nation as dead, and he attends the funeral. He mourns not in poetic words, but in deep feeling. Every faithful minister at some time or other does the same. Samuel mourned over Saul; David wept because men kept not the law of God; Jeremiah grieved, and Paul had “great heaviness and continual sorrow.” Lamentations over fallen churches and wails over lost souls are most touching and too common! “I will weep bitterly; labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.”
2. The people mourned. Sad was the change and most distressing the condition of Israel. Sorrow entered every family; the state was deprived of its subjects; and there was none to help in her degraded condition. “If,” says a writer on this book, “an enemy who had depopulated our towns, and killed our fathers and mothers, were to come to our abodes, how would all rise to ruin such an enemy. We should do as the Jews did by Paul when they looked on him as an enemy (Act_21:27-28), ‘they stirred up all the people and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help!’ So should we encourage each other against sin and suppress it, saying:—‘Magistrates, ministers, men and brethren, help; sin is what destroys our people, wastes our cities, unpeoples our towns, opposeth the laws, and brings confusion everywhere.’ ”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Amo_5:1-3. In a piteous lamentation of the miserable state of the Church of Christ in England in the reign of Queen Mary, written by that worthy martyr of God Nicholas Ridley (Works, Parker Society), we meet with most affecting reasons for sorrow and tears [Ryan].
“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.” [Shakespeare.]
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The Third Address
The Third Address
1-6. A lament, a warning, and an invitation.
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7, 10-20. Denunciation of injustice and oppression, with threats of pestilence and judgment.
21-27. A repudiation of their attempt to please God by mere ritual.
1, 2. Lamentation] a technical term for mournful poetry consisting of short lines of unequal length: here, for instance (Amo_5:2), the dirge consists of four lines, the first and third having three accents, the second and fourth two. Virgin] because, though often defeated, Israel had not yet been thoroughly conquered.
5. Pass not to Beer-sheba] People living in the northern kingdom would have to 'pass,' to cross over, the territory of Judah to reach the famous sanctuary in the extreme S. of the land. In the reference to Gilgal there is one of those plays on sound which are so common in impassioned speech: 'Hag-Gilgâl galôh yigleh.' And in that to Beth-el a play on ideas: Bethel ('House of God') shall become Aven ('Nothing'). Hosea actually calls it Beth Aven, 'House of Nothing' (Hos_4:15; Hos_5:8; Hos_10:5), and also Aven (Hos_10:8). Bethel is now called Beit-in.
6. The better reading would be: 'Lest he send forth fire' (cp. Amo_1:4, Amo_1:7, Amo_1:10, Amo_1:12; Amo_2:2, Amo_2:5) 'upon the house of Joseph and there be none to quench it for Bethel.' Israel is entitled the house of Joseph, because Ephraim, the descendant of Joseph, is the chief tribe in the northern kingdom.
7. Instead of justice there is injustice, bitter as wormwood.
8, 9. Cp. Amo_4:13, and see Job_38:31; Isa_13:10; Isa_25:2, Isa_25:12.
8. The seven stars] RV 'the Pleiades,' lit. 'the heap.' The shadow of death] RM 'deep darkness,' is better.
10. The subject of Amo_5:7 is now resumed: they who turn justice into wormwood, etc., hate in the gate the man who reproves injustice. The gate is the broad, open space before the city wall, where all business is discussed and justice is supposed to be administered: cp. Amo_5:12.
11. Burdens of wheat] RV 'exactions of wheat.' These remind us of the way in which the French nobility used to 'grind down the peasantry to the utmost farthing to extort money to spend in debauchery and riot in Paris': cp. also 2Sa_12:3. Houses of hewn stone were a mark of great wealth (Isa_9:10).
12. RV 'For I know how manifold are your transgressions and how mighty are your sins; ye that afflict the just, that take a bribe, and that turn aside the needy,' etc. Bribe] The word means 'ransom' (see Exo_21:30; Pro_6:35); on many occasions it would defeat the ends of justice if a ransom was accepted.
13. What is the use of talking? As a modern writer says:
'For what avail'd it, all the noise And outcry of the former men?'
14. As ye have spoken] RV 'as ye say,' i.e. as ye say He is, as ye flatter yourselves He is.
15. The remnant] At best a mere fraction will escape.
16, 17. Streets] RV 'broad ways': what we call squares and open spaces. The wailing is the tremulous, high-pitched lament for the dead. The most necessary occupations are suspended because of the great number of deaths. Where the merry shout of the grapegatherers had been common, sounds of woe may now be heard. The skilful of lamentation are the professional mourners (Mat_9:23 : cp. 2Sa_3:31; Jer_34:5; Eze_26:17; Eze_27:32).
I will pass through, etc.] as the destroying angel passed through Egypt (Exodus 12).
18-20. Day of the Lord] see Intro., and cp. Isa_5:30; Isa_8:22; Joe_2:2; Oba_1:15.
21. Festivals such as Tabernacles (1Ki_12:33) are meant. I will not smell] RV 'I will take no delight.' The original words refer to the smelling the pleasant odour of the sacrifice (Gen_8:21; Lev_26:31).
22. The burnt offering was the costliest of sacrifices, and in early times was not often presented by private individuals.
Meat offerings] RV 'meal offerings': flour, or flour mingled with salt, oil, and incense.
Peace offerings] The 'thank offerings' of RM is better. These were partly eaten by the worshippers. Fat beasts were, of course, a costly sacrifice.
23, 24. Vocal and instrumental music was employed in the Temple service at Bethel, but was utterly distasteful to God because of the unrighteousness of the singers and the people generally: cp. Isa_1:13; Eze_26:13.
Viols] a kind of lute or guitar, with ten or twelve strings and a sounding-board. Mighty stream] RM 'ever-flowing.'
25. Have ye offered?] RV 'Did ye bring?' The answer is 'No.' So far is God from being influenced by sacrifices that all the time when His Providential care over them was most marked they were in the habit of presenting Him no oblations at all: cp. Jos_5:5-7; 1Sa_15:22; Jer_7:22, Jer_7:23.
26, 27. Render, 'And ye shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kçwân your images, the star of your god which ye made for yourselves. And I will cause,' etc. Kçwân is the name of one of the Babylonian planetary deities who has been variously identified with Saturn or Mars. Another title of the same god, Tsalme, is probably concealed under the words rendered 'your images.' It is at present uncertain who is meant by Sikkuth. The idolaters will have to carry their idols into exile, beyond Damascus, i.e. into Assyria, which is thus vaguely indicated.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain The Third Discourse
CHAPTER 5
The Third Discourse
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1. The lamentation (Amo 5:1-3)
2. Seek the Lord and ye shall live (Amo 5:4-15)
3. The wailing (Amo 5:16-20)
4. The captivity announced (Amo 5:21-27)
Amo 5:1-3. This chapter begins with a lamentation over the fallen daughter of Israel. “She shall no more rise” has been used as an argument against the future and literal restoration of Israel. The prophet has only the present government of God over that generation in view and does not deny at all a future rising as so abundantly predicted in the prophetic Word. “There is none to raise her up, “nor could she raise herself up. But the day will come when the Lord in grace will raise her.
Amo 5:4-15. Here the Lord entreats Israel once more to desist from her idolatrous way and to seek Him instead of the worship at Bethel and Gilgal, for judgment would surely be executed there. “Seek ye Me and ye shall live.” Then again, “Seek the LORD and ye shall live,” and in case of disobedience, He, whom they refused, would fall like fire upon the house of Joseph. The house of Joseph is mentioned because the tribe of Ephraim was the most powerful tribe in the kingdom of Israel, and Joseph was the father of Ephraim. Again they are told to seek Him “Who maketh the seven stars (the Pleiades) and Orion.” These two great constellations were well known to the ancients Job 9:9; Job 38:31. And He also turneth the shadow of death into morning and darkeneth day to night. This is an illustration of the judicial actions of the Lord. As in nature He turns night into day, and the day into dark night, so He turns the deepest misery and sorrow into joy and happiness, and changes the bright day of prosperity into the night of woe and disaster. He is the Lord of judgment, who controls the waters of tribulation and wrath, the floods of judgment, and makes them pass over the earth.
Amo 5:10-13 give a description of the moral condition of Israel. They were unrighteous and loved the ways of unrighteousness; if the judge in the gate judged righteously they hated him for it, those who spoke uprightly they abhorred. The poor they trampled into the dust and extorted the distribution of corn from them. They had built fine houses of hewn stone, but they were not to enjoy them nor the wine from their pleasant vineyards Deu 28:30; Deu 28:39. The Lord knew their transgressions and the greatness of their sins.
Still there was hope, for the Lord is merciful and slow to anger. Judgment is His strange work. Therefore once more we hear His pleadings, “Seek good and not evil that ye may live, and so the LORD God of hosts shall be with you, as ye have spoken.” “Hate evil and love good!”
Amo 5:16-20. As judgment comes there shall be wailing in the streets, wailing with the husbandman, and there will be wailing in all vineyards as the Lord passes through in His judgment. “For I will pass through thee” reminds us of Egypt in the passover night when the Lord passed through Egypt to smite. And now the death wail was soon to be heard in the midst of His people.
And still another evil was in their midst. Some of them brazenly desired the announced “day of the Lord,” the day of His manifestation to come. It originated in their false boast that they are the covenant people. They knew from the former prophets that the day of the Lord would rid them of their enemies, then Israel would be fully redeemed and blest and the Lord’s glory would be manifested in the sight of the nations. Such was Joel’s vision concerning “that day.” Such was their false hope while they lived on in sin. But the herdman, Amos, pronounced a woe upon them for desiring that day. What good will that day be to the impenitent nation? It is a day of darkness and not light. Then follows a parable such as a child of nature, as Amos was, would make. He describes a man who flees from a lion and fortunately escapes; but then he meets a bear, him he escapes likewise. Exhausted he reaches his house, and like one about to faint, he leans his hand on the wall; a small serpent out of the crevice bites him and he perishes miserably. So would the day of the Lord overtake them. How different it is with the true believer. He desires, not the Day of the Lord, but the coming of Him, who has promised His own, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am ye may be also.”
Amo 5:21-27. The Lord despised their outward worship; their feast days and different offerings were not well pleasing in His sight. It was all a hollow pretense of honoring Him, and all their songs were hateful to Him.
But this departure from Him was not a new thing in their history. They were always a stiffnecked people. Even in the wilderness did they not bring Him sacrifices and offerings, but instead they bore the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun (or the booth of your king and the pedestal of your images, the star of your gods). Then follows the verdict, “Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.”
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Israel’s only Safety in Seeking the Lord
Israel’s only Safety in Seeking the Lord
v. 1. Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel, an elegy, dirge, or mournful song sung over the downfall of Israel.
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v. 2. The virgin of Israel, the people called thus because they were to be the Lord’s congregation, His chaste bride, is fallen; she shall no more rise, not return to her former powerful and prosperous state; she is forsaken upon her land, stretched out upon her soil, by a violent overthrow; there is none to raise her up.
v. 3. For thus saith the Lord God, The city that went out by a thousand, sending so many soldiers into war, shall leave an hundred, the rest being destroyed by war and pestilence, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel, all the rest being devoured by the punishment of the Lord.
v. 4. For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, in a last attempt to save its people from themselves, Seek ye Me, in sincere worship of the one true God, and ye shall live;
v. 5. but seek not Bethel, where idolatry was so openly and blasphemously practiced, nor enter into Gilgal, another center of idol-worship, and pass not to Beersheba, in the extreme southern part of Canaan, where evidently another altar had been erected to idols; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, its idols unable to save it, and Bethel shall come to naught, its heathenish worship unable to save it.
v. 6. Seek the Lord, to serve and worship the God of the covenant only, and ye shall live, lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, a name for Ephraim, the son of Joseph and the ancestor of the mightiest tribe of the northern kingdom, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel, even their mightiest idols being powerless before the might of Jehovah.
v. 7. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, by perverting justice into a bitter wrong, and leave off righteousness in the earth, casting it down, trampling it under foot,
v. 8. (seek Him) that maketh the seven stars, one of the constellation of the sky, and Orion, Cf Job 9, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, the darkest hour being just before dawn, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth, in fearful tidal waves and floods:. the Lord is His name, the one true God;
v. 9. that strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, literally, "who makes desolation to flash upon the strong," as the catastrophes caused by Him suddenly take hold of men, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress, rather, "and desolation comes upon the fortress," for none can withstand the power of the Almighty.
v. 10. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, him who raises his voice against the universal unrighteousness, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly, for the very fact that some one is honest and true is a rebuke to the hypocrisy of the wicked.
v. 11. Forasmuch, therefore, as your treading is upon the poor, in the oppression which was then so generally practiced, and ye take from him. burdens of wheat, exacting such gifts by methods of violence:. ye have built houses of hewn stone, costly dwellings, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, with their unlawful gains, but ye shall not drink wine of them.
v. 12. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins, outstanding even in the midst of a nation steeped in wickedness; they afflict the just, making life a burden for him, they take a bribe, causing such bribe money to be paid, in order that men might buy their freedom from the oppression of these same rulers, and they turn aside the poor in the gate, where the courts of justice were held, from their right. Thus the poor were without champions of their right and were obliged to bow to the mighty, a condition which still prevails almost universally.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 house of Israel
house of Israel
The word "house" is a metonym for the family that lives in the house. In this case it refers to Israel's descendants. AT: "you people of Israel" or "you Israelite people group" (See: Metonymy)
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The virgin Israel has fallen ... no one to raise her up
The phrase "The virgin Israel" represents the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel being destroyed and having no other nation to help them become strong again is spoken of as if it were a young woman who has fallen and has no one to raise her up. AT: "The nation of Israel is like a woman who has fallen ... no one to help her get up" (See: Metaphor)
she is forsaken on her land
This can be stated in active form. AT: "People have forsaken her" or "they have abandoned her" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
lament
house
Israel
virgin
forsake
raise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 5:1-3 The charges against Israel had been filed (3:1-2;…
5:1-3 The charges against Israel had been filed (3:1-2; 4:1-3); now it was time for judgment. Amos made this point clear by singing a funeral song for Israel, as though the nation were already dead.
5:1 funeral song: The Hebrew word (qinah) describes a special rhythm (3+2 beats) used for funeral dirges (most of the book of Lamentations is written in qinah). The ominous significance was clear: Israel had already died and now awaited burial.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.