For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;
Parallel Translations
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For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;
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For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
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For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel: Seek ye Me, and live;
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to Amos 5:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Chronicles 15:2 and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin! Yahweh is with you, while you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.
- Zephaniah 2:3 Seek Yahweh, all you humble of the land, who have kept his ordinances. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of Yahweh’s anger.
- Jeremiah 29:12-13 You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.
- Psalms 14:2 Yahweh looked down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who understood, who sought after God.
- Isaiah 55:3 Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
- Psalms 105:3-4 Glory in his holy name. Let the heart of those who seek Yahweh rejoice. Seek Yahweh and his strength. Seek his face forever more.
- Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.
- Matthew 7:8 For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.
- 1 Chronicles 28:9 You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.
- Lamentations 3:25-26 Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
- Deuteronomy 30:1-8 It shall happen, when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations where Yahweh your God has driven you, and return to Yahweh your God and obey his voice according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that then Yahweh your God will release you from captivity, have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the peoples where Yahweh your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of the heavens, from there Yahweh your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. Yahweh your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you will possess it. He will do you good, and increase your numbers more than your fathers. Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring, to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. You shall return and obey Yahweh’s voice, and do all his commandments which I command you today.
- 2 Chronicles 20:3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
- 2 Chronicles 34:3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, the Asherah poles, the engraved images, and the molten images.
- Psalms 69:32 The humble have seen it, and are glad. You who seek after God, let your heart live.
- Amos 5:6 Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.
- Psalms 22:26 The humble shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise Yahweh who seek after him. Let your hearts live forever.
- Psalms 27:8 When you said, “Seek my face,” my heart said to you, “I will seek your face, Yahweh.”
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Amos here again exhorts the Israelites to repentance; and…
Amos here again exhorts the Israelites to repentance; and it was an address common to all, though the greater part, as we have said, were altogether past recovery; but it was necessary, as long as they continued a chosen people, to call them to repentance; for they had not been as yet abdicated. We further know, that the Prophets preached in order to invite some to God, and to render others inexcusable. With regard to the end and design of public teaching, it is, that all should in common be called: but God’s purpose is different; for he intends, according to his own secret counsel, to draw to himself the elect, and he designs to take away all excuse from the reprobate, that their obstinacy may be more and more apparent. We must further bear in mind, that while the people of Israel continued, the doctrine of repentance and faith was preserved among them; and the reason was that to which I have alluded, because they remained as yet in the fold of God. It is no wonder then that the Prophet gives again to the Israelites the hope of pardon, provided they repented.
Thus saith Jehovah to the house of Israel, Seek me, and ye shall live. This sentence has two clauses. In saying, Seek me, the Prophet exhorts the Israelites to return to a sane mind: and then he offers them the mercy of God, if only they sought from the heart to reconcile themselves to him. We have elsewhere said that men cannot be led to repentance, unless they believe that God will be propitious to them; for all who think him to be implacable, ever flee away from him, and dread the mention of his name. Hence, were any one through his whole life to proclaim repentance, he could effect nothing, except he were to connect with this the doctrine of faith, that is, except he were to show that God is ready to give pardon, if men only repent from the heart. These two parts, then, which ought not to be separated, the Prophet here connects together very wisely and for the best reason, when he says, Seek me, and ye shall live; intimating that the gate of mercy was still open, provided the Israelites did not persevere in their obstinacy. But, at the same time, he lays this to their charge, — that they willfully perished through their own fault; for he shows that in themselves was the only hindrance, that they were not saved; for God was not only ready to receive them into favor, but also anticipated and exhorted them, and of his own free will sought reconciliation. How then was it, that the Israelites despised the salvation offered to them? This was the madness which he now charges them with; for they preferred ruin to salvation, inasmuch as they returned not to God when he so kindly invited them, Seek me, and ye shall live The same thing is stated in another place, where it is said, that God seeketh not the death of a sinner, (Ezekiel 18:32)
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But as we have already said, the Prophets spoke thus in common to all the people, but their doctrine was not to all efficacious; for the Lord inwardly attracted his elect, and others were rendered inexcusable. But still this is true, that the whole blame, that they perished, were in the children of Israel, for they refused the salvation offered to them. What indeed was the cause of their destruction, but their own obstinacy? And the root of the evil, was it not in their own hearts? Then none of them could evade the charge made against them by the Prophet, — that they were the authors of their own ruin, for each of them must have been conscious of his own perverseness.
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 5:4 For thus saith the LORD unto the…
Amo 5:4 For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
Ver. 4. For thus saith the Lord] Or, truly thus saith the Lord; notwithstanding the former terrible sentence, which the prophet could not denounce with dry eyes; but takes up a lamentation, though less concerned in it, and might well say, as one did in another case,
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“ Tu quibus ista legis, incertum est, lector ocellis,
Ipse quidem siccis dicere non potui. ”
All God’s threatenings (for the most part) are conditional, Jer 18:7; Jer 26:2, sc. if men repent not. As if they do, they may live in his sight, and be accounted worthy (such is God’s great goodness) to escape all those things that shall befall the impenitent, Luk 21:36. The gospel is post naufragium tabula, writing tablet after the ship wreck, sand hath its reward too, Heb 11:6, sc. of grace and mercy. Do this and live, saith the law. Seek the Lord, and live, saith the gospel. "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," and that is the force of the Hebrew word here used, which signifieth to inquire, to make serious search and scrutiny, to seek him out (εκζητησατε με, as the Seventy have it), when he is withdrawn; to seek him as a student doth sciences, a worldling gold, a hungry man meat, &c., as a man studiously turns over a commentary to find out the sense of a text, Isa 34:16. Do this, saith God, and ye shall live; not only have your lives for a prey, but live merrily, happily. "Now we live," saith the apostle; that is, we rejoice, 1Th 3:8 : and "Thus shall ye say to him that liveth"; that is, hath a comfortable life, and a confluence of blessings, 1Sa 25:6. But besides all this, ye shall live for ever; and aeterna vita, vera vita, eternal life is the only life properly so called. Life (in what sense soever taken) is a sweet mercy: "A living dog is better than a dead lion," saith Solomon, Ecc 9:4; and "Joseph is yet alive," saith Jacob (he doth not say, Joseph is lord of Egypt), "I will get down, and see him before I die," Gen 45:28. "But eternal life is" (by a speciality and with an accent) "the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord," Rom 6:23; and this gift he will freely bestow on all that so seek him as not to be satisfied without him, as Moses, who would not be put off with an angel, but said, "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence," Exo 33:15; and as Luther, who when great gifts were sent him, refused them and said, Valde protestatus sum, me nolle sic satiari a Deo: I deeply protested that I would not be satisfied with these low things, but that I would have God or nothing. This was one of those brave apophthegms {a} of his, concerning which Melchior Adam well saith, A man would fetch them upon his knees from Rome, or Jerusalem, rather than be without them.
{a} A terse, pointed saying, embodying an important truth in few words; a pithy or sententious maxim. ŒD
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 For, or yet, truly.
For, or yet, truly.
Thus saith the Lord; amidst all those threats there is still a reserve, a conditional proviso, and the Lord here does by his prophet declare it.
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Unto the house of Israel; though apostate both in sacred and civil things, though polluted and defiled greatly, and this through many scores of years, yet after all repentance would help them.
Seek ye me; inquire for my law, and repent of your despising it, obey it in all things for the future, inquire diligently what promises I have made and wait for them, believe, obey, and repent; for this is to seek the Lord, when a people have turned from the Lord, as you have done, O house of Israel.
Ye shall live; it shall be well with you, your persons, families, and the whole kingdom shall prosper, as the Hebrew phrase importeth.
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 is a message from God to the house…
This is a message from God to the house of Israel, in which,
I. They are told of their faults, that they might see what occasion there was for them to repent and reform, and that, when they were called to return, they might not need to ask, Wherein shall we return?
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1. God tells them, in general (Amo 5:12), "I know your manifold transgressions, and your mighty sins; and you shall be made to know them too." In our penitent reflections upon our sins we must consider, as God does in his judicial remarks upon them, and will do in the great day, (1.) That they are very numerous; they are our manifold transgressions, sins of various kinds and often repeated. Oh what a multitude of vain and vile thoughts lodge within us! What a multitude of idle, foolish, wicked words have been spoken by us! In what a multitude of instances have we gratified and indulged our corrupt appetites and passions! And how many our own omissions of duty and in duty! Who can understand his errors? Who can tell how often he offends? God knows how many, just how many, our transgressions are; none of them pass him unobserved; we know that they are to us innumerable; more than the hairs of our head; and we have reason to see what danger we have brought ourselves into, and what abundance of work we have made for repentance, by our manifold transgressions, by the numberless number of our sins of daily incursion. (2.) That some of them are very heinous; they are our mighty sins; sins that are more exceedingly sinful in their own nature and by being committed presumptuously and with a high hand, sins against the light of nature, flagrant crimes, that are mighty to overpower your convictions and to pull down judgments upon you.
2. He specifies some of these mighty sins. (1.) They corrupted the worship of God, and turned to idols; this is implied Amo 5:5. They had sought to Bethel, where one of the golden calves was; they had frequented Gilgal, a place which they chose to set up idols in, because it had been made famous in the days of Joshua by God's wonderful appearances to and for his people. Beer-sheba likewise, a place that had been famous in the days of the patriarchs, was now another rendezvous of idols; as we find also, Jos 8:14. And thither they passed, though it lay at a distance, in the land of Judah. Now, having thus shamefully gone a whoring from God, no doubt they should have felt themselves concerned to return to him. (2.) They perverted justice among themselves (Amo 5:7): "You turn judgment to wormwood, that is, you make your administrations of justice bitter and nauseous, and highly displeasing both to God and man." That fruit has become a weed, a weed in the garden; as nothing is more venerable, nothing more valuable, than justice duly administered, so nothing is more hurtful, nothing more abominable, than designedly doing wrong under colour and pretence of doing right. Corruptio optimi est pessima - The best, when corrupted, becomes the worst. "You leave off righteousness in the earth, as if those that do wrong were accountable to the God of heaven only, and not to the princes and judges of the earth." Thus it was as before the flood, when the earth was filled with violence. (3.) They were very oppressive to the poor, and made them poorer; they trod upon the poor (Amo 5:11), trampled upon them, hectored over them, made them their footstool, and were most imperious and barbarous to those that were most obsequious and submissive; they care not what shame and slavery they put those to who were poor and such as they could get nothing by. The judges aimed at nothing but to enrich themselves; and therefore they took from the poor burdens of wheat, took it by extortion, either by way of bribe or by usury. The poor had no other way to save themselves from being trodden upon, and trodden to dirt, by them, than by presenting to them horse-loads of that corn which they and their families should have had to subsist upon, and they forced them to do it. They took from the poor debts of wheat, so some read it. It was legally due either for rent or for corn lent, but they exacted it with rigour from those who were disabled by the providence of God to pay it, as Neh 5:2, Neh 5:5. In demanding and recovering even a just debt we must take heed left we act either unjustly or uncharitably. This sin of oppression by are again charged with (Amo 5:12): They afflict the just, by turning the edge of the law and of the sword of justice against those that are the innocent and quiet in the land; they hated men because they were more righteous than themselves, and he that departed from evil thereby made himself a prey to them. They take a bribe from the rich to patronize and protect them in oppressing the poor, so that he who has money in his hand is sure to have the judgment on his side, be his cause ever so bad. Thus they turn aside the poor in the gate, in the courts of justice, from their right. If the poor sue for their right, who cannot bribe them, or are so honest that they will not, though they have it ever so clear in view and ever so near, yet they are turned away from it by their unrighteous sentence and cannot come at it. And therefore the prudent will keep silence, Amo 5:13. Men will reckon it their prudence, when they are wronged and injured, to be silent, and make no complaints to the magistrates, for it will be to no purpose; they shall not have justice done them. (4.) They were malicious persecutors of God's faithful ministers and people, Amo 5:10. Their hearts were so fully set in them to do evil that they could not bear to be reproved, [1.] By the ministry of the word, by the reading and expounding of the law, and the messages which prophets delivered to them in the name of the Lord. They hate him that rebukes in the gate, in the gate of the Lord's house, or in their courts of justice, or in the places of concourse, where Wisdom is lifting up her voice, Pro 1:21. Reprovers in the gate are reprovers by office; these they hated, counting them their enemies because they told them the truth, as Ahab hated Micaiah. They not only despised them, but had an enmity to them, and sought to do them mischief. Those that hate reproof love ruin. [2.] By the conversation of their honest neighbours. Though things were generally very bad, yet there were some among them that spoke uprightly that made conscience of what they said, and, as it was their praise, so it was the shame of those that spoke deceitfully, and condemned them, as Noah's faith condemned the unbelief of the old world, and for that reason they abhorred them; they were such inveterate enemies to the thing called honesty that they could not endure the sight of an honest man. All that have any sense of the common interest of mankind will love and value such as speak uprightly, for veracity is the bond of human society; to what a pitch of folly and madness then have those arrived who, having banished all notions of justice out of their own hearts, would have them banished out of the world too, and so put mankind into a state of war, for the abhor him that speaks uprightly! And for this reason the prudent shall keep silence in that time, Amo 5:13. Prophets cannot, dare not, keep silence; the impulse they are under will not allow them to act on prudential considerations; they must cry aloud, and not spare. But as for other wise and good men they shall keep silence, and shall reckon it is their prudence to do so, because it is an evil time. First, They shall think it dangerous to complain, and therefore shall keep silence; this was one way in which they afflicted the just, that by false suggestions and strained innuendos they made men offenders for a word (Isa 19:21); and therefore the prudent, who were wise as serpents, because they knew not how what they said might be misinterpreted and misrepresented, were so cautious as to say nothing, lest they should run themselves into a premunire, because it was an evil time. Note, Through the iniquity of the times, as good men are hidden, so good men are silent, and it is their wisdom to be so; little said soon amended. But it is their comfort that they may speak freely to God when they know not to whom else they can speak freely. Secondly, They shall think if fruitless to reprove. They see what wickedness is committed, and their spirits are stirred up, as Paul's at Athens; but they shall think it prudent not to bear an open testimony against it, because it is to no purpose. They are joined to their idols; let them alone. Let no man strive or rebuke another; for it is but casting pearls before swine. The cautious men will say to a bold reprover, as Erasmus to Luther, "Abi in cellam, et dic, Miserere mei, Domine - Away to they cell, and cry, Have mercy on me, O Lord!" Let grave lessons and counsels be kept for better men and better times. And there is a time to keep silence as well as a time to speak, Ecc 3:7. Evil times will not bear plain dealing, that is evil men will not; and the men the prophet here speaks of had reason to think themselves evil men indeed, when wise and good them thought it in vain to speak to them and were afraid of having any thing to do with them.
II. They are told of their danger and what judgments they lay exposed to for their sins. 1. The places of their idolatry are in danger of being ruined in the first place, Amo 5:5. Gilgal, the head-quarters of idolatry, shall go into captivity, not only its inhabitants, but its images, and Bethel, with its golden calf shall come to nought. The victorious enemy shall make nothing of it, so easily shall it be spoiled, and shall bring it to nothing, so effectually shall it be spoiled. Idols were always vanity, and things of nought, and so they shall prove when God appears to abolish them. 2. The body of the kingdom is in danger of being ruined with them, Amo 5:6. There is danger lest, if you seek him not in time, he break out like a fire in the house of Joseph and devour it; for our God is a righteous Judge, is a consuming fire, and the men of Israel, as criminals, are stubble before him; woe to those that make themselves fuel to the fire of God's wrath. It follows, And there shall be none to quench it in Bethel. There their idols were, and their idolatrous priests; thither they brought their sacrifices, and there they offered up their prayers. But God tells them that when the fire of his judgments should kindle upon them all the gods they served at Bethel should not be able to quench it, should not turn away the judgment, nor be any relief to them under it. Thus those that make an idol of the world will find it insufficient to protect them when God comes to reckon with them for their spiritual idolatry. 3. What they have got by oppression and extortion shall be taken from them (Amo 5:11): "You have built houses of hewn stone, which you thought would be lasting; but you shall not dwell in them, for your enemies shall burn them down, or possess them for themselves, or take you into captivity. You have planted pleasant vineyards, have contrived how to make them every way agreeable, and have promised yourselves many a pleasant walk in them; but you shall be forced to walk off, and shall never drink wine of them." The law had tenderly provided that if a man had built a house, or planted a vineyard, he should be at his liberty to return from the wars, Deu 20:5, Deu 20:6. But now the necessity would be so urgent that it would not be allowed; all must go to the battle, and many of those who had lately been building and planting should fall in battle, and never enjoy what they had been labouring for. What is not honestly got is not likely to be long enjoyed.
III. They are told their duty, and have great encouragement to set about it in good earnest, and good reason. The duties here prescribed to them are godliness and honesty, seriousness in their applications to God and justice in their dealings with men; and each of these is here pressed upon them with proper arguments to enforce the exhortation.
1. They are here exhorted to be sincere and devout in their addresses to God, Amo 5:4. God says to the house of Israel, Seek you me, and with good reason, for should not a people seek unto their God? Isa 8:19. Whither else should they go but to their protector? Israel was a prince with God; let his descendants seek the Lord, as he did, and they shall be so too. Now, in order to their doing this, they must abandon their idolatries. God is not sought truly if he be not sought exclusively, for he will endure no rivals: "Seek you the Lord, and seek not Bethel (Amo 5:5), consult not your idol-oracles, nor ask at the mouth of the priests of Bethel; seek not to the golden calf there for protection, nor bring your prayers and sacrifices any longer thither, or to Gilgal, for you forsake your own mercies if you observe those lying vanities. But seek the Lord (Amo 5:6, Amo 5:8); enquire after him; enquire of him; seek to know his mind as your rule, to secure his favour as your felicity." To press this exhortation we are told to consider, (1.) What we shall get by seeking God; it will be our life; we shall find him, and shall be happy in him. So he tells them himself (Amo 5:4): Seek you me, and you shall live. Those that seek perishing gods shall perish with them (Amo 5:5), but those that seek the living God shall live with him: "You shall be delivered from the killing judgments which you are threatened with; your nation shall live, shall recover from its present languishings; your souls shall live; you shall be sanctified and comforted, and made for ever blessed. You shall live." (2.) What a God he is whom we are to seek, Amo 5:8, Amo 5:9. [1.] He is a God of almighty power himself. The idols were impotent things, could do neither good nor evil, and therefore it was folly either to fear or trust them; but the God of Israel does every thing, and can do any thing, and therefore we ought to seek him; he challenges our homage who has all power in his hand, and it is our interest to have him on our side. Divers proofs and instances are here given of God's power, as Creator, in the kingdom of nature, as both founding and governing that kingdom. Compare Amo 4:13. First, The stars are the work of his hands; those stars which the heathens worshipped (Amo 5:26), the stars of your god, those stars are God's creatures and servants. He makes the seven stars and Orion, two very remarkable constellations, which Amos, a herdsman, while he kept his cattle by night, had particularly observed the motions of. He made them at the first, he still makes them to be what they are to this earth and either binds or looses the sweet influences of Peliades and Orion, the two constellations here mentioned. See Job 38:31; Job 9:9, to which passages Amos seems here to refer, putting them in mind of those ancient discoveries of the glory of God before he was called the God of Israel. Secondly, The constant succession of day and night is under his direction, and is kept up by his power and providence. It is he that turns the night (which is dark as the shadow of death) into the morning by the rising of the sun, and by the setting of the sun makes the day dark with night; and the same power can, for humble penitents, easily turn affliction and sorrow into prosperity and joy, but can as easily turn the prosperity of presumptuous sinners into darkness, into utter darkness. Thirdly, The rain rises and falls as he appoints. He calls for the waters of the sea; out of them vapours are drawn up by the heat of the sun, which gather into clouds, and are poured out upon the face of the earth, to water it and make it fruitful. This was the mercy that had been withholden from them of late (Amo 4:7); and therefore to whom should they apply but to him who had power to give it? For all the vanities of the heathen could not give rain, nor could the heavens themselves give showers Jer 14:22. It is God that has made these things; Jehovah is his name, the name by which the God of nature, the God of the whole earth, has made himself known to his people Israel and covenanted with them. [2.] As he is God of almighty power himself, so he gives strength and power unto his people that seek him, and renews strength to those that had lost it, if they wait upon him for it; for (Amo 5:9) he strengthens the spoiled against the strong to such a degree that the spoiled come against the fortress and make bold and brave attacks upon those that had spoiled them. This is an encouragement to the people to seek the Lord, that, if they do so, they shall find him above to retrieve their affairs, when they are brought to the lowest ebb; though they are the spoiled, and their enemies are the strong, if they can but engage God for them, they shall soon recruit so as the next time to be not only the aggressors, but the conquerors; they come against the fortress, to make reprisals and become masters of it.
2. They are here exhorted to be honest and just in their dealings with men, Amo 5:14, Amo 5:15, where observe, (1.) The duty required: Seek good, and not evil. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate; re-establish it there, whence it has been banished, Amo 5:7. Note, Things are not so bad but that they may be amended if the right course be taken; we must not despair but that grievances may be redressed and abuses rectified; justice may yet triumph where injustice tyrannizes. In order to this, good must be loved and sought, evil must be hated and no longer sought. We must love good principles and adhere to them, love to do good and abound in doing it, love good people, and good converse, and good duties; and, whatever good we do, we must do it from a principle of love, do it of choice and with delight. Those who thus love good will seek it, will contrive to do all the good they can, enquire for opportunities of doing it, and endeavor to do it to the utmost of their power. They will also hate evil, will abhor the thought of doing an unjust thing, and abstain from all appearance of it. In vain do we pretend to seek God in our devotions if we do not seek good in our whole conversations. (2.) The reasons annexed. [1.] This is the sure way to be happy ourselves and to have the continual presence of God with us: "Seek good, and not evil, that you may live, may escape the punishment of the evil you have sought and loved (righteousness delivereth from death), that you may have the favour of God, which is your life, which is better than life itself, that you may have comfort in yourselves and may live to some good purpose. You shall live, for so the Lord God of hosts shall be with you and be your life." Note, Those that keep in the way of duty have the presence of God with them, as the God of hosts, a God of almighty power. "He will be with you as you have spoken, that is, as you have gloried; you shall have that really which, while you went on in unrighteous ways, you only seemed to have and boasted of as if you had." Those that truly repent and reform enter into the enjoyment of that comfort which before they had only flattered themselves with the imagination of. Or, "As you have prayed when you sought the Lord. Live up to your prayers, and you shall have what you pray for." [2.] This is the likeliest way to make the nation happy: "If you seek and love that which is good, you may contribute to the saving of the land from ruin." It may be, the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph; though there is but a remnant left, yet, if God be gracious to that remnant, it will rise to a great nation again; and if some among them turn from sin, especially if judgment be established in the gate, though we cannot be certain, yet there is a great probability that public affairs will take a new and happy turn, and every thing will mend if men mend their lives. Temporary promises are made with an It may be; and our prayers must be made accordingly.
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 For thus saith the Lord unto the house of…
For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel,.... Or "yet" (a), notwithstanding all this, though such judgments were threatened and denounced, and such desolations should certainly come, in case of impenitence, and an obstinate continuance in a course of sin; yet hopes are given of finding mercy and kindness upon repentance and reformation, at least to the remnant of them; see Amo 5:15;
seek ye me; seek my fear, as the Targum; fear and reverence, serve and worship, the Lord God; return unto him by repentance; seek to him by prayer and supplication; acknowledge your sins, and humble yourselves before him, and implore his pardoning grace and mercy:
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and ye shall live; in your own land, and not be carried out of it; live comfortably, in great plenty of good things; and live spiritually, enjoying the favour of God, and his presence in his ordinances, and live eternally in the world to come.
(a) "attamen", Grotius.
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 Ye shall live - It shall be well with…
Ye shall live - It shall be well with you.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 4. Seek ye me, and ye shall live]…
Verse 4. Seek ye me, and ye shall live] Cease your rebellion against me; return to me with all your heart; and though consigned to death, ye shall be rescued and live. Deplorable as your case is, it is not utterly desperate.
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 5:4-5. For — Or rather, nevertheless, seek ye…
Amo 5:4-5. For — Or rather, nevertheless, seek ye me, and ye shall live — That is, ye shall be prosperous again; for life, in the Scripture language, is used to express prosperity, or happiness. This shows, that what was said in the 2d verse, of their being fallen to rise no more, is to be taken as it is there explained; namely, in case they did not repent, but continued in their wickedness. But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, &c. — The places here named, it is probable, were all seats of idolatrous worship. The sense of the verse, therefore, is, that if they continued in their idolatries they should certainly be carried into captivity, and come to naught — For it was only by returning and seeking God’s favour by true repentance and humiliation, and ceasing from their idolatry, that they could be saved from ruin.
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 Seek ye Me and ye shall live - Literally,…
Seek ye Me and ye shall live - Literally, “seek Me; and live.” 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 prophet users the two imperatives, inoneing both, man’s duty and his reward. He does not speak of them, as cause and effect, but as one. Where the one is, there is the other. To seek God is to live. For to seek God is to find Him, and God is Life and the Source of life. Forgiveness, grace, life, enter the soul at once. But the seeking is diligent seeking. : “It is not to seek God anyhow, but as it is right and meet that He should be sought, longed for, prayed for, who is so great, a Good, constantly, fervently, yea, to our power, the more constantly and fervently, as an Infinite Good is more to be longed for, more loved than all created good.” The object of the search is God Himself. “Seek Me,” that is, 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. “And ye shall live,” first by the life of the body, escaping the enemy; then by the life of grace now, and the life of glory hereafter, as in that of the Psalmist, “your heart shall live who seek God” Psa 69:32.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Seek ye me, and ye shall live--literally, "Seek .…
Seek ye me, and ye shall live--literally, "Seek . . . Me, and live." The second imperative expresses the certainty of "life" (escape from judgment) resulting from obedience to the precept in the first imperative. If they perish, it is their own fault; God would forgive, if they would repent (Isa 55:3, Isa 55:6).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4, 5. The prophet begins again with the solemn…
4, 5. The prophet begins again with the solemn “Thus saith Jehovah.”
Seek ye me, and ye shall live — Hebrews “Seek ye me, and live”; that is, If ye seek me ye shall surely live (G.-K., 110f.). Return to Jehovah will save them from the threatened calamity. To seek the Deity has a twofold meaning in the Old Testament: (1) To go to the shrine to offer sacrifice (Amo_5:5), or to consult the oracle (Gen_25:22; 1Sa_9:9, etc.); (2) to enter into fellowship with the Deity in love and obedience (Hos_10:12; Isa_9:13, etc.). In the latter sense Amos uses it here.
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Seek not Beth-el — See on Amo_3:14. Nominally they went to the sanctuaries to “seek” Jehovah (see preceding comment); in reality their desire was to participate in the joyous festivals celebrated there under the guise of religion. Such worship could awaken no response in Jehovah.
Gilgal — See on Amo_4:4.
Beer-sheba — Also a very ancient sanctuary (Gen_21:14; Gen_26:25; Gen_46:1). Israelites desirous of visiting it had to pass over their borders and the borders of Judah, for it was located in the extreme south, in the Negeb. The long journeys were undertaken probably only on special occasions. The character of the worship at Beer-sheba, in all probability, differed but little from that at the other Hebrew sanctuaries. Its ruins are represented by the modern Bir-es-Seba’, about fifty miles south-southwest of Jerusalem, about twenty-eight miles southwest of Hebron. These sanctuaries can offer no permanent refuge, for they also are doomed (compare Isa_1:29-31). It is difficult to reproduce the paronomasia which is very marked in 5b, Gilgal galoh yigleh and Beth-el (beth) aven. “Gilgal shall taste the gall of exile” (G.A. Smith). “Beth-el (the house of God) shall become Beth-aven (the house of naught).” Wellhausen offers a striking translation: “Gilgal wird zum Galgen gehen, und Beth-el wird des Teufels werden” (Gilgal will go to the gallows, and Beth-el will become the devil’s).
Come to naught — Hebrews aven. See on Hos_4:15.
In Amo_5:6 the exhortation is repeated with a few changes. Jehovah is used instead of me, as if Amos were taking up the exhortation uttered previously by Jehovah himself. A new motive for obedience is introduced. Obedience will mean life; disobedience — what? (Compare Isa_1:20.)
Lest he break out — A forceful verb, equivalent to cleave, penetrate.
Like fire — The point of comparison is destructiveness.
Joseph — As the ancestor of Ephraim and Manasseh, the two most powerful tribes of the north (Hos_13:1), Joseph stands here for Israel, that is, the northern kingdom (Amo_5:15; Amo_6:6). Hosea uses in the same sense Ephraim (Amo_5:3; Amo_6:4, etc.). House of Joseph — house of Israel — kingdom of Israel.
And devour it — An unexpected change in the original from masculine to feminine, as if from now on fire were the subject. This makes the construction harsh; therefore Nowack suggests a slight emendation: “lest he will kindle the house of Joseph with fire, which will devour.…” The conflagration will prove disastrous, for there is no one to quench it (Isa_1:31; Jer_4:4). Jehovah alone could do it, but he is sending the fire.
In Beth-el — Literally, for Beth-el; LXX., “for the house of Israel.” While this is the thought expected here, it is not necessary to suppose that the present Hebrew text is incorrect. Beth-el, as the religious center, might represent the entire kingdom.
The transition from Amo_5:6-7 ff. is again abrupt, and the logical connection between the two parts has been variously explained. The most natural explanation is to regard Amo_5:7 a justification of the prophet’s earnest exhortation to seek Jehovah. The exhortation is needed, for at present they are not seeking him in a manner that will enable them to find him; far from it, they are doing the very things that will cause him to hide his face. As in Amo_2:7, the participial construction is used, which is reproduced correctly in English by the relative clause connected with the subject implied in seek (Amo_5:6): “You who are living such godless and immoral lives, seek Jehovah.”
Wormwood — A plant having a bitter juice (Deu_29:18; Pro_5:4), unpalatable and, when drunk to excess, noxious. In Scripture it is always used as a symbol of that which is unpleasant and bitter (Amo_6:12; Jer_9:15).
Judgment — R.V., “justice”; here the administration of justice. Under normal conditions this is desirable and of great value, but they have changed its character so that it has become undesirable and bitter.
Leave off righteousness in the earth — More accurately, R.V., “cast down righteousness to the earth,” instead of “establishing” it (Amo_5:15). Righteousness — justice, equity (2Sa_8:15; Jer_22:3). This they trample under foot, while they exalt violence and oppression. Primarily these are crimes committed by those in authority, but all have become corrupt (compare Isa_3:12), so that the description fits all.
The next two verses (8, 9) resemble closely Amo_4:13. Like the latter, and for similar reasons, they are denied to Amos (see Introduction, pp.
217ff). In this instance the objections derive additional weight from the fact that the interruption of the thought is more apparent, Amo_5:10 being the natural continuation of Amo_5:7. Whether from Amos or not, the verses, like Amo_4:13, present a reason why the listeners should receive the prophetic message with reverence and ready obedience. Assuming that they are authentic, two ways seem open for removing the apparent interruption in thought: (1) It is proposed to change the order, so as to read 7, 10, 8, 9, which would require no alteration in the text itself. True, this would make the transition from 10 to 8 abrupt, but no more so than at present, from 7 to 8. (2) Another possibility is to place 8, 9 after 6, in apposition to Jehovah in 6, followed by 7, 10. If this is done, 7, 10 cannot be connected very well with the preceding, but must be interpreted as introducing a new thought. To make the beginning more natural, it is proposed to prefix “Woe” (compare Amo_5:16; Amo_6:1): “Woe unto those who turn.…” A few commentators deny that the thought is interrupted. Mitchell, for example, seeks to show the logical connection between 7 and 8ff. in the following paraphrase: “Ye oppressors (Amo_5:7), know ye not that Jehovah, whose mercy ye have spurned, is the maker and ruler of all things (Amo_5:8), a mightier than the mightiest (Amo_5:9)? Therefore, ye enemies of righteousness (Amo_5:10), because ye trample… (Amo_5:11).” Absolute certainty on this point is impossible.
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 4–10. Proof that Israel merits the fate which has…
4–10. Proof that Israel merits the fate which has just been pronounced against it: it has sought Jehovah by a ritual which He does not value, and it has spurned the virtues which He really prizes.
Seek ye me, and ye shall live] The Heb. is more forcible and concise: ‘Seek ye me, and live’: cf. Gen_42:18 ‘This do, and live.’ To seek God was a standing expression for consulting Him by a prophet, or an oracle, even on purely secular matters (cf. Gen_25:22; Exo_18:15; 1Sa_9:9; 2Ki_3:11; 2Ki_8:8; 2Ki_22:13; 2Ki_22:18; Jer_37:7; Eze_14:3; Eze_20:1; Eze_20:3); but it is also used of seeking or caring for (Jer_30:14) Him more generally, by paying regard to His revealed will, and studying to please Him by the practice of a righteous and holy life, Hos_10:12; Isa_9:13; Jer_10:21; Zep_1:6; Isa_55:6; Isa_58:2; Isa_65:10; Psa_9:10; Psa_24:6; Psa_34:10; Psa_78:34, &c. The latter is the sense, which the expression has here. Seek ye me, says the prophet, in Jehovah’s name, by the means that I approve, and you will live, i.e. escape the threatened destruction.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (4) Seek . . . live.—Search after God is…
(4) Seek . . . live.—Search after God is rewarded by finding Him, and this is life in the highest sense.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The more formal proof that Israel has merited her…
The more formal proof that Israel has merited her punishment here begins. In calling her to repentance the prophet contrasts God"s requirements with her actual conduct. Seek ye me, and ye shall live. Two imperatives: "Seek me, and (so) live;" duty and its reward. "Seek me in the appointed way, and ye shall be saved from destruction". (comp. Gen_42:18)
Vers. 4-6.
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The seeking that is life.
This passage contains at once a vindication of the coming destruction on Israel, and a last offer of escape. All past evil had been justly incurred by departure from God. All coming evil might yet be avoided by return to him. "Seek ye me" was the direction on their treatment of which the whole issue turned.
I EVEN THE FOREDOOMED ARE NOT ABANDONED OF GOD. The antediluvians were preached to for a century after their destruction was denounced. So Jerusalem got a Pentecost, and the ordinances of a Christian Church for forty years after Christ had pronounced her doom. (Mat_23:37-39)
1. God"s threatenings are in a certain sense conditional on men"s conduct. They are addressed to men in their character or circumstances at the time they are uttered. If and when the character or circumstances cease to exist, the threatenings cease to apply. It was so in the case of Hezekiah, (Isa_38:1, Isa_38:5) and also of Nineveh. (Jon_3:4, Jon_3:10) God in suchcases does not change, but the circumstances do, and his modes of treatment change accordingly.
2. They am desinged to turn men, not to plunge them in despair. All life is disciplinary. Each event and experience is fitted, and meant, to exercise a moral influence. Being, moreover, controlled by a holy God, the moral influence of each must be in the direction of right, It is so with blessings and the promise of them (Rom_2:4; Isa_1:19) It is so also with judgments and the threat of them (Isa_26:9; Luk_13:3, Luk_13:5) God takes pleasure in the soul"s turning, (Eze_18:23, Eze_18:32) and all his dealings with it aim at and tend to this result. Therefore, until judgment actually falls, the threat of it is kept as a deterrent before the sinner"s eyes.
3. Individuals may turn after national repentance has become hopeless. Language addressed to a nation is really meant for the individuals composing it; and as individuals they would be influenced by it. No general forsaking of sin was probable in Israel. Still, some might turn, as many did in Jerusalem, and were saved after the destruction of the city as a whole was foretold; and, so long as this was possible, the means fitted to turn would not be withdrawn. God"s expostulations will go forth to glean in comers even when the prospects of a harvest are blighted.
II THERE IS A SEEKING IN CONNECTION WITH WHICH IT IS LIFE TO FIND. To Israel here and to all men everywhere the great object of search is God, not mere good; (Psa_42:2) and God for himself, not for his gifts.
1. This seeking implies previous non-possession. God is neither the property of the wicked nor his possession. Sin made separation between them, and a severing of all previously existing ties. Man abandoned God, and God drove out man. Now he is "without God," is "enmity against God," bids God depart from him, says in his heart, "No God." It is only by the saint, and after seeking, that it can be said, "I have found him whom my soul loveth." "This God is our God forever and ever." Grace it is that knits again the ties broken by sin, and restores man and God to a condition of mutual love and possession and indwelling.
2. It is a quest with the whole heart and strength. The essence of seeking God is to desire him. And to desire him really is to desire him heartily. Not to desire him with other things. Not to desire him more than other things. Not to desire him weakly. Not even to desire him strongly. But to desire him wholly, supremely, and intensely. Seeking God is heart seeking, or it is nothing. Heart seeking is truly such when it is seeking with the whole heart. Therefore only to such seeking is there a promise of finding. (Jer_29:13 Jer_24:7) God cannot be had till he is adequately wanted, and to be wanted adequately is to be wanted supremely.
3. It is synonymous with finding. In God"s world everywhere supply meets and measures demand. Plant, animal, and man, each finds on earth, in climate, habitat, covering, and food, exactly the thing it needs. There is no want for which there is not full and fitting provision. So in the spiritual sphere. "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst," etc. Over against every need of the soul is a Divine supply. That need become conscious, means help waiting; that need expressed, means help already on the way. Spiritual good is obtained on the simple condition of its being truly desired.
4. To find God is to find all good which inheres in him. God is himself the greatest Good; he is, moreover, the Sum, and therefore the Source, of all good. There is certain good which he unconditionally bestows on all, even the ungodly. But it is good of the lower kinds, and which ministers to the lower needs. All spiritual good, and all temporal good that has any spiritual aspect, God gives only with and in Jesus Christ (Rom_8:32; Mat_6:33) The planets attend the sun and follow where he leads. So on Christ, as God"s unspeakable Gift, the other lesser gifts wait. We have them when we grasp him.
5. This good, summed up in one word, is life. Life is a general term for the highest good. (Psa_30:5 Psa_133:3) It is physical life, the prevention or withdrawal of destroying judgments. It is judicial life, or the reversal of the death sentence on the soul, and the privilege for it of living. It is spiritual life, being quickened once for all out of the death in sin, being made alive and kept alive. It is everlasting life, the out blooming in eternity of the flower of soul life planted on earth.
III THIS IS NOT THE SEEKING TO WHICH MEN NATURALLY TURN. It was under pretence of greater convenience that Jeroboam"s calves were set up in Dan and Bethel. But Beersheba was fifty miles south of Jerusalem, and Gilgal was on the other side of Jordan, and so most inconvenient of access. That Israel preferred them to Jerusalem was proof that they preferred idolatrous rites to the worship of God (see Pusey).
1. Idols are mans own invention, and therefore the egoists choice. There is self-sufficiency verging on self-worship in all sin. Man puts his own opinion and will and work above God"s. An idol is his own creation, and for that reason, if for no other, is preferred to God. It is a subtle form of self-worship, and so inevitably preferred to any other.
2. They are credited with qualities congenial to his nature. A man impresses himself on his work, virtually puts himself into it. It reflects his genius and his moral character. The idol a man makes is thus substantially a repetition of himself, and therefore congenial to him all round. Made by his hand, it is after his heart, which the God of heaven is very far from being.
3. The fall into idol worship is broken by the retention in it of a flavouring of the worship of God. Bethel and Beersheba, its shrines, were spots where the Divine presence had of old been richly manifested, its rites mimicked, to some extent, the national worship of God. It was added on at first to Divine worship, not substituted for it. Satan lets men down into idolatry by easy stages. It begins in the sanctuary. It appears at first in the likeness of a better thing. Then, when men have become sufficiently familiar with it and degraded by it to bear the sight, it puts on its natural shape, and is idol worship pure and simple.
IV IN THE SEEKING OF THE NATURAL HEART SUCCESS MUST MEAN DISASTER. By a play upon words, Gilgal, "the Great Rolling," is to be rolled away; and Bethel, styled elsewhere "Bethaven," shall become "aven," or vanity.
1. An idol is a figment, and the worship of it can only result in deception and loss. It is not a thing, but only the image of a thing, It is the image, moreover, not of a real, but of an imaginary thing. It is, therefore, "nothing," and "a thing of nought", (1Co_8:4) and out of nothing nothing can come. To worship it is delusion, to trust it inevitable disappointment.
2. Gods infinite power and his wrath are against them that forsake him. The idolater pits idol impotence against Divine omnipotence, with the inevitable result of discomfiture and destruction. There are idols of the heart the service of which is no less ruinous. They group themselves under the heading "world," and the love of them is incompatible with the love of God, and so "Anathema" (1Jn_2:15; 1Co_16:22)
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Ver. 4.
Seek the Lord.
Man is by nature a seeker. He desires good, of one kind or another, and what he desires he makes the object of his quest, more or less diligent and persevering. Hence the restlessness, the energy, the effort, so distinctive of human life. Religion does not destroy or repress natural characteristics; it hallows and dignifies them. Religion gives to human search a just direction and noble aim.
I THE REASONS IN MAN"S NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH SHOULD LEAD HIM TO SEEK THE LORD.
1. Man is so constituted that he cannot find a full satisfaction in any earthlyand created good. He returns from every such endeavour with the complaint, "All is vanity." "Our heart," said St. Augustine heart is restless till it rests in thee.
2. Especially do all human religions prove their insufficiency. Israel waslearning this by bitter experience. "Seek not Bethel," etc., was the admonition of the prophet to those who had been in the habit of resorting to idol shrines. The gods of the heathen were known to the Jews as "vanities.
II THE REASONS TO BE FOUND IN GOD WHY HE SHOULD ENGAGE THE SEEKING POWERS OF MAN.
1. His own proper excellence is such that the soul that gains even a glimpseof it may well devote to the pursuit of Divine knowledge and favour all powers and all opportunities.
2. God alone is able to succour and to save those who set their affection and desire upon him.
3. God condescends to invite the children of men to seek him. By themouth of the prophet he gives an express command and invitation. We may be assured that this language is sincere and trustworthy.
4. There is an express promise of incomparable preciousness addressed tosuch as are ready to respond to the heavenly call. "Ye shall live," is the authoritative assurance. By this we may understand that seekers after God shall be delivered from destruction, that they shall be made partakers of the Divine life, in all its spiritual energy and happiness.
III THE METHODS IN WHICH GOD MAY BE SOUGHT AND FOUND.
1. Observe where he is to be found: i.e. in his holy Word; in his blessed Son, by whom in this Christian dispensation he has revealed himself unto us, and who has said, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
2. Consider how he is to be found: i.e. by penitence, in humility, through faith, with prayer; in a word, by the exercises special to the spiritual nature.
3. Notice when he is to be found: i.e. now. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. T.
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND
Ver. 4.
Seeking the Lord.
thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live." It is impossible to read this chapter without noticing the tenderness of the prophet, his compassion and pitifulness, his yearning wish to help and save. This feeling is the more remarkable because Amos belonged to the tribe of Judah, and felt thus towards the neighbouring and hostile kingdom of Israel. Such pity is ever a sign of Divine inspiration. Thus Isaiah (Isa_22:4) says, "Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people," etc. Samuel, too, after Saul the king had proved himself so headstrong and wilful that nothing could save him, although he went down to his own house and, in accordance with Divine command, saw him no more, nevertheless mourned for Saul to the day of his death. And, loftiest of all, Christ Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives, and as he beheld the city which had rejected him, he wept over it, saying, "O Jerusalem," etc.! It was in this spirit that Amos wrote the passage before us, and thrice repeated the message in our text. Meditation on this subject gives us some thoughts:
1. On the loss of God.
2. On the search for God.
3. On life in God.
I THE LOSS OF GOD. The exhortation to "seek" him implies that he has been lost sight of by his creatures. This is brought about by various influences.
1. By intellectual temptations. These vary in different ages. In the time of Amos the study of God"s works led to superstition, while in these days it leads many to scepticism. Then the stars were believed to affect human destiny (ver. 8); each season had its own deity; every element obeyed some unseen being. The polytheist would have joined heartily with the Jew in saying, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." In our day, on the contrary, folly is supposed to lie in the other direction, namely, in the heart of him who believes in that which is beyond sensuous perception and purely intellectual research. Science, which has driven fairies from the woods, elves from the mountains, and nymphs from the sea, is now supposed to be almost prepared to drive God from his universe. Articles in our magazines, addresses in our halls, speak with such ill-disguised contempt of religious men that their language is, "The fool bath said in his heart, There is a God." But the world never wanted God more. Men are not satisfied with knowing, and some who see no evidence for a future heaven are bitterly asking Is life worth living? Amidst the miseries of civilized society, and the wrangling of sects, many a one secretly says, "My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God!" In an age when men believed in gods who had no personal love or righteousness, they wanted to know the heavenly Father; and in this age, when scepticism has swept the world bare of some of its old creeds, we do well to hearken to the message of God, "Seek ye me, and ye shall live.
2. By prevailing idolatries. Show how places of sacred memory had become sources of idolatry and pollution (ver. 5). Bethel, where Jacob saw the heavenly ladder, and vowed that he and his would be the Lord"s; Gilgal, where the people reconsecrated themselves on entering Canaan; Beersheba, where Abraham called on the Lord, and Isaac built his altar, and Israel offered sacrifice when going with his sons into Egypt; were all transformed into idolatrous resorts. From this, point out how easily creeds, forms of worship, holy places and relics, nominal profession of Christianity, etc., may hide God, instead of bearing witness to him. Suggest also certain modern idolatries.
3. By practical unrighteousness. Amos addressed his hearers as "Ye who turn judgement to wormwood that is, who, instead of rendering justice, commit bitter wrong, and leave off righteousness in the earth or, rather, "dethrone it from rule"." Trace these sins in some trades and professions, and in some social customs and ecclesiastical movements, of our own day. Yet, in spite of such sins, which will incur the penalties here foretold, the message comes to every sinner from him who is not willing that any should perish, "Seek ye me, and ye shall live.
II THE SEARCH FOR GOD. Let us rightly estimate the privilege offered to us. God is great beyond our conceptions. "He maketh the seven stars and Orion," etc., yet says, "To that man will I look who is of a humble and contrite heart.
1. There is necessity for seeking him. He will not force himself on our notice, nor blazen his name in the sky. Any man, if he chooses, is free to live as if God were not. It is "he who seeketh findeth.
2. There are advantages in seeking him. These are additional to the advantages of finding him. The most precious things (jewels, corn, knowledge, etc.) are not the most easily obtained. The self-discipline, the steadfast effort, the trials of faith and hope, etc., cultivate character. So, in seeking God, we find that the pains and difficulties resulting from doubts, indolence, sins, etc., are part of our Heaven-appointed discipline. If God were visible as the sun is visible, there would be no moral advantage in "seeking" him; but as he is visible only through faith and prayer, we rise heavenward in our very seeking after him.
3. There is a right way of seeking him. Hence ver. 5, "Seek not Bethel," etc. Some hoped to get help in other directions rather than in the path of penitential prayer. Multitudes now, instead of turning to him who is the Light of the world, pursue false lights, which, like the will-o"-the-wisp, will lead to destruction. Hear the words of Jesus Christ: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;" "I and the Father are one.
III THE LIFE IN GOD. "And ye shall live. " This does not allude to national life. That was irrevocably doomed. But in the doomed nation any sinner turning to God would live. Nor is the allusion to natural life, but to that spiritual life which is referred to in the verse, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee," etc, This life in its nature and source is more fully revealed to us than to Amos himself.
1. The source of this life is found in God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. No man can create life where it is not, nor restore it where it once was. Christ, by the raising of the dead, showed in a visible sphere what he alone can do in the invisible. "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
2. The nature of this life. It is Divine, and constitutes us "partakers of the Divine nature." Its germ is faith, its inspiration is love, its breath is prayer, its manifestation the likeness of Christ.
3. The vigour of this life. It will live amid the influences of an evil atmosphere, as a hale man walks unhurt through a tainted hospital It will assert itself in streams of benediction to the world around, and it will finally prove itself victorious over death; for the Lord has said, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die;" text. A.R.
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 Seek ye Me, and ye shall live . .…
Amo_5:4-5
Seek ye Me, and ye shall live . . . But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal.
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I. The blessings of Israel. Gilgal and Bethel were places in Israels history bedewed by showers of blessing.
1. Gilgal was the scene of new life.
2. Bethel was the scene of the manifestation of the Divine presence.
II. Israel had misused these blessings.
1. All their wickedness is in Gilgal. The sanctuary had been desecrated.
2. Bethel, the house of God, had become the kings chapel and the kings court.
Jeroboam had set up the golden calf there as a convenient place for the worship of God, but in violation of the second commandment.
III. Misused blessings become curses. Gilgal and Bethel were marked for destruction on account of these idolatries. This was the retribution that should follow abuse of privileges.
IV. Gilgal and bethel have their counterparts in the Christian life. Gilgal may represent the new start in life which is taken at confirmation, after sickness, etc. Bethel represents the Sundays and the services which should be as gates to heaven in the house of God. Satan intrudes into our most sacred seasons and places, and introduces idolatry. He fills our minds with other thoughts, so that we forget our resolutions, make light of our blessings, and sacred things become an occasion of falling. The safeguard against misuse of blessing, is to keep in memory the redemption that has been wrought and the promised presence of the Lord. (W. Walters, M. A.)
The search which ends in life, and the search which ends in ruin
I. THE SEARCH WHICH ENDS IN LIFE. The end of such search is life. Ye shall live. Doubtless that form was given to the promise because of the calamities which were impending over the State. But there is something more than preservation from the scourge of sin. Life of the soul--full exercise of its powers, full pleasure in its blessings, with that life for evermore which God gives to those who seek Him.
II. The search which ends in ruin. Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba were the centres of idol worship in Israel (Amo_4:4; Amo_8:14). They could not keep themselves from ruin, what then must be the fate of their worshippers? The deluded people brought their sacrifices; but when trouble came it was in vain to turn to Bethel and Gilgal--even their deities perished. Application. Verse 6 shows that God would punish the nation, and none would be able to stay His hand. From Bethel in the days of vengeance there should be no deliverance. The sinner must meet his Judge, whom he had despised and refused to seek, and meet Him alone. (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 Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Amo_5:4. Live] Not only remain alive, but possess real…
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Amo_5:4. Live] Not only remain alive, but possess real favour.
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Amo_5:5. Bethel] “A strong dissuasive from idolatry derived from the predicted fall of the objects and places of false worship.”
Amo_5:6. Lest] Danger threatened. Like fire] consuming everything before it (Deu_4:24; Isa_10:17; Lam_2:3).
SEEKING GOD AND RENOUNCING SIN.—Amo_5:4-6
Departure from God is the root of all sorrow. Reformation therefore must beradical and not formal. God has not utterly abandoned Israel. He speaks as “our God,” ready on our return to him to deliver and bless. “Seek ye me and ye shall live.”
I. The urgent request. The prophet repeatedly urges them to seek God (Amo_5:4; Amo_5:6; Amo_5:14), from whom they had wandered and whom they had offended.
1. God is the object sought. We must seek him not for any selfish ends, not for gifts, nor for anything out of him. What is the world without him? All may be found and enjoyed in him. Some pursue pleasure, riches, and wealth, others find in God their chief good. “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”
2. God must be sought earnestly. The seeking is diligent and anxious. Infinite good is more desirable than created good. We must not seek God anyhow, but with earnestness and perseverance. The pursuit is not an indefinite desire, the mere natural working of the mind, but an intense longing for God. “Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
II. The needful caution. “But seek not Bethel,” &c. Israel sought God at Bethel; but idolatry is opposed to seeking God, and must be renounced. The worship of God cannot be reconciled with the worship of Baal.
1. Outward forms will not avail. Gilgal and Bethel were ancient places, but empty forms. The truth once taught there had become powerless, and Israel had ceased to obey. Men may plead beauty, antiquity, and prevalence of forms; but we are admonished to abandon them all and trust to the living God. Idolatrous customs will ensure and increase our condemnation. They are an abomination to God. “Seek ye me,” and “pass not to Beersheba.”
2. False hopes wiil disappoint. Bethel was not the house of God. Gilgal would go into captivity, and Beersheba would soon be in ruins. The pleasant things of Gilgal passed into the hands of the enemy. All hopes of residence there were disappointed, and bitter was the remorse of the people. Schemes of worldly happiness and forms of idolatry will utterly fail. False confidences allure men to destruction, do not avert danger nor quench the fire of Divine anger against sin. Idols of every kind are vanity. An idol is nothing in the world (1Co_8:4; 1Co_10:19); and “they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”
III. The encouraging promise. “And ye shall live.”
1. Ye shall escape danger. If the fire broke out none could quench it. Bethel, the centre of idolatry, would be consumed. But if they sought God, they would escape and be delivered from calamities. The sinner can only be saved from eternal death in Christ. For “who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
2. Ye shall obtain God’s favour. We may be delivered from outward danger, from sickness and distress, yet not redeemed from sin—preserved in natural existence, but deprived of real enjoyment. Life in any sense is good, for “a living dog is better than a dead lion!” The soul can only live when converted, refreshed, and oured of its ills. “Your heart shall live that seek God.” In his favour is life, and “thy lovingkindness is better than life.”
DIVINE JUSTICE A CONSUMING FIRE.—Amo_5:6
This verse is an awful picture of sin and Divine retribution which breaks forth in violence upon ungodly nations.
I. The fuel. “The house of Joseph.” Sinners make themselves fuel for the flame, ripen themselves for destruction. Rotten and unfruitful branches of the Church will be burned. “Behold, they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them, they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.”
II. The conflagration. “Lest he break out like fire.”
1. The Divine nature is like fire. “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb_12:28-29; Isa_33:14). Holy anger and holy love are found in God. He that is light and love may become, by the power of his wrath, a consuming fire. “A fire goeth before him and burneth his enemies round about” (Psa_97:3; Deu_4:24).
2. The Divine procedure is like a fire. When God is provoked to anger judgments will burn the wicked like chaff. Pestilence and war ravage and waste like fire. “The material of sorrow and distress accumulates from period to period. Violation of God’s laws, followed by disregard for social duties, prepares both governments and people for tumult and war. The spark of discontent falls on some portion of the mass, suddenly it blazes forth, and is rapidly communicated from one part to another, till everywhere the signs of woe are seen, ‘blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke.’ ”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amo_5:4. Such as find a distance and are seeking to make it up, may not speed at first, yet that should not weaken their hands, nor will they be accounted less penitent, or be further from acceptance, that they are but pursuers and not enjoyers; for, approven repentance here is not to find God, but to seek him, and these get the promise, Seek ye me, and ye shall live [Hutcheson]. Seek and 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 fulfils the condition, but the condition is indispensable. [Lange]. 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 [Ib.].
Amo_5:5. This is the law of God’s dealings with man; He “curses our blessings,” if we do not use them aright (Mal_2:2). Christ, the Corner Stone, will break to pieces those who fall upon it; and it will grind to powder those on whom it falls (Mat_21:44). 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, and will roll us downward into our destruction [Wordsworth].
Amo_5:6. Seek. The oft pressing of a duty imports:
1. The excellency;
2. The necessity;
3. The difficulty of doing it: else what need so many words? [Trapp].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Amo_5:4-6. Jeroboam pretended that it was too much for Israel to go up to Jerusalem. Yet Israel thought it not too much to go to the extremest point of Judah towards Idumæa, perhaps four times as far south of Jerusalem as Jerusalem lay from Bethel. For Beersheba is thought to have lain some 30 miles south of Hebron, which is 22 miles south of Jerusalem; while Bethel is but 12 to the north. 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].
Amo_5:6. “Justice is the great but simple principle, and the whole secret of success in all government. It is as essential in the training of an infant as in the government of a mighty nation.”
“Justice, like lightning, ever should appear
To few men’s ruin, but to all men’s fear.” [Sivenam.]
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.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Amo 5:4 - Amo 5:15.
Amos
THE SINS OF SOCIETY
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Amo 5:4 - Amo 5:15.
The reign of Jeroboam II, in which Amos prophesied, was a period of great prosperity and of great corruption. Amos, born in the Southern Kingdom, and accustomed to the simple life of a shepherd, blazed up in indignation at the signs of misused wealth and selfish luxury that he saw everywhere, in what was to him almost a foreign country. If one fancies a godly Scottish Highlander sent to the West end of London, or a Bible-reading New England farmer’s man sent to New York’s ‘upper ten,’ one will have some notion of this prophet, the impressions made, and the task laid on him. He has a message to our state of society which, in many particulars, resembles that which he had to rebuke.
There seems to be a slight dislocation in the order of the verses of the passage, for Amo 5:7 comes in awkwardly, breaking the connection between Amo 5:6 and Amo 5:8, and itself cut off from Amo 5:10, to which it belongs. If we remove the intruding verse to a position after Amo 5:9, the whole passage is orderly and falls into three coherent parts: an exhortation to seek Jehovah, enforced by various considerations {Amo 5:4 - Amo 5:9}; a vehement denunciation of social vices {Amo 5:7, Amo 5:10 - Amo 5:13}; and a renewed exhortation to seek God by doing right to man {Amo 5:14 - Amo 5:15}.
Amos’s first call to Israel is but the echo of God’s to men, always and everywhere. All circumstances, all inward experiences, joy and sorrow, prosperity and disaster, our longings and our fears, they all cry aloud to us to seek His face. That loving invitation is ever sounding in our ears. And the promise which Amos gave, though it may have meant on his lips the continuance of national life only, yet had, even on his lips, a deeper meaning, which we now cannot but hear in it. For, just as to ‘seek the Lord’ means more to us than it did to Israel, so the consequent life has greatened, widened, deepened into life eternal. But Amos’s narrower, more external promise is true still, and there is no surer way of promoting true well-being than seeking God. ‘With Thee is the fountain of life,’ in all senses of the word, from the lowest purely physical to the highest, and it is only they who go thither to draw that will carry away their pitchers full of the sparkling blessing. The fundamental principle of Amos’s teaching is an eternal truth, that to seek God is to find Him, and to find Him is life.
But Amos further teaches us that such seeking is not real nor able to find, unless it is accompanied with turning away from all sinful quests after vanities. We must give up seeking Bethel, Gilgal, or Beersheba, seats of the calf worship, if we are to seek God to purpose. The sin of the Northern Kingdom was that it wanted to worship Jehovah under the symbol of the calves, thus trying to unite two discrepant things. And is not a great deal of our Christianity of much the same quality? Too many of us are doing just what Elijah told the crowds on Carmel that they were doing, trying to ‘shuffle along on both knees.’ We would seek God, but we would like to have an occasional visit to Bethel. It cannot be done. There must be detachment, if there is to be any real attachment. And the certain transiency of all creatural objects is a good reason for not fastening ourselves to them, lest we should share their fate. ‘Gilgal shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought,’ therefore let us join ourselves to the Eternal Love and we shall abide, as it abides, for ever.
The exhortation is next enforced by presenting the consequences of neglecting it. To seek Him is life, not to seek Him incurs the danger of finding Him in unwelcome ways. That is for ever true. We do not get away from God by forgetting Him, but we run the risk of finding in Him, not the fire which vitalises, purifies, melts, and gladdens, but that which consumes. The fire is one, but its effects are twofold. God is for us either that fire into which it is blessedness to be baptized, or that by which it is death to be burned up. And what can Bethel, or calves, or all the world do to quench it or pluck us out of it?
Once more the exhortation is urged, if we link Amo 5:8 with Amo 5:6, and supply ‘Seek ye’ at its beginning. Here the enforcement is drawn from the considerations of God’s workings in nature and history. The shepherd from Tekoa had often gazed up at the silent splendours of the Pleiades and Orion, as he kept watch over his flocks by night, and had seen the thick darkness on the wide uplands thinning away as the morning stole op over the mountains across the Dead Sea, and the day dying as he gathered his sheep together. He had cowered under the torrential rains which swept across his exposed homeland, and had heard God’s voice summoning the obedient waters of the sea, that He might pour them down in rain. But the moral government of the world also calls on men to seek Jehovah. ‘He causeth destruction to flash forth on the strong, so that destruction cometh upon the fortress.’ High things attract the lightning. Godless strength is sure, sooner or later, to be smitten down, and no fortress is so impregnable that He cannot capture and overthrow it. Surely wisdom bids us seek Him that does all these wonders, and make Him our defence and our high tower.
The second part gives a vivid picture of the vices characteristic of a prosperous state of society which is godless, and therefore selfishly luxurious. First, civil justice is corrupted, turned into bitterness, and prostrated to the ground. Then bold denouncers of national sins are violently hated. Do we not know that phase of an ungodly and rich society? What do the newspapers say about Christians who try to be social reformers? Are the epithets flung at them liker bouquets or rotten eggs? ‘Fanatics and faddists’ are the mildest of them. Then the poor are trodden down and have to give large parts of their scanty harvests to the rich. Have capital and labour just proportions of their joint earnings? Would a sermon on Amo 5:11 be welcome in the suburbs of industrial centres, where the employers have their ‘houses of hewn stone’? Such houses, side by side with the poor men’s huts, struck the eye of the shepherd from Tekoa as the height of sinful luxury, and still more sinful disproportion in the social condition of the two classes. What would he have said if he had lived in England or America? Justice, too, was bought and sold. A murderer could buy himself off, while the poor man, who could not pay, lost his case. We do not bribe juries, but {legal} justice is an expensive luxury still, and counsel’s fees put it out of the reach of poor men.
One of the worst features of such a state of society as Amos saw is that men are afraid to speak out in condemnation of it, and the ill weeds grow apace for want of a scythe. Amos puts a certain sad emphasis on ‘prudent,’ as if he was feeling how little he could be called so, and yet there is a touch of scorn in him too. The man who is over-careful of his skin or his reputation will hold his tongue; even good men may become so accustomed to the glaring corruptions of society in the midst of which they have always lived, that they do not feel any call to rebuke or wage war against them; but the brave man, the man who takes his ideals from Christ, and judges society by its conformity with Christ’s standard, will not keep silence, and the more he feels that ‘It is an evil time’ the more will he feel that he cannot but speak out, whatever comes of his protest. What masquerades as prudence is very often sinful cowardice, and such silence is treason against Christ.
The third part repeats the exhortation to ‘seek,’ with a notable difference. It is now ‘good’ that is to be sought, and ‘evil’ that is to be turned from. These correspond respectively to ‘Jehovah,’ and ‘Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba,’ in former verses. That is to say, morality is the garb of religion, and religion is the only true source of morality. If we are not seeking the things that are lovely and of good report, our professions of seeking God are false; and we shall never earnestly and successfully seek good and hate evil unless we have begun by seeking and finding God, and holding Him in our heart of hearts. Modern social reformers, who fancy that they can sweeten society without religion, might do worse than go to school to Amos.
Notable, too, is the lowered tone of confidence in the beneficial result of obeying the Prophet’s call. In the earlier exhortation the promise had been absolute. ‘Seek ye Me, and ye shall live’; now it has cooled to ‘it may be.’ Is Amos faltering? No; but while it is always true that blessed life is found by the seeker after God, because He finds the very source of life, it is not always true that the consequences of past turnings from Him are diverted by repentance. ‘It may be’ that these have to be endured, but even they become tokens of Jehovah’s graciousness, and the purified ‘remnant of Joseph’ will possess the true life more abundantly because they have been exercised thereby.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Seek me
Seek me
Here "Seek me" represents asking God for help. AT: "Ask me for help" (See: Metaphor)
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Do not seek Bethel
Here "seek Bethel" represents going to Bethel to ask for help. AT: "Do not go to Bethel to ask for help" (See: Metaphor)
nor enter Gilgal
"and do not enter Gilgal"
For Gilgal will surely go into captivity
Here "Gilgal" represents the people of Gilgal, and going into captivity refers to being captured and taken away. AT: "For the people of Gilgal will surely be captured and taken away" or "For your enemies will surely capture the people of Gilgal and take them away" (See: Metonymy)
Bethel will become nothing
Here "become nothing" represents being destroyed. AT: "Bethel will be completely destroyed" or "enemies will completely destroy Bethel" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
life
Bethel
Gilgal
Beersheba
captive
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 5:4 Come back to me and live implies a…
5:4 Come back to me and live implies a condition: In order to live, Israel should seek the Lord (also in 5:6). Otherwise, the funeral song (5:1-2) would become Israel’s death sentence.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.