1 A lamentation for Israel. 4 An exhortation to repentance. 21 God rejecteth their hypocritical service.
Seek the Lord and Live
Amo 5:1 Hear this word, Israel, this lament I take up concerning you:
This is the third of Amos’ three messages (see on chs. 3:1; 4:1). For the keynote of this message, see on ch. 5:4. Here God offers, as it were, to settle out of court (see on chs. 3:3; 4:12).
A lamentation. In vs. 1–3 Amos laments the fall of Israel. After pronouncing woes upon the rebellious Israelites, the prophet changes his tone to that of a mournful spectator looking upon fulfilled judgments.
In this he reflected the spirit of Christ, who is so gracious that He not only shows us our sins but sorrows when He must punish us for them (see Luke 19:40–44).
Amo 5:2 “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.”
Virgin Israel.
This term is applied to Israel, despite her unfaithfulness to God, probably because she has been tenderly cared for by God and guarded by Him from enemies (see Isa. 23:12; Jer. 14:17; cf. Isa. 47:1).
Never to rise again.
No more rise. See on Hosea 4:17.
Amo 5:3 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Israel: “Your city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left; your town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.
A thousand. So severe would be the chastisement of God upon Israel that only a tenth of a city’s inhabitants would be left. The same ratio would apply to the small cities and towns also. The covetousness of Israel (see on ch. 2:7) results in loss, not gain.
Amo 5:4 This is what the LORD says to Israel: “Seek me and live;
Verses 4–6 are both a vindication of the destruction coming to Israel and a last offer of escape. God in His boundless mercy will freely forgive the past if they will but turn to Him. Nothing pleases God more than the sinner’s return to Him, and all His dealings with us have as their object this result (see Eze. 18:23, 31, 32; Luke 15:3–7).
This verse states the keynote of Amos’ third message (see on v. 1). If Israel will only “seek” God, the otherwise inevitable result will not follow.
Seek me and live. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
A promise to those who seek God with the whole heart (see Jer. 29:13, 14).
Amo 5:5 do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
Do not seek.
By nature man is a seeker, either of that which is good or of that which is bad. Bethel and Gilgal were centres of idolatrous worship (see on Hosea 4:15; Amos 4:4).
Beer-sheba. A town 43 mi. (68.8 km.) south of Jerusalem. It had become at some time a shrine of idolatry (see 2 Kings 23:8), and apparently the Israelites resorted to it, though it was distant from their territory (see Amos 8:14).
Gilgal shall surely go into captivity.
Heb. gilgal galoh yigleh. Note that this clause is an alliterative play on words. Beth-el. Amos declares that Bethel, “the house of God,” shall not merely be a “house of vanity,” but vanity itself (see on Hosea 4:15). In other words, Bethel, instead of being a place for the worship of the true God, had become the temple of an idol, and so had become nothingness (see 1 Cor. 8:4).
Of the three cities mentioned in this verse as centers of idolatry, only two were mentioned by Amos as being doomed to destruction. Evidently it was because Beer sheba was not in the territory of the ten tribes that Amos does not indicate its fate.
Further, when Israel was overcome, Beer-sheba was not involved in the ruin.
Amo 5:6 Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
God holds out His gracious promises to sinners, lest in despair they go from sin to sin.
Like fire. In His punishing of sin, God is likened to “a consuming fire” (see Deut. 4:24; Jer. 4:4). God desires that all men be saved, but whoever determines to follow his own evil ways cannot escape from God’s just punishment (see 2 Peter 3:7–9).
Joseph was the father of Ephraim, the most important tribe of the northern kingdom (see on Hosea 4:17); hence this term, “the tribes of Joseph,” is equivalent to Israel.
Amo 5:7 There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.
So great was the moral corruption of Israel that justice was converted into bitterest injustice.
Amo 5:8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the LORD is his name.
Pleiades. The seven stars. Heb. kimah, generally considered to be the Pleiades (see on Job 38:31).
Orion. Heb. kesil (see on Job 9:9).
Amo 5:9 With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold and brings the fortified city to ruin.
Amo 5:10 There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court and detest the one who tells the truth.
One of the outstanding evidences of the impenitent condition of the apostate Israelites was their disdain of truth and righteousness.
Amo 5:11 You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine
Amo 5:12 For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Bribes. This may refer not only to money given to win a case at law, but also to ransom or redemption money paid to avoid the penalty for committing a crime (see 1 Sam. 12:3; Prov. 6:35).
Amo 5:13 Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times, for the times are evil.
Amo 5:14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.
Amos appeals to Israel to be as diligent in seeking the “good” as they have been in seeking the “evil” (see vs. 4–6). Further, he reminded them that they could not seek the good without putting away first the evil (see Isa. 1:16, 17).
Just as you say He is.
From the time when Israel definitely chose the Lord and rejected Baal (see on 1 Kings 18:39) they worshiped God in name, despite their idolatry. The prophets strove to generate a true worship in the heart.
Amo 5:15 Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.
God knows that most of Israel will not repent, yet He offers His grace to “the remnant.” The remnant. This implies that only a few of the Israelites will be saved from the final ruin of their city and nation.
Perhaps Amos uses the word “Joseph” instead of “Ephraim” to draw attention to their forefather who received Jacob’s blessing, and for whose sake this remnant should be spared.
Amo 5:16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail.
Since the iniquity of Israel is hopeless, divine judgment must follow.
Amo 5:17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD. Places where joy and gladness held sway (see Isa. 16:10).
Let Justice Roll Down
Amo 5:18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.
The prophet warns those who trust in Israel’s covenant relation with God and think that religious formalism will be acceptable to Him.
The Israelites expected that the “day of the Lord” would bring them great good—deliverance from their enemies, unparalleled prosperity, a position of eminence among the nations. Amos warned that the day would bring quite the opposite. The prophet told the Israelites that, contrary to their expectations, and because of their wickedness, “the day of the Lord” would be a day of trouble and death, when their own nation would be destroyed, and they themselves would be taken into captivity.
Amo 5:19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him.
Amo 5:20 Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
Again the people are warned that their confidence that “the day of the Lord” would bring them good is a delusion (v. 18). See further on ch. 8:9.
Amo 5:21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.
Faithfulness in the mere externals of religion will not win divine favor in the time of judgment. Worship can no more be evaluated merely by the order and beauty of its outward form than can the dietary value of a fruit be determined merely by its size and color.
Religious festivals.
In view of their evil lives, these feasts were but an expression of Israel’s hypocrisy (see on Isa. 1:11–15).
Amo 5:22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
This verse indicates that in their idolatry the Israelites still observed some of the formal ritual of the Mosaic law.
Amo 5:23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
The people’s superficial and insincere worship made their psalms and hymns nothing but an offensive and wearisome sound in the ears of God (see Eze. 26:13). Both instrumental and vocal music formed a part of the Temple worship (see 1 Chron. 16:42; 23:5; 25:6, 7).
Amo 5:24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
That is, a watercourse supplied by a perennial stream instead of a seasonal one (see on 1 Sam. 17:3). This beautiful figure of speech presented to Israel God’s desire for them (see on Jer. 5:15), and it is His desire still for His people today.
Amo 5:25 “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
Even in the wilderness wandering, where the children of Israel had practically no contact with outside idolatrous worship, they “offered” not to the Lord the true and faithful obedience that was His due (see Ps. 78:37).
Amo 5:26 You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god— which you made for yourselves.
Here is revealed the apostates’ fundamental motive, the satisfaction of self. In the last analysis all idolatry is self-will. Stephen, in referring to this part of Amos’ prophecy (see Acts 7:42, 43), emphasized the fact of Israel’s idolatry rather than the details of their idol worship.
Amo 5:27 Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty.
Damascus was the capital of a powerful Syrian kingdom to the north. Until the Assyrians gained the ascendancy in that part of the world, Syria was the most powerful enemy that God had employed to punish His people (see 2 Kings 13:7).
God had recently delivered Israel from Syria and given Damascus into their hands (see 2 Kings 14:23–28). However, owing to Israel’s continued apostasy, Damascus, the scene of Israel’s recent victory, would be the pathway to captivity.
The Assyrians were shortly to take Israel captive beyond the nearby regions of Damascus, into more distant lands.