Lamentation, and a call to repentance
5
📚Hear this word,a lament which I take up against you,
O house of Israel:
5:1 Amos accepts the fact that God will execute His judgment on Israel and grieves as if it were already done.⚜
2 📚“The virgin Israel 📖 has fallen.
She will rise no more 📖.
She is forsaken on her land;
there is no one to raise
her up”.
3 📚For thus says the Lord God:
“The city that marched out
a thousand strong will have
a hundred left,
and that which marched out
a hundred strong will leave
only ten to the house of Israel”.
Seek the LORD and live
4 📚For thus says the LORD to the house
of Israel,
“Seek me, and you will live 📖.
5 📚But do not seek Bethel,
do not go to Gilgal 📖,
and do not travel to Beersheba 📖.
For Gilgal will surely go into captivity,
and Bethel will come to nothing 📖”.
6 📚Seek the LORD, and you will live;
otherwise he will break out
like fire 📖 in the house of Joseph 📖,
and devour it, with no one
in Bethel 📖 to quench it.
Wealth gained by afflicting the poor will be destroyed
7 📚You are those who turn judgment
to bitterness,
and abandon righteousness
in the earth.
5:7 Amos begins again to describe some of the sins that were bringing God’s judgment on Israel. They were sins against justice and righteousness. Israel had become a thoroughly corrupt society where people as a whole only thought of what they could get, and not of how they could help others.⚜
8 📚Seek him who made the Pleiades
and Orion 📖,
and turns the shadow of death
into morning and darkens day
into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the surface
of the earth;
the LORD is his name.
9 📚He causes destruction to burst out
against the strong,
so that destruction comes
to the fortress.
5:8-9 He reminds them again of the God who was watching them – Amos 4:13. The Creator of the universe was well able to judge and punish Israel if the people would not seek Him.⚜
10 📚They hate the one who rebukes
in the gate,
and they abhor him who speaks
uprightly.
5:10 All they wanted was to do what they pleased and get away with it. Justice and truth meant nothing to them. See the danger of this in 2 Thess 2:11-12.⚜
11 📚Therefore, since you trample
on the poor,
and compel him to give wheat,
though you have built houses
with dressed stone,
you will not live in them.
You have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you will not drink wine
from them.
12 📚For I know 📖 your many transgressions,
and your enormous sins.
You afflict the just. You take a bribe 📖,
and you turn away the poor
in the gate from their right.
13 📚Therefore the prudent keeps
silent at that time;
5:13 A prudent man knows when to speak out and when it is useless to speak out.⚜
for it is an evil time.
Seek good, otherwise wailing will be heard in the streets
14 📚Seek good, and not evil,
that you may live 📖,
and so the LORD, the God of hosts,
will be with you, as you have
spoken 📖.
15 📚Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate.
It may be 📖 that the LORD God
of hosts will be gracious to
the remnant 📖 of Joseph”.
16 📚Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord, says this:
“Wailing will be in all the streets,
and they will say in all the highways,
‘Alas! alas!’ And they will call the farmer
to mourning, and those who
are skilled in laments to wailing.
17 📚And in all the vineyards
there will be wailing;
for I will pass through 📖 your midst”,
says the LORD.
5:16-17 God says this because He knew that Israel at that time would not repent and seek Him.⚜
The Day of the LORD will be full of darkness
18 📚“Woe to you who desire the day
of the LORD!
What will it mean for you?
The day of the LORD is darkness,
and not light.
19 📚As if a man flees from a lion,
and a bear meets him;
or goes into the house and leans
his hand on the wall,
Criticism of Israel’s religious ways
and a serpent bites him.
20 📚Will not the day of the LORD
be darkness,
and not light?
Very dark with no brightness in it?
21 📚“I hate, I despise your feast days,
and I will not savour your solemn
assemblies.
22 📚Though you offer me burnt offerings
and your grain offerings 📖,
I will not accept them;
nor will I have regard for your peace
offerings 📖 of fattened animals.
23 📚Take away from me the noise
of your songs,
for I will not hear the music
of your harps 📖.
24 📚But let justice flow down like water,
and righteousness like
a mighty stream.
25 📚“Did you offer sacrifices and offerings
to me in the desert forty years,
O house of Israel?
5:25 Israel was disobedient in the desert. That is why they had to wander there forty years – Num 14:22-35. What if they brought sacrifices to God? Sacrifices without obedience is not acceptable to Him. See 1 Sam 15:22-23.⚜
26 📚But you carried the tabernacle
of your Moloch and Kiyun,
your idols, the star of your god,
which you made for yourselves.
5:26 What good are sacrifices and religious ceremonies and worship when people do things God hates? How could they even imagine God was with them when they trampled underfoot one of His most important laws – Ex 20:3-6? Compare Hos 8:11-13. The first three lines of this verse may be translated in various ways. It could be “You have lifted up Sakkuth your king and Kiyun your idols, your star-gods”. Or, according to the Septuagint, “You have lifted up the shrine of Moloch and the star of your god Raphan, their idols” (compare Acts 7:43 – a quotation from the Septuagint).⚜
27 📚Therefore I will cause you
to go into captivity 📖 beyond Damascus 📖”,
says the LORD, whose name is
The God of hosts.
5:27 Their disobedience would have a very painful result.⚜