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§ 8. Third address: the prophet utters a lamentation over the fall of Israel. (Amo_6:1-3.) He calls her to repentance, while he shows wherein she has declined from the right way. To make this plain, he contrasts God's power and majesty with the people's iniquity, instances of which he gives (Amo_6:4-12). The only condition of safety is amendment (Amo_6:13 -15); and as they refuse to reform, they shall have cause to lament (verses 16, 17). This threat is enforced by the two emphatic "woes" that follow, the first of which demonstrates the baselessness of their trust in their covenant relation to God (verses 18-27); the second denounces the careless lives of the chiefs, who, revelling in luxury, believed not in the coming judgment (Amo_6:1-6). Therefore they shall go into captivity, and the kingdom shall be utterly overthrown (Amo_6:7-11), because they act iniquitously and are self-confident (Amo_6:12-14).
Amo_5:1
Hear ye this word. To show the certainty of the judgment and his own feeling about it, the prophet utters his prophecy in the form of a dirge (kinah, 2Sa_1:17; 2Ch_35:25). Which I take up against you; or, which I raise over you, as if the end had come. O house of Israel; in the vocative. The Vulgate has, Domus Israel cecidit; so the LXX. But the present Hebrew text is most suitable, making the dirge begin at Amo_5:2. The ten tribes are addressed as in Amo_5:6.
Amo_5:2
The virgin of Israel; i.e. the virgin Israel; so called, not as having been pure and faithful to God, but as tenderly treated and guarded from enemies (comp. Isa_23:12; Isa_47:1; Jer_14:17). Is fallen; she shall no more rise. This is apparently a contradiction to the promise of restoration elsewhere expressed, but is to be explained either as referring exclusively to the ten tribes, very few of whom returned from exile, and to the kingdom of Israel which was never reestablished; or, as Pseudo-Rufinus says, "Ita debemus accipere quod lugentis affectu cumulatius aetimavit illata discrimina sicque funditus appellasse deletos, quos ex majore videret parte contritos." Forsaken upon her land; better, she shall be dashed upon her own land; her own soil shall witness her ruin—that soil which was "virgin," unconquered, and her own possession.
Amo_5:3
The vindication of the prophet's lament. The city that went out by a thousand. Septuagint and Vulgate, "from which went forth thousands," or, "a thousand;" i.e. which could send out a thousand warriors to the fight, in such a city only a tenth of the inhabitants shall remain; and this shall happen to small cities as well as great.
Amo_5:4
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).
Amo_5:5
Bethel … Gilgal. The scenes of idolatrous worship, where was no true seeking of God (see note on Amo_4:4). Beersheba. A spot about fifty miles southsouthwest of Jerusalem, the site of which has never been lost, and is marked to this day by seven much-frequented wells. As being one of the holy places celebrated in the history of the patriarchs (Gen_21:31, Gen_21:33; Gen_26:23, etc.; Gen_46:1), it had become a shrine of idolatrous worship, to which the Israelites resorted, though it lay far out of their territory (comp. Amo_8:14). Gilgal shall surely go into captivity. There is in the Hebrew a play on the words here and in the following clause (Hag-gilgal galoh yigleh), which commentators have paralleled with such expressions as, Capua capietur, Cremona cremabitur, Paris perira, "London is undone." Or, taking Joshua's explanation of the name, we may say, "Roll-town shall be rolled away." Bethel shall some to nought. As Bethel, "House of God," had become Bethaven, "House of vanity" (see Hos_4:15), as being the temple of an idol, so the prophet, with allusion to this, says that "Bethel shall become aven"—vanity, nothingness, itself. No mention is made of the fate of Beersheba, because Amos has in view only the ten tribes, and the destiny of places beyond their territory is not here the object of his prediction; and indeed, when Israel was ruined, Beersheba escaped unharmed.
Amo_5:6
Break out like fire. God is called "a consuming fire" (Deu_4:24; Heb_12:29; comp. Jer_4:4). And devour it; Septuagint, Ὅπως μὴ ἀναλάμψη ὡς πῦρ ὁ οἶκος Ἰωσὴφ καὶ καταφάγῃ αὐτόν , "Lest the house of Joseph blaze as fire, and he devour him;" Vulgate, Ne forte comburatur ut ignis domus Joseph, et devorabit. But it is best to take the last member of the sentence thus: "and it (the fire) devour." The house of Joseph. Ephraim, i.e. the kingdom of Israel, of which Ephraim was the distinguishing tribe. In Bethel; or, for Bethel. The LXX; paraphrasing, has, τῷ οἴκῳ Ἰσραήλ , "for the house of Israel."
Amo_5:7
The prophet brings out the con-trust between Israel's moral corruption and God's omnipotence. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood. As Jerome puts it," Converterunt dulcedinem judicii in absinthii amaritudinem," "They turned the sweetness of judgment into the bitterness of absinth" (comp. Amo_6:12). Who make judgment the occasion of the bitterest injustice. There is no syntactical connection between this verse and the last, but virtually we may append it to "seek the Lord." It would sound in people's ears as a reminiscence of Deu_29:18, Deu_29:20. The LXX. reads, ὁ ποιῶν εἰς ὕψος κρίμα . "that executeth judgment in the height," referring the sentence to the Lord, or else taking laanah, "wormwood," in a metaphorical sense, as elsewhere they translate it by ἀνάγκη πικρία , ὀδύνη (Deu_29:18; Pro_5:4; Jer_9:15; Jer_23:15). The name "wormwood" is applied to all the plants of the genus that grow in Palestine the taste of which was proverbially bitter. And leave off righteousness in the earth; rather, cast down righteousness to the earth (as Isa_28:2), despise it and trample it underfoot (comp. Dan_8:12). This is Israel's practice; and yet God, as the next verse shows, is almighty, and has power to punish. Righteousness includes all transactions between man and man. The LXX. (still referring the subject to the Lord), καὶ δικαιοσύνην εἰς γῆν ἔθηκεν , "and he established righteousness on earth."
Amo_5:8
Striking instances are given of God's creative power and omnipotence. Seek him that maketh the seven stars. "Seek him" is not in the Hebrew. "He that maketh," etc; is in direct antithesis to "ye who turn," etc. (Amo_5:7). The seven stars; Hebrew, kimah, "the heap," the constellation of the Pleiades (Job_9:9; Job_38:31). The Septuagint here has, ὁ ποιῶν πάντα , but in Job has πλειάς . The Vulgate gives, facientem Arcturum. Symmachus and Theodotion give πλειάδα in the present passage. The identification of this term is discussed in the 'Dictionary of the Bible,' 2:891. The observation of this most remarkable cluster among the heavenly bodies would be natural to the pastoral life of Amos. And Orion; Hebrew, kesil, "foolish," a rebel, the name being applied to Nimrod, whose representation was found by the Easterns in this constellation. Some render kesil, "gate;" others connect it with the Arabia sohail, equivalent to Sirius, or Canopus. The Septuagint here has, καὶ μετασκευάζων , "and changing," which looks as if the translator was not familiar with the Hebrew word, and substituted something in its place. It reads Ὠρίωνος in Job_38:31. Turneth the shadow of death into the morning. "The shadow of death," the depth of darkness. This and the following clause do not simply state that the regular interchange of day and night is in God's hands, but rather notify that God is a moral Governor of the world. He saves men from the utmost dangers, from the darkness of sin and from the night of ignorance; and, on the other hand, he sends calamity on those that offend his Law (comp. Amo_4:13). Maketh the day dark with night; literally, as the Septuagint ἡμέραν εἰς νύκτα συσκοτάζων , "darkeneth day into night." That calleth for the waters of the sea, etc. As judgments are the prophet's theme, this expression cannot be an intimation of the working of the natural law by which the moisture taken up from the sea as cloud returns upon the earth as rain (comp. Amo_9:6). Rather it is an allusion to the Flood and similar catastrophes, which are proofs of God's judicial government of the universe, when "he maketh the creature his weapon for the revenge of his enemies" (Wis. 5:17). The Lord is his Name. Jehovah, the self-existent God, doeth all these marvellous things, and men presume to scout his Law and think to be unpunished (Amo_4:13).
Amo_5:9
That strengtheneth, etc. Translate, That causeth destruction to flash forth upon the strong, so that destruction cometh upon the fortress. The idea is that God, as with a lightning flash, smites the strongest man, and no fortress is a refuge from him. Septuagint, Ὁ διαιρῶν συντριμμὸν ἐπὶ ἰσχύν , "Who divideth destruction unto strength." The Vulgate, taking the Hebrew verb balag in the sense of lighting up the countenance, renders, Qui subridet vastitatem super robustum, which means that the Lord smiles while he brings desolation on the mighty—a figurative expression denoting his anger at man's pride, and the ease with which he punishes. We may add that Rosenmuller agrees with the Authorized Version in the first clause: "Who strengtheneth the weak against the strong, and giveth the plunderers power over the fortresses of the strong."
Amo_5:10-12
The prophet gives further instances of the people's corruption.
Amo_5:10
Him that rebuketh in the gate (Isa_29:21). The gate of Eastern cities was the place of public resort (Pro_1:21), either for business (Deu_25:7), or the administration of justice (2Sa_15:2), or for gossip. So "he that rebuketh in the gate" may be a judge, or a chief, or a prophet (Jer_17:19; Jer_19:2). It seems better to take the words thus than to join "in the gate" to "they hate," with the meaning that those who resort to the gate—kings, chiefs, judges—hate the prophet's reproof, for the following verses show that Amos is referring chiefly to judicial proceedings, and not to his own mission. Uprightly; literally, perfectly; Vulgate, perfecte; i.e. without reserve, keeping nothing back.
Amo_5:11
Therefore. Because ye refuse reproof, and oppress the poor. Your treading is upon the poor; ye trample upon. The Hebrew word boshes is found nowhere else, and is variously explained. Septuagint, κατεκονδύλιζον , "smote with the fists;" so the Syriac; Vulgate, diripiebatis, with which the Chaldee agrees. Keil, Schegg, and most modern commentators explain the word, by a slight dialectical variation, as equivalent to conculcare. Burdens of wheat; rather, tribute, exactions of wheat, or presents like enforced "benevolences." They exacted such gifts before they would do justice to the poor. Or it may refer to interest for money or victuals lent, which took the form of presents in order to evade the Law (Exo_22:25; Le Exo_25:37; Deu_23:19). Septuagint, δῶρα ἐκλεκτά : Vulgate, praedam electam, the Hebrew word bar meaning either "wheat" or "elect." Hewn stone. Houses thus built were a mark of luxury and wealth, sun-dried brick being the usual material employed (comp. Isa_9:10; Eze_12:5, Eze_12:7). Ye shall not dwell in them. This is the punishment of their evil doings, according to the threat in Deu_28:30, Deu_28:39. The people shall be banished and the land desolated (Mic_6:15; Zep_1:13).
Amo_5:12
Your punishment is richly deserved, for "I know how many are your transgressions and how mighty are your sins," especially, as it follows, your sins of oppression and injustice. They afflict the just. The construction is continuous: "afflicters of the just." Hostes justi (Vulgate); καταπατοῦντες δίκαιον , "trampling down the just"; comp. Wis. 2:12-15. They take a bribe. The translation of kopher as "bribe" is justified, perhaps, by 1Sa_12:3; but the word is elsewhere used for "ransom," redemption money paid to escape the consequences of crime (Pro_6:35), in direct opposition to the Law in Num_35:31, which forbade any ransom to be taken for the life of a murderer. The Septuagint has, λαμβάνοντες ἀλλάγματα "taking wares;" the Vulgate (with which the Syriac agrees), accipientes munus. Turn aside the poor in the gate from their right; or, bow down the needy in the gate, i.e. in the place of judgment (see note on Num_35:10). Vulgate, pauperes deprimentes in porta; Septuagint, πένητας ἐν πύλαις ἐκκλίνοντες , "turning aside the poor in the gates." The crime specified is that of wresting judgment in the case of the poor, or not giving the poor man justice unless he could pay for it (comp. Exo_23:6; Deu_16:19).
Amo_5:13
Even while he speaks, the prophet feels that his reproof is useless (comp. Jer_7:27, etc.; Hos_4:1, Hos_4:17). In that time; at such a time as this, the man who acts wisely holds his peace, because it is a time of moral corruption and of personal danger. But the prophet cannot restrain his call (comp. Eze_33:3, etc.). In Mic_2:3 the "evil time" is one of calamity.
Amo_5:14
He repeats his loving summons to repentance, as in Amo_5:4, Amo_5:6, showing that their only hope of safety lay in amendment of life (comp Zep_2:3). Seek good, and not evil. Use that diligence and zeal in pursuing what is good which you have hitherto shown in the pursuit of evil. The Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken; or, as ye say. The Israelites fancied that, owing to their covenant relation to God, he would be always with them and ready to help them under any circumstances. Their prosperity under Jeroboam II, as Calmet remarks seemed an argument in their favour, proving that God blessed them, and that they had no cause for fear (comp. Jer_7:4, etc.; Mic_3:11; Mat_3:9; Joh_8:39). But really God's help and favour were conditioned by their obedience.
Amo_5:15
Reverse your former conduct, undo what ye have done (Amo_5:10). This verse emphasizes the preceding; hating and loving are more real and hearty than mere seeking. The LXX. makes this clause to be what the people said, Ον τρόπον εἴπατε , μεμισήκαμεν τὰ πονρὰ καὶ ἠγαπήσαμεν τὰκαλά , "As ye said, We have hated evil, and loved good." Establish judgment. Maintain justice in your tribunals (in contrast to Amo_5:7); then it may be that the Lord will have mercy on you or some of you. The remnant of Joseph; implying that only a few of them will be saved after this heavy chastisement, which points to the final ruin of their city and nation. The prophet speaks of the "remnant of Joseph" instead of Ephraim, to remind them of their forefather, who received the patriarchal blessing of Jacob, for whose sake this remnant should be spared (comp. Isa_6:13; Isa_10:21, etc.; Joe_2:32; Rom_11:4, etc.).
Amo_5:16, Amo_5:17
The retribution for their incorrigible iniquity is here announced. For "they that would not be reformed by that correction, wherein he dallied with them, shall feel a judgment worthy of God" (Wis. 12:26).
Amo_5:16
Therefore. The prophet returns to what was said in Amo_5:13 about the uselessness of reproof; yore. 14 and 15 being a kind of parenthetical exhortation which his love for his nation forced from him. "Jehovah, the God of hosts, the Lord," Adonai, saith what follows, these solemn titles being used to add solemnity, certainty, and weight to the announcement. Wailing; misped, "the death wail." Streets; broad places; πλατείαις ; plateis (Vulgate). Highways; the narrower streets; ὁδοῖς ; in cunctis quae foris sunt (Vulgate). Everywhere in town and country shall the wail be heard. Alas! alas! ho! ho! This is the death wail (comp. Jer_22:18), which should sound abroad when Samaria was besieged and taken. They shall call the husbandman to mourning. The husbandman shall be called from his labour in the fields to mourn for a calamity in his house. Pusey thinks the mourning is for his occupation gone, his tillage now only furnishing food for the enemy; but the context involves the notion of death. And such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing; literally, proclaim wailing to such, etc. These are the hired mourners, both male and female, who sang mournful songs at deaths.
Amo_5:17
Vineyards. The place of mirth and gladness, that, says St. Jerome, "ubi quondam fuit materia laetitiae, sit origo lacrymarum" (Isa_16:10). I will pass through thee. A terrible echo of the last plague of Egypt (Exo_12:12), when God will not "pass over" thee as he did then, but treat thee as Egypt, and "pass through" to smite and punish (Nah_1:12).
Amo_5:18-27
The prophet enforces the threat by denouncing woe on those that trust to their covenant relation to God, expecting the day when he would punish the heathen for their sakes, and thinking that external, heartless worship was acceptable to him.
Amo_5:18
The day of the Lord. Anycrisis in the nation's history is so called, when God interposes to punish and correct. To our minds it looks forward to the final judgment. It is often mentioned by the prophets (e.g. Isa_2:12; Isa_13:6, Isa_13:9; Joe_2:1, Joe_2:11; Joe_3:18; Zep_1:7, Zep_1:14) as a time when the heathen should be judged, all the enemies of Israel defeated, and when Israel herself was exalted to the highest pitch of prosperity and dominion. Without any regard to the moral condition affixed to the realization of these expectations (see Joe_2:32), the people "desired" the appearance of this day, thus foolishly confirming themselves in their sinful life and false security. Some think scoffers are intended, but the context shows that the persons signified are sincere but mistaken believers in the safety of Israel's covenant position. To what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness; Why would ye have the day of the Lord? It is darkness. Why do ye, such as ye are, want this day to come? Ye know not what ye ask. It will be the very contrary to your expectations; it will be darkness, and not light, tribulation and misery, not joy and triumph for you (comp. Mic_7:8).
Amo_5:19
Amos explains the dangers of this judgment day by illustrations drawn from pastoral life, equivalent to the rushing from Charybdis into Scylla. Every place is full of danger—the open country, the shelter of the house. Jerome applies the passage to the fate of the kingdom in general: "Fugientibus vobis a facie Nabuchodonosor leonis occurrent Medi, Persae, demum Antiochus Epiphanes, qui moretur in templo et vos instar colubri mordeat, nequaquam foris in Babylone, sed intra terminos terrae sanctae."
Amo_5:20
The character of the day of the Lord is enforced with reiterated earnestness (Amo_5:18) by an appeal to the conscience of e hearers. Do you not feel in your inmost hearts that in the case of such guilt as yours the Lord can visit but to punish?
Amo_5:21
Outward, formal worship will not avert the threatened danger or secure the favour of God in the day of visitation. Your feast days (chaggim); your feasts; your counterfeit worship, the worship of the true God under an idol symbol (compare God's repudiation of merely formal worship in Isa_1:11-15). I will not smell; οὐ μὴ ἀσφρανθῶ θυσίας . No sweet savour ascends to God from such sacrifices; so the phrase is equivalent to "I will not accept," "I will take no delight in" (comp.. Gen_8:21; Exo_29:18; Le Exo_26:31). Solemn assemblies; πανηγύρεσιν ; atsaroth; the convocations for the keeping of the great festivals.
Amo_5:22
They maintained the formal ritual of the Mosaic worship in their idolatry. The various offerings are here enumerated. Burnt offerings; ὁλοκαυτώματα (Exo_29:38, Exo_29:42; Num_28:9-11). Meat offerings; θυσίας ; munera (Vulgate); Exo_29:40, Exo_29:41; Le Exo_2:1. Peace offerings of your fat beasts; σωτηρίους ἐπιφανείας , "your grand peace offerings"; vota pinguium vestrorum (Vulgate); Le Exo_3:1, etc.
Amo_5:23
The noise of thy songs. Their psalms and hymns of praise were mere noise in God's ear, and wearied him (Isa_1:14; Isa_24:8; Eze_26:13). Viols (Amo_6:5); ὀργάνων . The nebel, usually translated "psaltery," was a kind of harp. Josephus ('Ant.,' 7.12. 3) describes it as having twelve strings, played by the fingers. Music, both instrumental and vocal, was used in the temple worship (see 1Ch_16:42; 1Ch_23:5; and 25.).
Amo_5:24
But let judgment run down as waters; let judgment roll on; Septuagint, καὶ κυλισθήσεται ὡς ὕδωρ κρίμα , "and judgment shall roll along as water." Et revelabitur quasi aqua judicium (Vulgate). This verse has been explained in different ways. Hitzig, Keil, with many ancient commentators, find in it a threat of chastisement, "the flooding of the land with judgment and the punitive righteousness of God." Pusey, Professor Gandell, and others consider it to be a call to amendment. "He bids them let judgment, which had hitherto been perverted in its course, roll on like a mighty tide of waters, sweeping before it all hindrances," filling the whole land with righteousness. Schegg makes it to be a promise of the coming of the day of the Lord, that is, the revelation of Messiah. But such a promise in this position is very forced and unnatural. The second interpretation seems most suitable. In the midst of the denunciation of men's formal worship, the prophet announces their duty in the present crisis, attention to which could alone win God's favour. Judgment and righteousness, long neglected and forgotten, should permeate the land like refreshing streams of water—a simile of special signification to an inhabitant of an Eastern country, where the neighbourhood of a perennial stream was as delightful as it was unusual. Mighty (ethan); ἄβατος , "impassable"; fortis (Vulgate). The word may mean "strong," or "perennial." "Whence the seventh month, just before the early rain, was called the month Ethanim, i.e. the month of the perennial streams, when they alone flowed" (Pusey).
Amo_5:25
Ye have always been idolaters, corrupters of pure worship. Your service in the wilderness, when you were little exposed to external influence, was no more true and faithful than that which you offer now; that was as unacceptable as this. Have ye offered unto me? Did ye offer unto me? The answer expected is "No;" i.e. you did not so really, because your worship was mixed with falsehood, and was not offered simply and genuinely to me. It is certain, too, that during the sojourn in the wilderness sacrificial worship fell greatly into desuetude, as we know that the rite of circumcision was suspended (Jos_5:5-7), the Passover was not duly celebrated, and Joshua urged the people to put away the strange gods from among them (Jos_24:23). Moses, too, doubtless with a view to existing practices, warns them against worshipping the heavenly bodies (Deu_4:19), and offering sacrifice unto devils (seirim), "after whom they had gone a-whoring" (Le Jos_17:7). The prophets, too, allude to the idolatry practised in the desert (see Eze_20:7-26; Hos_9:10). But to argue (as some neologians do) from this passage of Amos that the Israelites during those forty years knew nothing of Jehovah, or that Amos himself denies that they offered him any worship, is absurd, seeing that the prophet presupposes the fact, and blames them for corrupting the Divine service and mingling the prescribed and enacted ritual with idolatrous accretions. Sacrifices; slain, bloody sacrifices. Offerings; bloodless sacrifices, meal offerings.
Amo_5:26
This verse has occasioned great perplexity to commentators. The connection with the context, the meaning of some of the terms, and whether the reference is to past, present, or future, are questions which have roused much controversy. We need not here recapitulate the various opinions which have been held. It will be sufficient to state what seems to be the simplest and most probable explanation of the passage. But we must not omit to mention first the explanation adopted by Ewald, Schrader, Farrar, Konig, and others, viz. that this verse refers to the punitive deportation which was to be the people's lot, when they should take their shrines and images with them into captivity. "So shall ye take (into exile) Sakkuth your king," etc. But the punishment is foretold in Amo_5:27; and this verse contrasts their idol worship with the neglected worship of Jehovah (Amo_5:25). But ye have borne; and ye bare; καὶ ἀνελάβετε ; et portastis (Vulgate). Ye offered me no pure worship in the wilderness, seeing that ye took false gods with you, and joined their worship with, or substuted it for, mine. The tabernacle of your Moloch; τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ Μολόχ ; tabernaculum Moloch vestro (Vulgate). The Hebrew word rendered "tabernacle" (sikkuth). which is found nowhere else, has been variously explained. Aquila gives συσκιασμούς : Theodotion, "vision," reading the whole sentence thus: Καὶ ἤρατε τὴν ὅρασιν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν ὑμῶν ἄστρον τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν . Many moderns render, "stake," "column," or "shrine." Others suppose it to be equivalent to Sakkuth, an Assyrian name for Molech (or Adar); but this is very uncertain, sad the parallelism requires the word to be an appellative and not a proper name. It most probably means "shrine," a portable shrine, like those spoken of in Act_19:24 in connection with the worship of Diana. The Syriac and Arabic versions call it "tent," and thus the reproach stands forth emphatically that, instead of, or in conjunction with, the true tabernacle, they bore aloft, as if proud of their apostasy, the tabernacle of a false god. Such shrines were used by the Egyptians, according to Herodotus (2:63, where see Rawlinson's note) and Diod. Sic. (1.97). Many such may be seen in the Egyptian room of the British Museum. Keil quotes Drumann, 'On the Rosetta Inscription,' p. 211, "These were small chapels, generally gilded and ornamented with flowers and in other ways, intended to hold a small idol when processions were made, and to be carried or driven about with it." Hence we must look to Egypt as the source of this idolatry. Moloch, though sanctioned by the LXX. and St. Stephen (Act_7:43), is a mistranslation. De Rossi, indeed, mentions that one Hebrew manuscript gives Moloch, but the received reading is Melkekem, which is confirmed by Symmachus and Theodotion, who have τοῦ βασιλέως ὑμῶν , and by the Syriac. The translation, therefore, should run, "Ye took up the shrine of your king," i.e. of him whom ye made your king in the place of Jehovah, meaning some stellar divinity. And Chiun your images; καὶ τὸ ἄστρον τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν Ῥαμφάν , "and the star of your god Raephan "; et imaginem idolorum vestrorum; literally, the kiyyun of your images. The parallelism again requires us to take this unknown word as an appellative; and according to its probable derivation, its meaning is "pedestal," or "framework," that on which the image stood. The Greek rendering is, as Keil thinks, owing to a false reading of the unpointed text, in old Hebrew kaph and resh being easily confounded, and vau and pe. Theodotion considered the word a common noun, translating it by ἀμαύρωσιν . It is probably a mere coincidence that in some Assyrian inscriptions the name Kairan occurs as that of a deity, who is identified with Saturn; that the Egyptians (from whom the Israelites must have derived the notion) ever acknowledged such a deity is quite unproved. St. Stephen merely quotes the Textus Receptus of his day, which was close enough to the original for his argument. The star of your god. These words are in loose apposition with the preceding, and are equivalent to "your star god," or the star whom ye worship as god. Whether some particular star is meant, or whether the sun is the deity signified, cannot be determined, although the universal prevalence of the worship of sun gods in Egypt makes the latter supposition very probable. St. Stephen puts the sin in a general form: "God gave them up to serve the host of heaven" (Act_7:42; comp. Deu_4:19; Deu_17:3). Which ye made to yourselves. This was the crime, self-will, desertion of the appointed way for devices of their own invention.
Amo_5:27
Therefore. The consequence of their continued alienation from God should be deportation to a foreign land, beyond Damascus, far away from the confines of the country once their own possession (2Sa_8:6), thus dimly denoting As. syria, at that time not hostile, but known in the time of Tiglath-Pileser I. (see the accomplishment, 2Ki_15:29; 2Ki_17:6). St. Stephen says (Act_7:43), "beyond Babylon;" "Magis enim," observes Jerome, "intelligentiam quam verbum posuit;" and he is probably blending other prophecies with that of Amos, e.g. Jer_20:4.
I. A BROKEN IDEAL. The things that might have been with Israel were far enough from existing facts. The Israel of God's ideal was:
1. A holy people. (Exo_19:6; Deu_28:9.) Theoretically they were, as the word "holy" means (Deu_7:6), a people separated from men, and sin and sot apart to God. But the fair ideal of their national life remained an ideal and nothing more. The reality never reached it, never approached it. They connected themselves freely with heathen men and heathenish sin. They at times outdid the nations (Amo_2:6-9) in avarice, injustice, spoiling the poor, abominable rites, and every nameless infamy.
2. An unconquered people. This is the force of the expression "virgin (of) Israel." God was to champion their cause, and to fight for them as his loyal people (Deu_1:30, etc.). If, and so long as he did so, they would be invincible. But they never claimed his help on the appointed terms. His promise was doubted (Deu_1:32) and its conditions disregarded, with the inevitable result that it failed of fulfilment in many a critical time. Israel, theoretically "the unconquered," was practically the often vanquished, the twice carried captive, the soon-to-be-destroyed. God's help comes surely, but comes only where there is attention to the conditions on which it is offered and given.
3. A prosperous people. Palestine, their national inheritance, was the very garden of the earth; unique in the combination of the highest agricultural capacities, with the finest commercial situation. The prosperity of an industrious, peaceful nation in it was, so far as favourable circumstances went, a foregone conclusion. But war had devastated, and mildew blighted, and drought laid bare its fertile fields. God saw his gifts abused and made the ministers of sin, and he was driven to destroy these in their hands. When temporal good begins to be made the occasion of moral evil, our tenure of it will soon end.
4. A happy people. A people prosperous, strong, and pure, could not but be happy as well (Psa_144:15). And such was Israel in the Divine ideal (Deu_33:29). But the actual misery experienced was as complete as the theoretical happiness revealed. Happiness is nowhere so impossible, misery nowhere so intense, as with a people who have fallen beneath themselves. In proportion as the former might have been, will the latter be.
II. AN ANTICIPATIVE DIRGE. Prescient of coming evil, the prophet's lamentation becomes a funeral song.
1. A nation made shipwreck is a sight for tears. It is the destruction of magnificent possibilities of good. It is the failing of a tremendous reality of evil It is the ruin of most precious interests on a gigantic scale. If one soul lost is the occasion of grief to pure spirits and a travailing Saviour, what must the calamity be when multiplied a millionfold?
2. When the wicked fall the trust mourners are the righteous. Not the heathen who had seduced them, not the remnant of apostate Israel that might escape, but the prophet of God, who had kept himself unspotted in the midst of national corruption, was the tearful mourner by the ruined nation's grave. The wicked are too selfish to care for any sorrows but their own. They are as the wolves, which would make a prey of the dead one's remains, rather than any mourning for his fall. God and the God-like alone truly mourn when the wicked perish.
3. A prophetic sight of his own epitaph ought to stay the hand of the suicide. Men supposed to be dead have lived to read their own obituary notice. It has enabled them to see themselves for once as others see them. And it ought to have a practical influence for good. Israel, reading beforehand the inscription on their own tomb, might have been warned away, if anything could have warned them, from the course in which they were rushing on. It showed them what was coming, and how it was being brought on, and how it looked, whether as a morality or a policy, in enlightened eyes. An adequate idea of sin must include its end and issues and place in history, and this it was in Israel's power to learn from Amos's prophetic wail.
III. AN INSPIRED COMMENTARY. An act of God is an expression of his way. The way of God is a revelation of his purpose. All three are along the lines of the just and fitting. Now:
1. Adequate punishment means practical extermination. Sin is an infinite crime, merits an infinite punishment, and failing this will receive a punishment exhaustive of the criminal's good. The proverbial question, "Wherefore doth a living man complain?" (Lam_3:39), is an understatement of the case. While a field, or a blessing, or a living man remained, Israel had not been punished as it deserved. When body and soul have been both destroyed, there will still be no more than justice done. If our sin have not its punishment in Christ, then that punishment must be utter destruction.
2. When wrath smites many, mercy spares a remnant. Nine-tenths were to be destroyed. The thousand should become a hundred, and the hundred ten. Neither the strength of the great nor the insignificance of the small should avail them for escape. With perfect impartiality, all should be made to suffer proportionally. Yet decimation was to stop short of utter extinction. A tenth part (see Isa_1:9; Isa_6:13) should be spared. This less guilty remnant, taught and chastened by the judgments which swept away the bulk of the nation, might form the nucleus of a new and better Israel. When judgment has destroyed the "bread to the eater," mercy often steps in and saves a "seed to the sower." There is seldom a deluge without its ark and its Noah family, the conditions and materials of a fresh start for the reduced.
3. Israel decimated is Israel still. The remnant would retain the national name, and with it the covenant relation and privileges to which the name referred (Gen_32:28). Toward the Gentile Church, for its sin "cast down but not destroyed," the same gracious policy was announced (Isa_54:7-10). While a Mephibosheth remains the royal line of God's anointed is not extinct. Chastisement makes a chaos only to bring out of it the young world of a new life and a new hope (Psa_89:30-33).
Amo_5:4-6
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 such cases 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 man's own invention, and therefore the egoist's 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. God's 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).
Amo_5:7-13
I. GOD REVEALING HIMSELF. (Amo_5:8, Amo_5:9.) God's work is an important revelation of himself. He has written all over it the glorious lineaments of his character. Each part of it reflects some feature, and in the whole we see his face. Here he shows himself:
1. In the sphere of creation. "He maketh the seven stars and Orion." This is a pregnant thought. Alcyone, one of the seven stars, or Pleiades, is the central orb of the heavens, round which the others move. It is as it were the heart of the material universe; and the Creator of it is by implication the Creator of all. In this fact speak the power and wisdom of the Great Uncaused, who is the Cause not only of all effects, but of all causes as well.
2. In the sphere of providence. "And turneth the shadow," etc. (Amo_5:8, Amo_5:9). We have here three classes of operations. The first was illustrated in the miraculous light that shone around Paul at his conversion, is seen daily in the rise of the morning sun, and appears in the turning of the night of adversity into the day of prosperity. The second was seen in the three hours' miraculous darkness at the Crucifixion, is seen in the gathering shades of every night, and in the darkening down into adverse circumstances of many a life day. The third was seen in the Deluge, is seen in every shower of rain, and will be seen in future widespread judgments on the wicked. Amo_5:9, "Who causeth desolations to flash on the strong," etc. God's judgments are bold, as singling out the strong and the fortress; swift, as coming on them like the lightning's flash; sweeping, as involving them in utter destruction.
3. In the sphere of redemption. God scatters spiritual night. He illuminates the darkness of the soul. He makes men light in the Lord. He gives them the inheritance of the saints in light. He also judicially blinds, by leaving impenitent souls to the natural effects of wrongdoing; and he casts into outer darkness at last. In all these things we behold power—power here as goodness, power there as severity; but power everywhere as resistless and Divine.
II. ISRAEL REVEALING HERSELF. (Amo_5:12.) This is a sad apocalypse. In many transgressions and great sins Israel's many-sided and deep corruption comes out. Particulars am:
1. As unjust. Injustice is a natural form for the sin, which is at bottom selfishness, to take. It was a specially prevalent form, moreover, among the Hebrew people. From Jacob down the sordid race has cheated the strong and imposed on the weak. Action is in a sense the fruit of character, and answers to the tree. God's grace is to convert the thorn into the fir tree, and the briar into the myrtle tree; but man's sin works the converse process, and changes the sweet "tree of righteousness" into bitter wormwood. Casting "righteousness down to earth" is another aspect of the same charge. Righteousness ought to rule. Its proper place is the throne of human life. But Israel had dethroned and cast it down to the earth, and set injustice, a usurper, in its place.
2. As oppressive. (Amo_5:11, Amo_5:12.) The oppression suffered by Israel had done nothing to produce detestation of the thing. What other nations had inflicted on them in this way, they were only too ready to inflict, with interest, on each other as they had opportunity. Humiliation does not always prepare for exaltation, nor poverty for wealth, nor the endurance of injustice for power. The freed slave will often make the very worst master, and the erewhile victim of wrong the most outrageous inflictor of it (Pro_19:10; Pro_30:2, Pro_30:23).
3. As venal. "Who take a bribe." They did injustice, not only in their private, but in their public, capacity. They not only plundered the public themselves, but made a profit by helping others to do the same. A dishonest man will make a corrupt magistrate. He will use for his own aggrandizement whatever power he gains.
4. As impious. (Amo_5:10, Amo_5:12.) As cowardice appeared in oppressing the poor, so did impiety in oppressing the righteous. Much of what the righteous suffer is due to the hatred of righteousness by the wicked. They hate the thing itself, they hate it as a standing rebuke to their own ways, and their antipathy invariably exhibits itself as it has occasion.
III. THEIR FUTURE RELATIONS CLEAR IN THE LIGHT OF BOTH. Given what God is and what Israel is, and the Divine course of treatment may easily be anticipated.
1. God will disappoint their schemes of self-aggrandizement. (Amo_5:11.) Their labour and pains and sin would prove in the end to have been thrown away. Their ill-gotten gains would never be enjoyed. The vineyards and houses, in which they had invested them, would, after having been acquired at great pains, be lost again before they had even begun to be used. Gain gotten by injustice is seldom abiding, and never remunerative. The one condition of getting satisfaction out of earthly good is to acquire it according to the will of God.
2. He will leave them unrebuked. (Amo_5:18.) The prophets and the wise would both be silent. This would be a great calamity. It would be followed by an increase of sin, involving in turn an aggravation of punishment. It would mean abandonment to fate; for when God ceases to strive, a man's doom is sealed. It is the Physician discontinuing his treatment because the hand of death is on the patient. The sinner sins conviction away, and then congratulates himself on the discovery of peace. But it is only God saying, "Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone." It is the one spiritual case that is utterly desperate.
Amo_5:13
I. WHEN THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE SAID TO THE PURPOSE. This will often happen. Seasonable speech is a valuable thing. But men are not infallible, and occasions are often puzzling, and the right thing to say is hard to find.
1. Silence is sometimes the resource of feeling too deep for words. There are unspeakable things. "Speech is but broken light on the depth of the unspoken." The finest thoughts, the deepest feelings, are unuttered often because they cannot be expressed in words. As a noted Shakespearian character says—
"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy:
I were but little happy if I could say how much."
And the sentiment is not uncommon. "Does the wind write what it sings in those sounding leaves above our heads? Does the sea write the moaning of its surge? Nothing is fine that is written; the divinest in man's heart never issues forth. The instrument is flesh, the note is fire. What would you have? Between what one feels and what one expresses, there is the same space as between the soul and the twenty-four letters of the alphabet; that is to say, the Infinite. Can you on a rosewood flute give forth the harmony of the spheres?" (Raffaelle).
2. Silence is often more impressive than any speech.
"The silence of pure innocence
Persuades, when speaking fails."
So also do the silence of deep feeling and of strong passion, uttering "speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture." Christ but looked on the recreant Peter after his miserable desertio