Amos 5 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

Bible Comments
  • Amos 5:1 open_in_new

    Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel. Hear ye this word - Attend to this doleful song which I make for the house of Israel.

  • Amos 5:2 open_in_new

    The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. The virgin of Israel - The kingdom of Israel, or the ten tribes, which were carried into captivity; and are now totally lost in the nations of the earth.

  • Amos 5:3 open_in_new

    For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel. The city that went out by a thousand - The city that could easily have furnished, on any emergency, a thousand fighting men, can now produce scarcely one hundred - one in ten of the former number; and now of the hundred scarcely ten remain: so reduced was Israel when Shalmaneser besieged and took Samaria, and carried the residue into captivity.

  • Amos 5:4 open_in_new

    For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: 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.

  • Amos 5:5 open_in_new

    But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought. But seek not Beth-el - There was one of Jeroboam's golden calves, and at Gilgal were carved images; both were places in which idolatry was triumphant. The prophet shows them that all hope from those quarters is utterly vain; for Gilgal shall go into captivity, and Beth-el be brought to naught. There is a play or paronomasia on the letters and words in this clause: הגלגל גלה יגלה ובית אל יהיה לאון haggilgal galoh yigleh, ubeith el yiheyeh leaven. "This Gilgal shall go captive into captivity; and Beth-el (the house of God) shall be for Beth-aven," (the house of iniquity.)

  • Amos 5:6 open_in_new

    Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live - Repeated from Amos 5:4.

    In the house of Joseph - The Israelites of the ten tribes, of whom Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph, were the chief.

  • Amos 5:7 open_in_new

    Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, Ye who turn judgment to wormwood - Who pervert judgment; causing him who obtains his suit to mourn sorely over the expenses he has incurred in gaining his right.

  • Amos 5:8 open_in_new

    Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name: That maketh the seven stars and Orion - Or, Hyades and Arcturus, Kimah and Kesil. See my notes on Job 9:9; Job 38:32, where the subject of this verse is largely considered.

    Turneth the shadow of death into the morning - Who makes day and night, light and darkness.

    Calleth for the waters of the sea - Raising them up by evaporation, and collecting them into clouds.

    And poureth them out - Causing them to drop down in showers upon the face of the earth. Who has done this? Jehovah is his name.

  • Amos 5:9 open_in_new

    That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. That strengtheneth the spoiled - Who takes the part of the poor and oppressed against the oppressor; and, in the course of his providence, sets up the former, and depresses the latter.

  • Amos 5:10 open_in_new

    They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate - They cannot bear an upright magistrate, and will not have righteous laws executed.

  • Amos 5:11 open_in_new

    Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. Your treading is upon the poor - You tread them under your feet; they form the road on which ye walk; and yet it was by oppressing and impoverishing them that ye gained your riches.

    Ye take from him burdens of wheat - Ye will have his bread for doing him justice.

  • Amos 5:12 open_in_new

    For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. I know your manifold transgressions - I have marked the multitude of your smaller crimes, as well as your mighty offenses. Among their greater offenses were,

    1. Their afflicting the righteous.

    2. Taking bribes to blind their eyes in judgment. And,

    3. Refusing to hear the poor, who had no money to give them.

  • Amos 5:13 open_in_new

    Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. The prudent shall keep silence - A wise man will consider that it is useless to complain. He can have no justice without bribes; and he has no money to give: consequently, in such an evil time, it is best to keep silence.

  • Amos 5:14 open_in_new

    Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Seek good, and not evil - Is there a greater mystery in the world, than that a mall, instead of seeking good, will seek evil, knowing that it is evil?

    And so the Lord - As God is the Fountain of good, so they who seek the supreme good seek him: and they who seek shall find him; For the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with him.

  • Amos 5:15 open_in_new

    Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. Hate the evil, and love the good - What ruins you, avoid; what helps you, cleave to. And as a proof that you take this advice, purify the seats of justice, and then expect God to be gracious to the remnant of Joseph - to the posterity of the ten tribes.

  • Amos 5:16 open_in_new

    Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing. They shall call the husbandman to mourning - Because the crops have failed, and the ground has been tilled in vain.

    Such as are skillful of lamentation - See the note on Jeremiah 9:17.

  • Amos 5:17 open_in_new

    And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the LORD. And in all vineyards shall be wailing - The places where festivity especially used to prevail.

    I will pass through thee - As I passed, by the ministry of the destroying angel, through Egypt, not to spare, but to destroy.

  • Amos 5:18 open_in_new

    Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. Wo unto you that desire the day of the Lord - The prophet had often denounced the coming of God's day, that is, of a time of judgment; and the unbelievers had said, "Let his day come, that we may see it." Now the prophet tells them that that day would be to them darkness - calamity, and not light - not prosperity.

  • Amos 5:19 open_in_new

    As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. "For," as our Savior expressed it in a like parabolical manner, "wheresoever the carcass is there shall the eagles be gathered together," Matthew 24:28. The images are taken from the different methods of hunting and taking wild beasts, which were anciently in use. The terror was a line strung with feathers of all colors which fluttering in the air scared and frightened the beasts into the toils, or into the pit which was prepared for them. Nec est mirum, cum maximos ferarum greges linea pennis distincta contineat, et in insidias agat, ab ipso effectu dicta formido. Seneca de Ira, 2:12. The pit or pitfall, fovea; digged deep in the ground, and covered over with green boughs, turf, etc., in order to deceive them, that they might fall into it unawares. The snare, or toils, indago; a series of nets, inclosing at first a great space of ground, in which the wild beasts were known to be; and then drawn in by degrees into a narrower compass, till they were at last closely shut up, and entangled in them. - L.

    For מכול mikkol, a MS. reads מפני mippeney, as it is in Jeremiah 48:44, and so the Vulgate and Chaldee. But perhaps it is only, like the latter, a Hebraism, and means no more than the simple preposition מ mem. See Psalms 102:6. For it does not appear that the terror was intended to scare the wild beasts by its noise. The paronomasia is very remarkable; פחד pachad, פחת pachath, פך pach: and that it was a common proverbial form, appears from Jeremiah's repeating it in the same words, Jeremiah 48:43, Jeremiah 48:44.

    Amos 5:19As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him - They shall go from one evil to another. He who escapes from the lion's mouth shall fall into the bear's paws: -

    Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.

    The Israelites, under their king Menahem, wishing to avoid a civil war, called in Pul, king of Assyria, to help them. This led to a series of evils inflicted by the Syrian and Assyrian kings, till at last Israel was ravaged by Shalmaneser, and carried into captivity. Thus, in avoiding one evil they fell into another still more grievous.

    Leaned his hands on a wall, and a serpent bit him - Snakes and venomous animals are fond of taking up their lodging in walls of houses, where they can either find or make holes; and it is dangerous to sit near them or lean against them. In the East Indies they keep the faithful mongose, a species of ichneumon, in their houses, for the purpose of destroying the snakes that infest them.

  • Amos 5:20 open_in_new

    Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

  • Amos 5:21 open_in_new

    I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. So has Persius; see Sat. 2 v. 71-75: -

    "Quin damus id Superis, de magna quod dare lanae," etc.

    The two or three last pages of Plato's Euthyphro contain the same idea. Sacrifices and prayers are not profitable to the offerer, nor acceptable to the gods, unless accompanied with an upright life.

    The fat of fed beasts, etc. - The fat and the blood are particularly mentioned, because these were in all sacrifices set apart to God. The fat was always burnt upon the altar, and the blood was partly sprinkled, differently on different occasions, and partly poured out at the bottom of the altar. See Leviticus 4.

    Amos 5:21I hate, I despise your feast days - I abominate those sacrificial festivals where there is no piety, and I despise them because they pretend to be what they are not. This may refer to the three annual festivals which were still observed in a certain way among the Israelites.

  • Amos 5:22 open_in_new

    Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. The peace-offerings of your fat beasts - מריאיכם merieychem probably means buffaloes; and so Bochart.

  • Amos 5:23 open_in_new

    Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. The noise of thy songs - the melody of thy viols - They had both vocal and instrumental music in those sacrificial festivals; and God hated the noise of the one and shut his ears against the melody of the other. In the first there was nothing but noise, because their hearts were not right with God; and in the latter there could be nothing but (זמרת zimrath) cutting and scraping, because there was no heart - no religious sense in the thing, and nearly as little in them that used it. See on Amos 6:5 (note).

  • Amos 5:24 open_in_new

    But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Let judgment run down - Let the execution of justice be everywhere like the showers that fall upon the land to render it fertile; and let righteousness in heart and life be like a mighty river, or the Jordan, that shall wind its course through the whole nation, and carry every abomination into the Dead Sea. Let justice and righteousness prevail everywhere, and sweep their contraries out of the land.

  • Amos 5:25 open_in_new

    Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But thou hast been weary of me, O Israel "Neither on my account hast thou lahoured, O Israel" - For כי יגעת ki yagata, the Septuagint and Vulgate read ויגעת veyagata. - Houbigant. The negative is repeated or referred to by the conjunction ו vau, as in many other places. See note on Isaiah 23:4.

    Amos 5:25Have ye offered unto me sacrifices - Some have been led to think that "during the forty years which the Israelites spent in the wilderness, between Egypt and the promised land, they did not offer any sacrifices, as in their circumstances it was impossible; they offered none because they had none." But such people must have forgotten that when the covenant was made at Sinai, there were burnt-offerings and peace-offerings of oxen sacrificed to the Lord, Exodus 24:5; and at the setting up of the tabernacle the twelve princes of the twelve tribes offered each a young bullock, a ram, and a lamb, for a burnt-offering; a kid for a sin-offering; two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five lambs, for a peace-offering, Numbers 7:12, etc.; which amounted to an immense number of victims offered in the course of the twelve days during which this feast of the dedication lasted. At the consecration of priests, bullocks and rams to a considerable number were offered, see Leviticus 8:1, etc.; but they were not offered so regularly, nor in such abundance, as they were after the settlement in the promised land. Learned men, therefore, have considered this verse as speaking thus: Did ye offer to me, during forty years in the wilderness, sacrifices in such a way as was pleasing to me? Ye did not; for your hearts were divided, and ye were generally in a spirit of insurrection or murmuring.

  • Amos 5:26 open_in_new

    But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. But ye have borne - The preceding verse spoke of their fathers; the present verse speaks of the Israelites then existing, who were so grievously addicted to idolatry, that they not only worshipped at stated public places the idols set up by public authority, but they carried their gods about with them everywhere.

    The tabernacle of your Moloch - Probably a small portable shrine, with an image of their god in it, such as Moloch; and the star or representative of their god Chiun. For an ample exposition of this verse, see the note on Acts 7:42; to which let me add, that from Picart's Religious Ceremonies, vol. 3 p. 199, we find that there was an idol named Choun worshipped among the Peruvians from the remotest antiquity.

  • Amos 5:27 open_in_new

    Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts. Will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus - That is, into Assyria, the way to which, from Judea, was by Damascus.

    But St. Stephen says, Acts 7:43, beyond Babylon; because the Holy Spirit that was in him chose to extend the meaning of the original text to that great and final captivity of the Jews in general, when Zedekiah, their last king, and the people of Judea, were carried into Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Media; see 2 Kings 17:7, 2 Kings 17:24. This captivity happened after the time of Amos.

    Commentary on the Bible, by Adam Clarke [1831].