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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Amos 5:21

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I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

21. I hate, I reject your feast days] your pilgrimages, aggim denoting not feasts or festivals in general, but in particular the three great annual feasts (viz. of Unleavened Cakes, Weeks, and Booths), which were accompanied by a pilgrimage to a sanctuary, and at which, according to the old law, every male was required to appear yearly before Jehovah (Exo 23:14; Exo 23:17; Exo 34:23; Deu 16:16 f.). ag (the sing.) is the same word as the Arab. aj, the name by which the great Meccan pilgrimage is known. Reject, as Jer 2:37; Jer 6:30 al.; cf. on Amo 2:4.

I will not smell in ] fig. for take no delight in (R.V.): cf. Lev 26:31 and Isa 11:3.

solemn assemblies ] ‘ rh (or ‘ reth) means a gathering or assembly (Jer 9:2), especially one held for a religious purpose, , as 2Ki 10:20 (in honour of Ba‘al): it is used here in a general sense, as Isa 1:13 (where the thought also is parallel), Joe 1:14; Joe 2:15; but it is also used specially ( a) of the gathering of pilgrims on the 7th day of the Feast of Unleavened Cakes (Deu 16:8); ( b) of the gathering on the 8th or supernumerary day of the Feast of Booths (Lev 25:30; Num 29:35; Neh 8:18; 2Ch 7:9); ( c) by the later Jews, of the Feast of Weeks, Jos. Ant. iii. 10, 6 ( ), and in the Mishna, &c.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21 26. Do you think to win Jehovah’s favour by your religious services? On the contrary, He will have none of them: what He demands is not sacrifice, or even praise, but justice; in the wilderness your ancestors offered no sacrifices, without forfeiting Jehovah’s regard; your mistake is a fatal one, and its end will be exile.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

I hate, I despise your feasts – Israel clave to its hearts sin, the worship of the true God, under the idol-form of the calf; else, it would fain be conscientious and scrupulous. It had its feasts of solemn joy and the restraint of its solemn assemblies , which all were constrained to keep, abstaining from all servile work. They offered whole burnt offerings, the token of self-sacrifice, in which the sacrificer retained nothing to himself, but gave the whole freely to God. They offered also peace offerings, as tokens of the willing thankfulness of souls at peace with God. What they offered, was the best of its kind, fatted beasts. Hymns of praise, full-toned chorus, instrumental music! What was missing, Israel thought, to secure them the favor of God? Love and obedience. If ye love Me, keep My commandments. And so those things, whereby they hoped to propitiate God, were the object of His displeasure. I hate, I despise, I will not accept with good pleasure; I will not regard, look toward, I will not hear, will not smell. The words, I will not smell, reminded them of that threat in the law Lev 26:31, I will make your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. In so many ways does God declare that He would not accept or endure, what they all the while were building upon, as grounds of their acceptance. And yet so secure were they, that the only sacrifice which they did not offer, was the sin or trespass offering. Worshiping nature, not a holy, Personal, God, they had no sense of unholiness, for which to plead the Atoning Sacrifice to come. Truly each Day of Judgment unveils much self-deceit. How much more the Last!

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Amo 5:21-24

I hate, I despise your feast days.

The Divinely abhorrent and the Divinely demanded

I. The Divinely abhorrent. The same aversion from the ceremonial observances of the insincere and rebellious Israelites which Jehovah here expresses He afterwards employed Isaiah to declare to the Jews (Amo 1:10). The two passages are strikingly parallel, only the latter prophet amplifies what is set forth in a more condensed form by Amos. It is also to be observed, that where Amos introduces the musical accompaniments of the sacrifices, Isaiah substitutes the prayers: both concluding with the Divine words, I will not hear. Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. The singing of their psalms was nothing more to God than a wearisome word which was to be brought to an end. Singing and playing on harps was a part of the worship of the temple (1Ch 16:40; 1Ch 23:5; 1Ch 23:25.). Nothing seems more abhorrent to the holy eye and heart of Omniscience than empty ceremony in religion. No sacrifices are acceptable to Him, however costly, unless the offerer has presented himself.

II. The Divinely demanded. Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. We prefer to see justice rolling on like mighty waters, and righteousness as a swelling and ever-flowing stream, to crowded churches. Show me your faith by your works. Show me your worship by your morality; show me your love to God by your devotion to your fellow-men. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us. (Homilist.)

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

A prophet of righteousness

This is one of the commonest ideas all through the prophets, but it is the sole idea of Amos.

I. The prophet. Amos is probably the oldest prophet whose writings have come down to us. Once only the Divine inspiration descended on him, and constituted him the messenger of heaven. Amos was the prophet of a single occasion.

II. His prophecy. Amos opened his message in a way that must at once have riveted the attention of the crowd. Be began with a series of brief oracles about the neighbouring nations. He denounces their sins, and announces the punishments that were about to fall on them for their sins. Notice the peculiarity of the sins which this prophet denounces. This is the speciality of Amos. They are not sins against God, but against man. The oppression of the poor is the subject of Amos. The prosperity of the country was only illusory. The righteousness which the righteous God requires is not something in the air. It is not an abstraction, it is conduct between man and mall, and there is no righteousness of any account that does not embrace that. (James Stalker, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 21. I 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.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I hate, I despise your feast days; impure and unholy they are, whatever they seem to be, and therefore the Lord hateth them, they are abomination to him, Pro 15:8; Isa 1:13,14. Worthless and contemptible they are, and as such God rejecteth them, Isa 1:10-12, &c. There is no goodness that I should value in them, there is all that vileness in them which attends deep hypocrisy, for which I do hate them. The apostate Israelites imitated the Jews in many things, amongst which they retained their festivals, in which they multiplied their ceremonial sacrifices; and yet God owns them not as his; but brands them with this, They are yours, therefore unwarrantable, will-worship, and displeasing to God.

I will not smell a savour of rest or delight, I will not accept and be pleased with, Gen 8:21,

your solemn assemblies; appointed, as you think, on very weighty reasons, and by sufficient authority, and celebrated with rich sacrifices, in mighty crowds, and in excellent order; all is yours, not mine.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

21. I hate, I despiseThe twoverbs joined without a conjunction express God’s strong abhorrence.

your feast daysyours;not Mine; I do not acknowledge them: unlike those in Judah,yours are of human, not divine institution.

I will not smellthatis, I will take no delight in the sacrifices offered (Gen 8:21;Lev 26:31).

in your solemnassembliesliterally, “days of restraint.” Isa1:10-15 is parallel. Isaiah is fuller; Amos, more condensed. Amoscondemns Israel not only on the ground of their thinking to satisfyGod by sacrifices without obedience (the charge brought by Isaiahagainst the Jews), but also because even their external ritual was amere corruption, and unsanctioned by God.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

I hate, I despise your feast days,…. Kimchi thinks this is said, and what follows, with respect to the kingdom of the house of Judah, which kept the feast the Lord commanded; but it is not necessary so to understand it; for doubtless the ten tribes imitated the worship at Jerusalem, and kept the feasts as the Jews did there, in the observance of which they trusted; but the Lord rejects their vain confidence, and lets them know that these were no ways acceptable to him; and were so far from atoning for their sins, that they were hated, abhorred, and despised by him, being observed in such a manner and with such a view as they were;

and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies; a sweet savour of rest, as in Ge 8:21; take no pleasure in their duties and services performed, in their solemn assemblies convened together for religious purposes, nor accept of them; but, on the contrary, dislike and abhor them; see Isa 1:11.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

This threatening judgment will not be averted by the Israelites, even by their feasts and sacrifices (Amo 5:21, Amo 5:22). The Lord has no pleasure in the feasts which they celebrate. Their outward, heartless worship, does not make them into the people of God, who can count upon His grace. Amo 5:21. “I hate, I despise your feasts, and do not like to smell your holy days. Amo 5:22. For if ye offer me burnt-offerings, and your meat-offerings, I have no pleasure therein; and the thank-offering of your fatted calves I do not regard. Amo 5:23. Put away from me the noise of thy songs; and I do not like to hear the playing of thy harps. Amo 5:24. And let judgment roll like water, and righteousness like an inexhaustible stream.” By the rejection of the opus operatum of the feasts and sacrifices, the roots are cut away from the false reliance of the Israelites upon their connection with the people of God. The combination of the words expresses in the strongest terms the dislike of God to the feasts of those who were at enmity with Him. Chaggm are the great annual feasts; atsaroth , the meetings for worship at those feasts, inasmuch as a holy meeting took place at the atsereth of the feast of Passover and feast of Tabernacles (see at Lev 23:36). Rach , to smell, is an expression of satisfaction, with an allusion to the , which ascended to God from the burning sacrifice (see Lev 26:31). K , in Amo 5:22, is explanatory: “for,” not “yea.” The observance of the feast culminated in the sacrificers. God did not like the feasts, because He had no pleasure in the sacrifices. In Amo 5:23 the two kinds of sacrifice, olah and minchah , are divided between the protasis and apodosis, which gives rise to a certain incongruity. The sentences, if written fully, would read thus: When ye offer me burnt-offerings and meat-offerings, I have no pleasure in your burnt-offerings and meat-offerings. To these two kinds the shelem, the health-offering or peace-offering, is added as a third class in Amo 5:22. , fattened things, generally mentioned along with baqar as one particular species, for fattened calves (see Isa 1:11). In (Amo 5:23) Israel is addressed as a whole. , the noise of thy songs, answers to the strong expression . The singing of their psalms is nothing more to God than a wearisome noise, which is to be brought to an end. Singing and playing upon harps formed part of the temple worship (vid., 1Ch 16:40; 1Ch 23:5, and 1Ch 23:25). Isaiah (Isa 1:11.) also refuses the heartless sacrifice and worship of the people, who have fallen away from God in their hearts. It is very clear from the sentence which Amos pronounces here, that the worship at Bethel was an imitation of the temple service at Jerusalem. If, therefore, with Amo 6:1 in view, where the careless upon Mount Zion and in Samaria are addressed, we are warranted in assuming that here also the prophet has the worship in Judah in his mind as well; the words apply primarily and chiefly to the worship of the kingdom of the ten tribes, and therefore even in that case they prove that, with regard to ritual, it was based upon the model of the temple service at Jerusalem. Because the Lord has no pleasure in this hypocritical worship, the judgment shall pour like a flood over the land. The meaning of Amo 5:24 is not, “Let justice and righteousness take the place of your sacrifices.” Mishpat is not the justice to be practised by men; for “although Jehovah might promise that He would create righteousness in the nation, so that it would fill the land as it were like a flood (Isa 11:9), He only demands righteousness generally, and not actually in floods” (Hitzig). Still less can mishpat uts e daqah be understood as relating to the righteousness of the gospel which Christ has revealed. This thought is a very far-fetched one here, and is only founded upon the rendering given to , et revelabitur (Targ., Jerome, = ), whereas comes from , to roll, to roll along. The verse is to be explained according to Isa 10:22, and threatens the flooding of the land with judgment and the punitive righteousness of God (Theod. Mops., Theodoret, Cyr., Kimchi, and others).

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Hypocritical Services Rejected; Threatenings against Israel.

B. C. 790.

21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. 22 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. 23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. 24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. 25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? 26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. 27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.

The scope of these verses is to show how little God valued their shows of devotion, nay, how much he detested them, while they went on in their sins. Observe,

I. How unpleasing, nay, how displeasing, their hypocritical services were to God. They had their feast-days at Bethel, in imitation of those at Jerusalem, in which they pretended to rejoice before God. They had their solemn assemblies for religious worship, in which they put on the gravity of those who come before God as his people come, and sit before him as his people sit. They offered to God burnt-offerings, to the honour of God, together with the meat-offerings which by the law were to be offered with them; they offered the peace-offerings, to implore the favour of God, and they offered them of the fat beasts that they had, Amo 5:21; Amo 5:22. In imitation likewise of the temple-music, they had the noise of their songs and the melody of their viols (v. 23), vocal and instrumental music, with which they praised God. With these services they hoped to make God amends for the sins they had committed, and to obtain leave to go on in sin; and therefore they were so far from being acceptable to God that they were abominable. He hated, he despised, their feast-days, not only despised them as no valuable services done to him, but hated them as an affront and provocation to him, as we hate to see men dissemble with us, pretend a respect for us when really they have none. Nothing more hateful, more despicable, than hypocrisy. He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, it shall be counted a curse, when it appears that his heart is not with him. God will not smell in their solemn assemblies, for there is nothing in them that is grateful to him, but a great deal that is offensive. Their sacrifices are not to him of a sweet smelling savour, as Noah’s was, Gen. viii. 21. He will not accept them; he will not regard them, will not take any notice of them; he will not hear the melody of their viols; for, when sin is a jar in the harmony, it grates in his ears: “Take it away,” says God, “I cannot bear it.” Now this intimates, 1. That sacrifice itself is of small account with God in comparison with moral duties; to love God and our neighbour is better than all burnt offering and sacrifice. 2. That the sacrifice of the wicked is really an abomination to him, Prov. xv. 8. Dissembled piety is double iniquity, and so it will be found when, if any place in hell be hotter than another, that will be the hypocrite’s portion.

II. What it was that he required in order to the acceptableness of their sacrifices and without which no sacrifice would be acceptable (v. 24): Let judgment run down as waters, among you, and righteousness as a mighty stream, that is 1. “Let there be a general reformation of manners among you; let religion (God’s judgment) and righteousness have their due influence upon you; let your land be watered with it, and let it bear down all the opposition of vice and profaneness; let it run wide as overflowing waters, and yet run strong as might stream.” (2.) “In particular, let justice be duly administered by magistrates and rulers; let not the current of it be stopped by partiality and bribery, but let it come freely as waters do, in the natural course; let it be pure as running waters, not muddied with corruption or whatever may pervert justice; let it run like a might stream, and not suffer itself to be obstructed, or its course retarded, by the fear of man; let all have free access to it as a common stream, and have benefit by it as trees planted by the rivers of waters.” The great thing laid to Israel’s charge was turning judgment into wormwood (v. 7); in that matter therefore they must reform, Zech. vii. 9. This was what God desired more than sacrifices,Hos 6:6; 1Sa 15:22.

III. What little stress God had laid upon the law of sacrifices, though it was his own law, in comparison with the moral precepts (v. 25): “Did you offer unto me sacrifices in the wilderness forty years? No, you did not.” For the greatest part of that time sacrifice was very much neglected, because of the unsettledness of their state; after the second year, the passover was not kept till they came into Canaan, and other institutions were in like manner intermitted; and yet, because God will have mercy and not sacrifice, he never imputed the omission to them as their fault, but continued his care of them and kindness to them: it was not that, but their murmuring and unbelief, for which God was displeased with them. He that so owned his people, though they did not sacrifice, when in other things they kept close to him, will certainly disown them, though they do sacrifice, if in other things they depart from him. But, though ritual sacrifices may thus be dispensed with, spiritual sacrifices will not; even justice and honesty will not excuse for the want of prayer and praise, a broken heart and the love of God. Stephen quotes this passage (Acts vii. 42), to show the Jews that they ought not to think it strange that ceremonial law was repealed when from the beginning it was comparatively made light of. Compare Jer 7:22; Jer 7:23.

IV. What little reason they had to expect that their sacrifices should be acceptable to God, when they and their fathers had been all along addicted to the worship of other gods. So some take v. 25, “Did you offer to me sacrifices, that is, to me only? No, and therefore not at all to me acceptably;” for the law of worshipping the Lord our God is, Him only we must serve. “But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch (v. 26), little shrines that you made to carry about with you, pocket-idols for your private superstition, when you durst not be seen to do it publicly. You have had the images of your Moloch–your king” (probably representing the sun, that sits king among the heavenly bodies), “and Chiun, or Remphan” (as Stephen calls it, Acts vii. 43, after the LXX.), which it is supposed, represented Saturn, the highest of the seven planets. The worship of the sun, moon, and stars, was the most ancient, most general, and most plausible idolatry. They made to themselves the star of their God, some particular star which they took to be their god, or the name of which they gave to their god. This idolatry Israel was from the beginning prone to (Deut. iv. 19); and those that retain an affection for false gods cannot expect the favour of the true God.

V. What punishment God would inflict upon them for their persisting in idolatry (v. 27): I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus. They were led captive by Satan into idolatry, and therefore God caused them to go into captivity among idolaters, and hurried them into a strange land, since they were so fond of strange gods. They were carried beyond Damascus. Their captivity by the Assyrians was far beyond that by the Syrians; for, if less judgments do not work that for which they were sent, God will send greater. Or the captivity of Israel under Shalmaneser was far beyond that of Damascus under Tiglath-pileser, and much more grievous and destructive, which was foretold ch. i. 5. For, as the sins of God’s professing people are greater than the sins of others, so it may be expected that their punishments will be proportionable. We find the spoil of Damascus and that of Samaria carried off together by the king of Assyria, Isa. viii. 4. Stephen reads it, I will carry you away beyond Babylon (Acts vii. 43), further than Judah shall be carried, so far further as not to return. And, to make this sentence appear both the more certain and the more dreadful, he that passes it calls himself the Lord, whose name is, The God of hosts, and who is therefore able to execute the sentence, having hosts at command.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 21-27:

Abominable Worship–From Without Righteousness

Verse 21 expresses Divine displeasure of the feast days and solemn assemblies piously celebrated in Israel. He calls them “yours”, not “mine;” He did not acknowledge them as of Divine origin, as He did those in Judah. Sacrifices and incense without obedience was hated, despised, and rejected of the Lord, as also expressed by Isa 1:11-24. These festivals and sacrifices would not avert judgment.

Verse 22 recounts the words of God in rejecting their burnt offerings, meat offerings, or meal offerings, and peace offerings of their fat beasts. They could not avail for them, either peace from God or prosperity, when their hearts and spirit were not right with God, Joh 4:24.

Verse 23 expresses God’s direct order for the abominable worshippers of Israel to take way from Him, His presence, the noise of their songs (odes of empty praise). Even their singing is called a noise. For He vowed also not to give ear to the melody or harmonious music of their viols, He once accepted from them, Psa 150:3-6.

Verse 24 appeals to Israel to let just judgment flow as rivers of water, as a natural by-product of righteousness, even as a mighty stream, fed by its own fountain-head, over the land. Unless the one offering the sacrifice desires to live righteously, the sacrifice is hateful to God, 1Sa 15:22; Psa 66:18; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:8.

Verse 25 rhetorically asks, “you have not offered me sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, as your fathers did, have you? O house of Israel. They had. And their sacrifices to idols have been open, public, blatant, defiant acts against His command, that they not make unto themselves idols for gods, or fall down to worship them. The idol worship was held by some of Israel’s camp through the journeyings; It was covert or clandestine, not openly public, Eze 20:39; Deu 31:21-22; Lev 17:7; Deu 32:17-18; Act 7:42-43.

Verse 26 charges that they (Israel) had borne aloft, held up the tabernacle of their Moloch and Chiun, their images of their gods, which He charges they made to themselves, to satisfy their defiant will, in spite of His commandments, and their sacred pledge to keep all of them, Exo 19:8; Exo 20:1-5. They tried to worship both the one God and many gods, 1Co 6:8; Act 7:42-43; 2Ki 5:18; Job 31:26.

Verse 27 specifically announces that God, the God of hosts, would cause His obstinate people to go into captivity beyond (east of) Damascus, in which they trusted for help, even into Assyria and Babylon, 2Ki 15:29; 2Ki 17:6; Act 7:43.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

Here the Prophet, anticipating an objection, shows that the Israelites deceived themselves, for they believed that God was pacified by their sacrifices: he declares all these to be useless; not only, as I think, because they themselves were impure; but because all their sacrifices were mere profanations. We have said elsewhere that sacrifices are often reprehended by the Prophets, when not accompanied by godliness and sincerity: for why did God command sacrifices to be offered to him under the law, except as religious exercises? It was hence necessary that they should be accompanied with penitence and faith. But hypocrites thought, as we have seen, that they thereby discharged their whole duty: it was then a profanation of divine worship. Though the Jews, as to the external form, had not departed from the rule of the law, yet their sacrifices were vicious, and repudiated by God: “I cannot bear them — they are a weariness to me — I repudiate them — I loathe them,” — these are expressions we meet with every where in Isaiah. And yet hypocrites regarded their worship as conformable to the law; but impurity of heart vitiated all their works, and this was the reason that God rejected every thing which the Jews thought available for holiness. But different, as I think, was the design of our Prophet: for it was not only for this reason that he blamed the Israelites, — because they falsely pretended God’s name in their sacrifices, but because they were apostates; for they had departed from the teaching of the law, and built for themselves a spurious temple.

It is yet true that they were deluded with this false notion, that their sins were expiated by sacrifices: but God reproved the Israelites, not only for this gross error, with which the Jews were also infected but for having renounced his true and lawful worship. Hence the external form of their worship deserved to be condemned; for it was not right to offer sacrifices except on mount Zion: but they, without having the ark of the covenant, devised a worship else-where, and even there worshipped the calves. We now understand the design of the Prophet: and this ought to be carefully observed, for interpreters think that the Prophet had nothing else in view, but to condemn a false presumption in the Israelites, because they sought to satisfy God with external sacrifices, while they were yet continuing obstinately in their sins. But the other evil ought to be added, which was, that they had corrupted the true worship of God even in its outward form.

Having now pointed out the prophet’s object, I come to consider his words, I have hated, I have rejected, etc. The word חגג, chegig, means to leap and to dance: hence חג, cheg, signifies a sacrifice as well as a festal day. Some then render the words, “I have rejected your sacrifices,” and those which follow, thus, “I will not smell at your solemnities.” Others render the last word, “assemblies.” עצר, otser, means to restrain, and sometimes to gather: hence עצרה, ostare, means an assembly or a congregation. But עצרת, osteret, means a festal day, because the people, as it is well known, were then restrained from work, and also, because they were detained in the sanctuary. But with respect to the subject itself, it makes but little difference, whether we read assembly or a festal day: we see that what the Prophet meant was this, — that God rejected all the rites, by which the Israelites thought that he was pacified, as though they were the most effectual expiations. He does not simply declare that they were of no account before God; but he speaks much stronger and says, that God despised and abhorred them. I regard, he says, with hatred your festal days. He speaks also of burnt offerings,

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES.]

Amo. 5:21.] Festivals and sacrifices will not avert judgments. Your feasts] of human origin, not Divine appointment (Isa. 1:10-15); the expression of Divine abhorrence is most emphatic.

Amo. 5:23. Noise] as singing is contemptuously called.

HOMILETICS

THE RITUAL WITHOUT THE MORAL.Amo. 5:21-23

The judgments threatened will not be averted by feasts and sacrifices. God expresses his abhorrence to mere ceremonial observances, and will not accept heartless worship. I hate, I despise, &c. Notice

I. Religious assemblies without true worship. Israel had feast days, to abstain from servile work and rejoice in God; solemn assemblies, to worship God and put themselves under some restraint. But in these things they followed their own device, or imitated the worship at Jerusalem; substituted human inventions for Divine institutions; your feast days, not mine; and thus prefigured many more who call themselves Christians. Men uphold the means of grace, attend the worship of God, but the name of God they will not adore. They defend religion, appoint ordinances, and put formal for spiritual service. They pervert the times and the places in which they should meet God. Solemn assemblies, social and private prayer, may prove a curse and not a blessing. Outward worship and superior privileges may increase our condemnation, and cause rejection in the sight of God. I despise your feast days.

II. Daily sacrifices without true obedience. They offered burnt-offerings, tokens of self-sacrifice; peace-offerings, signs of gratitude, from fat beasts, the best they could get; but they were not regarded. Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

1. Their ritual was external. The grandeur of the gift is nothing without the heart of the giver. Costly offerings are of no value without love. God hates dissembled worship. It is double iniquity. The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination; how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind?

2. Their conduct was immoral. They despised the poor and neglected judgment; cherished uncharitable feelings, and had no desire to do right. Love to God must be seen in right conduct towards men; true worship, in pure morality; and faith, in good works. God smells not the savour of splendid rituals without consistent lives (Lev. 26:31). He may accept the moral without the ritual, but never the ritual without the moral. To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

III. Instrumental music without true melody. It was noise, not melody; pleasing to man, but distasteful to God. Church-music is often mere displayintoned with energy, and ending in self. Music is the expression of emotion, the outburst of praise to God. When rightly conducted it will be attractive to man and honouring to God. In times of revival it has elevated the heart and quickened the life. But the best gifts of nature and art may be made instruments of evil. Music is abused when joined with immoral poetry and allurements of sin. When grace is not in the heart we do not sing with the spirit and with the understanding. If the life is not in tune with the lips, God says, Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES

Amo. 5:21-22. Israel had feasts of solemn joy and the restraint of solemn assemblies. They offered whole burnt-offerings, the token of self-sacrifice, in which the sacrificer retained nothing to himself, but gave them freely to God. They offered also peace-offerings, as tokens of the willing thankfulness of souls at peace with God. What they offered was the best of its kind, fatted beasts. Hymns of praise, full-toned chorus, instrumental music! What was wanting, Israel thought, to secure them the favour of God? Love and obedience. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And so those things, whereby they hoped to propitiate God, were the object of his displeasure [Pusey]. Here is a warning to all who think to please God by elaborate musical services in his house; while they do not take heed to worship him with their hearts, and to obey him in their daily life [Wordsworth].

Amo. 5:24. The sound of music, rolling in full chorus, will not profit in a drought of justice and righteousness. Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner, for it was not sent him of the Lord (Sir. 15:9).

When justice is duly administered it is said to ran down as waters, &c. Now waters and streams run not to one mans house, or door, but the stream offers itself to every man, it runs down to the poor mans door as well as to the rich mans door, it runs by the meanest cottage as well as by the princely palace. Righteousness must run like a stream; it must be a common, a universal good [Caryl].

The first outward step in conversion is to break off sin. 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, obstructed by no power, turned aside by no bribery, but pouring on in one perpetual flow, reaching all, refreshing all, and righteousness like a mighty (or ceaseless) stream. True righteousness is not fitful, like an intermitting stream, vehement at one time, then disappearing, but continuous, unfailing [Pusey].

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5

Amo. 5:21-23. A man is not what he saith, but what he doeth. To say what we do, and not to do what we say, is but to undo ourselves by doing [Dyer]. Hypocrisy is filling up some radical defect with some shallowy pretence [Binney].

Tis mad idolatry

To make the service greater than the God. [Shakespeare.]

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

RIGHTEOUSNESS DEMANDS REPENTANCERID RELIGION OF HYPOCRISY

TEXT: Amo. 5:21-27

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings and meal-offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream,

Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

Yea, ye have borne the tabernacle of your king and the shrine of your images, the star of god, which ye made to yourselves.

Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith Jehovah, whose name is the God of hosts.

QUERIES

How can God hate feasts He commanded in the Law?

Why the command to take away . . . the noise of thy songs?

What are the shrines of their images? the star of their god?

PARAPHRASE

I thoroughly hate and despise your hypocritical observations of My feasts and I abhor your fake solemn assemblies. Furthermore, all the burnt-offerings and meal-offerings you offer are unacceptable and I will pay no attention to all the peace-offerings you make. You may as well stop all your noisy psalm-singing because I am not listening to the religious music you are playing. Because your worship is mere hypocrisy My righteous judgment will pour out and roll over the land like a flood. Just as in the wilderness when you hypocritically made sacrifices and songs and worship to heathen idols and heavenly bodies and called it worship to Me, so you are doing now! Because of this I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

SUMMARY

Gods threatened judgment will not be averted by all their worship because even their worship is hypocritical.

COMMENT

Amo. 5:21-23 I HATE, I DESPISE YOUR FEASTS . . . TAKE THOU AWAY FROM ME THE NOISE OF THY SONGS . . . Amos is not denouncing Mosaic revelation and legislation any more than any other prophet did. The prophets emphatically advocated that the people of their day return to purified practice of Law of Moses. The prophets commanded that the Law be observed! Just two examples should be sufficient here to show this (cf. Jer. 26:4-5; Mal. 4:4). For further information on this, see Special Study No. eight, pages 91, 92. The prophets did not institute some revolutionary or evolutionary new religion devoid of the Mosaic legislation! They came to call the people back to keeping the pure Law of Moses from the heart, What Amos is denouncing, as is plain from the context, is the perverted, hypocritical, idolatrous forms of religious ceremony these Israelites were then practicing. He is merely denouncing what practically all the prophets before him and after him denounced (cf. Isa. 1:11 ff; Jer. 7:1 ff; Jer. 6:20 ff; Mal. 1:8 ff). God is not only not pleased with this syncretistic (mixture of heathen and Jewish worship) religion, He hates itit is an abomination to Him and vain and useless as far as the worshipper is concerned! Every sacrifice or offering made aroused in the heart of the All-Righteous and Perfectly-Holy God a divine hatred. The chanting of their religious psalms and the playing upon the harps was a weariness to God which He commands to be stopped. So, it was not that God hated the very feasts, offerings and songs He Himself had commanded in the Lawthese ceremonies in themselves were not wrong. It was the perverse and rebellious nature of the people performing them that made them offensive to God. The people were hypocrites (play actors). They were worshipping Jehovah only in pretense while their real affections were centered on their idols and images. They were neglecting the weightier matters of the law. justice and mercy and faith (cf. Mat. 23:16-36). This same principle is true of those who claim to be covenant people of God today! Religious ritual, no matter how scripturally accurate it may be, will not substitute for loving God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving ones neighbor as ones self. If this principle is truly adhered to one will certainly make every effort to be scripturally accurate in ritual.

Amo. 5:24 BUT LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN AS WATERS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A MIGHTY STREAM. This passage is usually interpreted, Let an overflowing justice and righteousness between men take the place of your hypocritical dealings and sacrifices and flood the land. K & D say, Because the Lord has no pleasure in this hypocritical worship, the judgment shall pour like a flood over the land . . . Mishpat (justice) is not the justice to be practiced by men; for although Jehovah might promise that he would create righteousness in the nation, so that it would fill the land as it were like a flood, He only demands righteousness generally, and not actually in floods. They further state, The verse is to be explained according to Isa. 10:22, and threatens the flooding of the land with judgment and the punitive righteous of God. Lange says, Such worship, instead of averting the judgment, rather provokes its full execution. It should pour over the land, like a flowing stream. It is wrong to interpret the verse as an exhortation to the people to practice judgment and righteousness. The image of a flood of waters is much too strong for such a thought; it points rather to an act of God. In spite of the weight of this scholarship there are those who interpret this passage as a command to the people, e.g. Laetsch, . . . let judgment, Gods norm, His Law . . . run down as water, spreading throughout the country, and righteousness, good works demanded by the Law . . . fill the nation like a mighty stream . . . We believe the view of K & D and Lange best represent a correct contextual interpretation.

Amo. 5:25-27 DID YE BRING UNTO ME SACRIFICES . . . IN THE WILDERNESS . . . YEA, YE HAVE BORNE THE TABERNACLE OF YOUR KING AND THE SHRINE OF YOUR IMAGES . . . THEREFORE WILL I CAUSE YOU TO GO INTO CAPTIVITY BEYOND DAMASCUS . . . Amos asks a rhetorical question, that is, he asks a question for which he is going to supply the answer and which answer is already well known by his audience. Did the nation bring God sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years? Indeed they did, and just like in Amos day they were, for the most part, hypocritical sacrifices to heathen idols while they called it worship to Jehovah! The Northern Kingdom had from its very origin adopted the idolatrous worship of calves as its national religion (1Ki. 12:26-28), a device of Jeroboams own heart, and the history of the twelve tribes is a record of ever-repeated idolatry and rebellion against God. This tendency dated back to the early days of Israels acceptance as Gods covenant nation. It was only forty days after the solemn declaration of this covenant when Israel asked Aaron to make gods for them to go before them, and worshipped the golden calf (Exo. 32:1-6). She did not cease to worship idols even after Gods longsuffering and the intercession of Moses kept them from being exterminated (Exo. 32:7 to Exo. 34:11). Forty years later Moses warns them (Deu. 9:6-24) against idolatry, and twice in particular against that special form of idolatry with which Amos charges them here: the worship of the host of heaven, of sun, moon, and stars (Deu. 4:19; Deu. 17:2-3). Star worship was one of the earliest and most widespread forms of idolatry in Israel. The false gods worshiped by Abrahams ancestors in Ur of the Chaldees (Jos. 24:2) were astral deities. The images which Rachel had taken from her father (Gen. 31:30 ff), and which were later buried by Jacob (Gen. 35:2 ff) were teraphim, small statuettes of Ishtar. In Egypt, Israel was exposed to the danger of various forms of idolatry, among them worship of the sun-god Ra (also called Amon). So, by ancestry, by environment in Egypt, by the proximity of the Amorites and other nations addicted to star worship during the wilderness wandering, and by their rebellious spirit (Exo. 32:9; Deu. 9:6; Psa. 95:10-11), the Israelites were inclined to star worship,

In the wilderness Israel carried the tabernacle (tent) wherein they had Sakkuth, the Assyrian-Babylonian god identified with Saturn. Him they regarded as their Moloch (their king or god). This has no reference to the tabernacle of God legislated by Moses. Israel aped the heathen festival processions in which their star gods were carried about, The names used by Amos in Amo. 5:26 (Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god) may be an ancient as the idols, or he may be calling these ancient idols by the names current at his time. The sin remains the same, star worship. Stephen, in his famous defense (Act. 7:41 ff), quotes from Amos here and states that because Israel refused to acknowledge and serve the true God as He had revealed Himself to them, God surrendered them in divine judgment to their self-chosen ways which could end only in ruin and damnation. The generation of Amos day, in mixing idolatry with sacrifices done in the name of Jehovah, was just like the contemporaries of Moses, practicing idolatry and all the while claiming to be worshipers of Jehovah.

But the judgment of God shall overwhelm them like a flood and carry them off into slavery and bondage to a land far beyond Damascus. The precise location of their captivity is not yet revealedit is reserved for Hosea to be the first to mention Assyria as the exact location (Hos. 9:3; Hos. 10:6; Hos. 11:5). Hosea also has a great deal to say about Israels worship of idols (Hos. 3:1; Hos. 4:12-13; Hos. 4:17; Hos. 6:10; Hos. 7:16; Hos. 8:4-5; Hos. 10:5-6; etc.). Hosea paints an even worse picture of degradation in the land as a result of its idolatry than was painted by Amos! The terrible consequences of rebellion against God grew steadily worseinjustice, crime, immorality of all degrees soon led to complete anarchy in the land. In 722721 B.C. the ten tribes of the Northern kingdom were subjugated by the Assyrian king and the people were deported to Assyria never to return as a nation (2Ki. 17:1-6).

QUIZ

Did the prophets seek to abolish the law and institute a new type of religion?

Why were their feasts and sacrifices and worship services offensive to God?

What is the meaning of let justice roll down as waters . . .?

Did Israel worship idols in the wilderness? Explain!

REVOLUTION OR REGENERATION

Amo. 5:24

INTRODUCTION

MANS REDEMPTION, TRANSFORMATION, REGENERATION IS TO BE ACTED OUT OR EXPRESSED IN SOCIAL RELATIONS

God created man; He created this world order

He has not abdicated His sovereignty over this order

He maintains His sovereignty and moral government by holding the world responsible to His revealed Will

All men and nations are responsible to God for moral uprightness and just social behavior

The O.T. prophets spoke principles and guidelines for social relations which are as relevant today as they were 2500 years ago . . .

These same principles are amplified and confirmed by Jesus Christ and His apostles

II.

GODS WORD JUDGES EVERY HUMAN CULTURE AND INSTITUTION

The U.S.S.R AND CHINA are as much under God as the U.S.A., because God is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. HE TRANSCENDS ALL POWERS AS WELL AS ALL THE LIMITATIONS OF HUMAN ABILITIES, INSTITUTIONS AND NATIONS. HE IS THE SOVEREIGN OF THE UNIVERSE

Cf. Amos 1-2; Isaiah 13-23; Jer., Ezek., etc. Daniel

It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me . . . Jer. 27:5

III.

PRIVILEGE BRINGS RESPONSIBILITY

If God expected so much of Israel and Judah in Amos day in social justice because they were witnesses of the One True God,

How much more does he require of U.S.A. since we have so long had the glorious gospel and providential grace of God in material means?!

IV.

GODS WAY OF BRINGING ABOUT SOCIAL JUSTICE

He did not call upon Israel to send a Senate Investigation Committee to discover the causes and recommend cures for the nations problemHE REVEALED IT . . . SIN WAS THE CAUSE . . . REPENTANCE THE CURE

He did not send a Ph.D., an URBANOLOGIST, SOCIOLOGIST, OR SHEEPHERDER AND FRUITPICKER TO SIMPLY DECLARE WITH CONVICTION AND CLARITY THE REVEALED WORD OF GOD!

God did not call upon Israels government to provide a massive welfare war on poverty, to pass a sword-control bill. He called upon them to obey the Divine Law

Amos did not preach civil disobedience to the poor, he preached obedience to God to all

Israel did not need a great politician, organizer, economist, legislator . . . SHE NEEDED A GREAT PREACHER, A HEARLD OF THE TRUTH, A CONSCIENCE-STABBING CRYER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, A WARRIOR OF THE FAITH!

SO THIS MAN AMOS, NOT A PROFESSIONAL CLERGYMAN, NOT A SIGN-CARRYING RIOTER, NOT AN ORGANIZER OF MARCHES . . . BUT A MAN ALL ALONE, WHO BELIEVED GOD AND HAD THE COURAGE TO PREACH GODS MESSAGE, HAS A RELEVANT MESSAGE FOR OUR SOCIETY TODAY!

DISCUSSION

THE SOCIAL SICKNESS OF ISRAELS DECADENT SOCIETY CLOSELY PARALLELS THAT OF OUR OWN

They have forgotten how to do right, says the Lord, They maintain their palaces by the fruit of violence and robbery. Phillips, Amo. 3:10

Violence and crime in our world is at an appalling level!

15 yr. olds commit more serious crimes than any other age group; 1/6 boy is referred to the juvenile court; in 1965 more than 2 million Americans were sentenced to prison; 40% of all male children will be arrested sometime in their lives for something more serious than traffic violations; 3 million crimes reported in 1965 while in some places only 1/10th of certain crimes are reported

In all large cities no one is safe on the streets after dark; THERE ARE MANY WHO ARE ADVOCATING THE BURNING DOWN OF CITIES, RIOTING, CIVIL REVOLUTION! Gangs of wild, thrill-seeking, cruel, cold-blooded boys and girls roam the streets, even of Joplin!

Organized Crime like the Mafia, etc., control great institutions and organizations and often city governments and political parties!

Indulgent luxury and sensual excess; . . . at ease in Zion lying upon beds of ivory, eat lambs from the flock . . . sing idle songs . . . drink wine in bowls . . . anoint themselves with finest oils . . . Amo. 6:1-6 a.

Indulgence and excess is rampant all over the world among the rich and poor, in every realm possible

Indulgence in building expensive homes and clothes

Excess in eating, obesity, have to take pills, etc.

Excessive indulgence in frivolity, recreation, etc.

Excess in alcohol are ruining us. Yale School of Alcohol Studies, drinking cause of 20% of all divorces, 25% of all insanity, 37% of all poverty, 47% of all child misery, 50% of all crimes, 50% of all traffic deaths; industry looses 60 million man hours and 1 billion a year in wages due to alcohol absenteeism; Hoover says 5 billion a year is spent to combat crime due to liquor drinking. This is 1 billion more than total revenue received by federal government for liquor sold!!!

We have so indulged in sex it is openly perverted . . . homosexual wedding performed in Rotterdam by catholic priest . . . plays on Broadway now have naked women and men on stage and roaming through audience . . . a movie about the love of two lesbians for one another is being shown in New York.

In one play, Time describes, In full light, and facing the audience, the unclothed heroine knelt on a table throughout the play as a symbol of passive white idealism. A fully dressed Negro, symbolizing angry black nationalism, devours her. THE DECADENT CANAANITE, GREEK AND ROMAN THEATRES HAD NOTHING ON THOSE OF U.S.A.!

We indulgently pay money to see such things . . . corrupt-minded movie stars make millions of dollars off indulgent society . . . sports heroes are paid fabulous salaries . . . so-called entertainers are millionaires over night simply for sitting and spouting obscenities on the T.V.

Oppression of the poor: . . . cows of Bashan, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy . . . trample the poor . . . afflict the righteous, turn aside the needy . . . (cf. Amo. 4:1; Amo. 5:11-12; Amo. 8:4-6)

Like it or not there are people all over the world who make their living by oppressing the poor . . . yes, even here in Joplin

Loan sharks; those who exploit people by bring young girls into prostitution to escape poverty; criminals who exploit the poor by selling them numbers or other forms of gambling; people who pay less than fair wages simply because of a persons color or nationality

Like it or not some people in America have been denied the opportunities others have simply because they were black-skinned, were Mexican nationality, were poorly dressed, etc. I have lived in the South, and the West and the North and it is all the same! Greed, prejudice, SIN causes men to oppress one another!

GOD WILL NOT HOLD THE OPPRESSORS OF THE POOR GUILTLESS . . . NEITHER WILL HE HOLD GUILTLESS THOSE WHO KNOW IT AND DO NOTHING ABOUT IT! ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO OUGHT TO BE REGENERATING SOCIETY BY PREACHING REPENTANCE TO THE OPPRESSORS, AND HOPE TO THE OPPRESSED!

Perverting Justice and Righteousness: O you who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth . . . you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe . . . they hate him who reproves in the gate . . . abhor him who speaks the truth (Amo. 5:7; Amo. 5:10; Amo. 5:12)

Convicted criminals go unpunished because of political pressures on courts and judges or because of outright bribes

Looters encouraged to rob, destroy because politicians want votes

Rich and influential able to get by with flouting tax laws, and other laws the poor and middle class would not

International criminals violate our sovereignty and we do nothing

Our boys dying in V.N. while our so-called allies ship our enemies food and arms

Those who stand for truth, justice, law and order, smeared as fanatics, extremists

ApathyIndifference . . . but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph . . . Amo. 6:6 b

None seem to have the courage to speak out against evil and in favor of righteousness

Too many have it too good . . . and those who do not have it so good want to change the situation only in terms of materialistic values!

Rolland Steever says in Christian Standard, July 6, 1968, Christ in the Ghettos . . . We cannot turn our faces away and fearfully hope that this situation will go away. It will not!

People have made sin respectable by euphemizing it . . . the godless liquor traffic is now called tavern, grill, nightclub, cocktail lounge. Drunkeness is called illness of alcoholism. Youthful crime is called juvenile delinquency. Pornography is called realism, Divorce and sexual promiscuity are recommended as producing maturity for later marital relations, immodest dress is called fashionable. Dope addition is called escapeism.

10 or 12 people stand by and watch a pregnant school teacher attacked and raped in Kansas City. Others watch while a gang kick an old man to death in New York park.

LEGISLATORS AND JUSTICES SEEM UNCONCERNED OR PARALYZED BY FEAR TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE MORAL ANARCHY EXCEPT VOTE MORE MONEY HANDOUTS AS RANSOMS
POLITICIANS HAVE PROPOSED EVERY PANACEA POSSIBLE AND ALL THEIR SCHEMES ONLY ADD MORE PROBLEMS TO THE PROBLEM SCIENCES SOLUTIONS ARE SUPERFICIAL AND SHALLOW
EDUCATION IS EXTRANEOUS AND IRRELEVANT TO THE PREDICAMENT

WHAT ARE WE TO DO? WHERE ARE WE TO TURN? WHAT IS THE ANSWER?

II.

THE CAUSE OF ISRAELS DECADENCE PARALLELS OUR OWN

Psychiatrist Carl Jung, in a letter to E. Stanley Jones, wrote, Those psychiatrists who are not superficial have come to the conclusion that the vast neurotic misery of the world could be termed a neurosis of emptiness. Men cut themselves off from the root of their being, from God, and then life turns empty, meaningless, without purpose. So when God goes, goal goes. When goal goes, meaning goes. When meaning goes, value goes, and life turns dead on our hands.

Sidney Cave, in his book, The Christian Way, says Right and wrong are, for many, words which have ceased to have any intellible content, and the sense of liberation from the restrictions of traditional morality has brought not the joy of freedom but the malaise which comes from lives lived without aim or meaning. We are all aware of the psychic injury suffered by a child if he finds that the one he has trusted as his father is not his father. That is the plight of many in the modern world. They have lost their heavenly Father and feel not liberated, but merely insecure . . . Many have lost the sense of a fathers care but not the sense of need.

Time, April 26, 1968, in an article on American authors, says they are viewing the world as a lunatic comedy . . . they work from an assumption that society is at best malevolent and stupid, at worst wholly lunatic. The gods are dead and their graves untended, morality is a matter of picking ones way between competing absurdities, and the only sane reaction to societyto its alleged truths and virtues, its would-be terrors and taboosis a cackle or a scream of possibly cathartic laughter

WHAT IS THE CAUSE? MEN HAVE CUT THEMSELVES OFF FROM THE ROOT OF THEIR BEING, GOD . . . THEY HAVE LOST THEIR HEAVENLY FATHER . . . THE GODS ARE DEAD . . .

ISRAELS ROAD TO RUIN WAS PAVED WITH UNBELIEF, IDOLATRY, RITUALISM

. . . because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes . . . Amo. 2:4

THEY EXCHANGED THE TRUTH OF GOD FOR LIESAmo. 2:4 . . . but their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked.

OUR NATION IS FILLED WITH POLITICAL LEADERS, INDUSTRIAL LEADERS, YES, EVEN RELIGIOUS LEADERS WHO HAVE REJECTED THE WORD OF GOD . . . THEY HAVE SCORNED ITS ETHICAL PRECEPTS AS BEING IRRELEVANT . . . THEY HAVE EXCHANGED THE TRUTH OF GOD FOR THE SATANIC INSPIRED LIES OF HUMANISM, AND EVOLUTIONISM.

The Israelites in Amos day were worshipping idols, golden-calves, star-gods and other images at Bethel and Dan (cf. Amo. 3:14; Amo. 5:25-27)

AND OUR NATION HAS ITS IDOLS AND IMAGES TO WHICH THEY PAY OBESIENCE . . . MOVIE STARS, ENTERTAINERS, SPORTS, TELEVISION, AUTOMOBILES, HOUSES, POLITICIANS, PHILOSOPHERS, THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR!
WE HAVE OUR SHRINES, THE MOVIE HOUSE, THE NIGHTCLUBS, THE STADIUMS, POLITICAL RALLIES, WHERE THERE ARE SET RITUALS WE ALL GO THROUGH, LAKESIDES, ETC.

Ritualism . . . bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days . . . proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel. Amo. 4:4-5

10 years ago in Christian Standard, Jan J. Erteszak said, in an article From Asylum to Powerhouse 125-59 . . . Our churches are increasing in membership and material well-being at an unprecedented rate. Religion has become popular. But, almost in inverse proportion to its popularity, it is losing its central place of commitment in the lives of the people. YES, WE HAVE MANY PEOPLE IN AMERICA WHO GO TO CHURCH AND GO THROUGH THE RITUALS . . . THEY LOVE TO DO THIS . . . IT SALVES THE CONSCIENCE . . . BUT GOD AND HIS WORD DOES NOT PERMEATE THEIR EVERYDAY LIVING!
THIS IS THE CAUSE . . . IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CAUSE OF EVERY SOCIETY WHICH HAS PERISHED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH . . . REJECTION OF THE SOVEREIGNITY OF GODS REVEALED WORD!!!

EGYPT DID NOT DIE FROM LACK OF WEALTH OR POWER!
OLD BABYLON DID NOT DIE FROM LACK OF EDUCATION OR CULTURE!
ASSYRIA DID NOT DIE FOR LACK OF MILITARY MIGHT!
THE NEO-BABYLONIAN EMPIRE WAS THE RICHEST ON EARTH!
PERSIA WAS POWERFUL AND RICH!
GREECE WAS POWERFUL AND RICH!
ROME WAS POWERFUL AND RICH!

AND ON AND ON ONE MIGHT GO . . . NONE OF THEM WERE OVERTHROWN AS A RESULT OF ATTEMPTS BY ENSLAVED PEOPLE THYING TO HAVE A DEMOCRACY . . . SO DEMOCRATIC FORM OF GOVERNMENT IS OF NO ASSURANCE OF PERPETUATION OF SOCIETY!
ALL SOCIETIES, GOVERNMENTS, PEOPLES, INDIVIDUALS STAND OR FALL ACCORDING TO THEIR COMMITMENT TO THE UNIVERSAL AND ETERNAL PRINCIPLES OF DIVINE MORAL GOVERNMENT!
MORAL ANARCHY BREEDS POLITICAL ANARCHY . . . WHICH WILL IN TURN PRODUCE POLITICAL DICTATORSHIP AND MORAL DICTATORSHIP.
IT IS PRAGMATICALLY PROVEN CORRECT . . . A PERSON OR A NATION CAN ONLY BE FREE SPIRITUALLY, MORALLY, AND POLITICALLY IF IT KNOWS AND DOES THE TRUTH OF GOD!

III.

THE CURE FOR ISRAELS DECADENCE IS THE SAME CURE NEEDED TODAY . . . REGENERATION

Cecil Todd said in his last Revival Fires magazine, Our nation has strayed from God! Our problem is not the color of peoples skin: our problem is the color of peoples hearts, The heart of our problem is the problem of our hearts! Our problem is not the poverty-stricken ghettosthe slum areas; our problem, rather, is the poverty-stricken soulsthe slums of peoples hearts . . . What we need in this country more than a war on poverty is a war on sin.

Amos said it this way: Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord the God of hosts will be with you . . . Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate . . . let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Amo. 5:14-15; Amo. 5:23-24

The prophets taught and Jesus confirmed that all social morality finds its roots, its spiritual source and compelling power over the consciences of men in the character of God Himself. To seek God is to seek good; to love God is to love good, and, conversely, to hate evil because God hates evil.

The solution is even as it was in the days of Jeremiah . . . restoration of the old paths wherein is the good way (Jer. 6:16-21) . . . the solution is REGENERATION, not REVOLUTION.

Social injustice cannot be corrected by simply renovation and reorganization of the social structure. NO MATTER WHICH POLITICAL PARTY REORGANIZES!

Social injustice can only be overcome when men are recreated in the image of God. SOCIETY WILL NEVER BE CHANGED EXCEPT AS INDIVIDUAL MEN ARE CHANGED! AND MEN WILL NEVER BE CHANGED UNTIL THEY ARE UNITED WITH GOD THROUGH HIS REVELATION WHICH IN THESE DAYS IS MADE IN HIS INCARNATE SON

The FAITHFULNESS OF GOD is the great motivating power appealed to by the prophets. GOD HAS KEPT HIS PROMISES IN THE PAST . . . HE WILL KEEP THEM IN THE PRESENT AND FUTURE!!

History is appealed to.

So, what God did through Jesus Christ in time and in history is confirmation of the FAITHFULNESS OF GOD (2Co. 1:20) . . .

THIS BECOMES THE BASIS OF MORALITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE, EVERYTHING . . . BECAUSE IT IS THROUGH THESE EXCEEDING GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES THAT WE ARE ABLE TO ESCAPE THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD AND BECOME PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE . . . REGENERATED (2Pe. 1:3-4)

CONCLUSION

WHAT THEN CAN THE CHURCH DO IN OUR AGE OF SOCIAL UPHEAVEL . . . HOW IS THE CHURCH TO BE INVOLVED . . . HOW MAY IT BE MADE RELEVANT FOR THIS GENERATION?

THE CHURCH MUST START BY OUT-COMMITTING THOSE WHO, BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION, ARE DETERMINED TO DESTROY OUR SOCIETY

A committed church is a fellowship of believers which accepts the following premises and acts upon them:

The basic teachings of Christ are universal in time, space, and every situation of life . . . as significant in London, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Peking as U.S.A.

They are just as pertinent to our interdependent and complex society of today as they were in the first century

They are applicable to the totality of our problemsbusiness, home, public life, international relations

Those who practice the Christian precepts in their daily lives are blessed themselves while, at the same time, they bring blessings to their society.

The church must come to grips with the following tasks:

Of involving men in her message for today and in her activity . . . SHOWING MEN THAT THE WORD OF GOD IS RELEVANT FOR THEIR PROBLEMS . . . EVANGELIZE THOSE WHO ARE SEARCHING TODAY

Become skillful in building a lasting conviction in its members. WE MUST CONVINCE MEN THAT CHRISTS RULE OF LOVE REALLY WORKS . . . THAT IT WILL ENRICH THEM IN THE GREATEST POSSIBLE WAY . . . SPIRITUALLY

It must learn to generate commitment in its entire membership . . . IN A COMMITTED CHURCH THERE ARE NO SPECTATORS: EVERYONE IS A PARTICIPANT . . . EVERYONE HAS A TASK

THE CHURCH CAN ONLY IMPART WHAT IT POSSESSES, AND THE EXTENT OF ITS INFLUENCE WILL DEPEND ON THE SINGLE-MINDEDNESS, THE SPIRITUAL MUSCLE, THE DEPTH OF CONVICTION, AND THE WILLINGNESS TO WITNESS OF THOSE WHO ARE FULLY COMMITTED.
IT IS USUALLY AT THE CROSSROADS OF DESTINY THAT REAL PROGRESS IS AFFECTED, WE ARE AT SUCH A CROSSROAD, IF WE UNDERTAKE TO BRING THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH TO GRIPS WITH THE 20TH CENTURY, WE CAN, AND WE WILL CHANGE THE COURSE OF THE HISTORY OF DISSOLUTION WHICH IS NOW IN THE MAKING

II.

IT ALL STARTS WITH YOU AND WITH ME AS INDIVIDUALS

TO BE A CHRISTIAN IS NOT SO MUCH DOING THIS OR THAT, BUT ALLOWING GOD TO CREATE IN YOU HIS OWN IMAGEJESUS CHRIST!

NATIONS MAY CRUMBLE, BUT GODS PROMISES ARE CERTAIN TO ENDURE!!

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(21, 22) These verses closely resemble the condemnation which Isaiah pronounces (Amo. 1:10-15) upon mere ritual, however punctilious, mere profession of orthodoxy, however exacting, which was not accompanied by righteousness and mercy, and was not the expression of inward penitence and purity.

Will not smell in your . . .A strong expression for I take no delight in them. That Baal worship, as well as the worship of the true God, was characterised by similar offerings and sacrificial terms is indicated by a Phnician tablet inscribed with a code of sacrificial dues, discovered at Marseilles. The word rendered peace offering should be translated as in the margin. The word for meat offering is better interpreted meal offerings, since it consisted of vegetable products used in food, meal, oil, cakes, &c.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

21-25. The popular service is an abomination to Jehovah. The prophet represents Jehovah as out of sympathy with and even hostile to the popular worship. In what sense this is to be understood see on Hos 6:6.

Hate, despise Exceedingly strong expressions of displeasure. The emphasis throughout is on the pronoun. Their practices are an abomination to Jehovah.

Feast days See on Hos 2:11.

Will not smell R.V., “will take no delight.” The metaphor is based upon the primitive material conception that the Deity literally smelled the sweet odor of the sacrifice. He indicated his displeasure by refusing to smell it (compare Gen 8:21; Isa 11:3; Lev 26:31).

Solemn assemblies See on Joe 1:14; compare on Hos 2:11, where a different Hebrew word is used. The prophet next enumerates the most common and most popular kinds of sacrifice which Jehovah despises.

Burnt offerings See on Hos 6:6.

Meat offerings R.V., “meal offerings.” See on Joe 1:9 (compare Lev 2:1 ff.; Num 15:1 ff).

Peace offerings Margin, “thank offerings.” Not the same word as in Amo 4:5. They are the offerings prompted by a desire to restore peace, to renew intimate fellowship with God, after, in some manner, it had become interrupted (Lev 3:1 ff; Lev 7:15 ff.).

Fat beasts Only the choicest animals were used for sacrifice. The joyful music accompanying the sacrifices also was displeasing to Jehovah.

From me Literally, from upon me. It is oppressing Jehovah like a heavy burden (Isa 1:14).

Noise The use of this word implies a feeling of disgust. “The best music becomes mere noise when, for any reason, it ceases to appeal to him who hears it.”

Songs Songs and music were undoubtedly a part of religious celebrations from an early period, but their exact nature among the Hebrews in pre-exilic times is not definitely known.

Viols Our knowledge of musical instruments in ancient times is very fragmentary. The instrument named here is probably a harp-shaped instrument with strings. Josephus says that in his day it had twelve strings (compare Psa 33:2) and was played with the fingers. Here it represents all musical instruments used in connection with worship (compare Encyclopaedia Biblica, article “Music”).

Amo 5:24 is to be interpreted not as a threat, that the righteous judgment of Jehovah will sweep over the land with the destructiveness of a flood, but as an exhortation. In the place of a meaningless ceremonial Jehovah desires a righteous life (Isa 1:10-17).

Judgment [“justice”] righteousness Practiced in the ordinary relations of life (see on Amo 5:7).

Run R.V., “roll”; literally, roll itself; that is, manifest itself continually.

As waters Great masses of water; a picture of abundance and continuity.

A mighty stream R.V. margin, “ever-flowing.” The allusion is to a perennial stream. In nearly all the rivers of Palestine the flow of water is interrupted during the dry season. It is not to be thus with the practice of justice and righteousness; it is to go on unobstructed and uninterrupted forever.

Lack of space will not permit even to enumerate the different views held by commentators concerning Amo 5:25-26. The interpretation suggested here is the one in most complete accord with the context. In Amo 5:25 Amos points out, by the use of a rhetorical question, the absurdity of the people’s attempt to secure the favor of Jehovah by their heartless ceremonial worship; sacrifice is not an essential element in worship at all.

Sacrifices Animal sacrifices.

Offerings R.V. margin, “meal offerings.” The same word as in Amo 5:22, here all offerings not consisting of animals. The two cover all forms of sacrifice (Isa 19:21; Psa 40:6).

In the wilderness During the wanderings preceding the conquest of Canaan (Num 14:33-34; Jos 5:6).

Have ye offered [“Did ye bring”] The answer expected is an emphatic No! And yet, the prophet would say, during these forty years Jehovah was as near to you as at any time in your history (Amo 2:9-10). If so, his presence and favor cannot depend upon the bringing of numerous sacrifices (Jer 7:22), hence you are mistaken when you expect your present elaborate ritual to secure for you the divine favor. Sacrifice antedates the time of Moses, and that some sacrifices were offered during the desert wanderings cannot be doubted. But this is not a contradiction of the statement of Amos, for his question does not necessarily imply a denial of the bringing of all sacrifice. The demands of the language are satisfied if his words are interpreted as meaning that during the desert wanderings the people did not conform to a ritual as elaborate as that practiced in his own day; and such interpretation satisfies also the demands of his argument.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Day Of Darkness Is Coming Because Of The Falsity of Their Worship In That While They Worship They Ignore Justice And Righteousness ( Amo 5:21-27 ).

Amos now emphatically brings out where their error lay. They came to YHWH with feasting and joyful assemblies, offering their different offerings and singing and making melody with their instruments, thinking that thereby they were pleasing YHWH (and the other gods), while all the time He looked on what they were doing and the noise that they were making with loathing and contempt. And this was because they were failing to truly honour Him by allowing justice and righteousness to prevail among them like a continually flowing stream that never dried up. This should they have done, and not left the other undone. He then goes on to question whether they had ever really truly worshipped Him, even in the wilderness, for even there, as now, they had on the one hand borne the Tabernacle of their King, while on the other they had borne the shrine of their images, the star of their god which they had made for themselves. Both then and now the house of Israel had engaged in the same double act, and had been equally unacceptable. Compare for the similar idea Isa 1:11-18.

Amo 5:21

“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in (literally ‘do not like to smell’) your festal assemblies.”

YHWH firstly wanted to make it clear to them that they were mistaken if they thought that He obtained any pleasure from their worship. The odour of it was not pleasant to Him. Rather He wanted them to know that He hated and despised it because it was all superficial and there was nothing underneath. What they engaged in were their feasts and not His. And similarly He wanted them to know that He took no delight in their (not His) festal gatherings in which they themselves participated with such joy. For central to the true worship of YHWH was the offering of a righteous and obedient life. There was no point in gathering to declare loyalty to YHWH if they did not keep His covenant.

Amo 5:22

“Yes, though you offer me your burnt-offerings and meal-offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.”

Furthermore He wanted them to know that even though they offered Him their (not His) dedicatory offerings, and their (not His) meal-offerings which celebrated the provisions of creation, He would not accept them, nor would He pay any regard to their peace-offerings, (supposedly offered in thanksgiving and in order to enjoy fellowship with YHWH) however fat they were. The worship that they delighted in was a waste of time because it was simply not acceptable. It was not the kind of worship that YHWH had provided for in the covenant, for it lacked an essential ingredient, the offering of a righteous life. To YHWH worship and righteousness went together as part of the same covenant. Both were essential ingredients. (And if the same conditions of unrighteous living prevail for us, the same is true of our worship today. We cannot come ‘in the Name of Jesus’ if what we are doing in our lives is contrary to His will, for to truly come ‘in the Name of Jesus,’ is to come as those who are aligned with Him. If we are not doing His will then we will do better to keep our mouths shut).

Amo 5:23

“Take you away from me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your viols.”

Let them also stop singing and making music (singular tense indicating the whole nation), for in so far as He heard them at all they were just making an unpleasant noise to Him if they were not truly walking in His ways. Indeed the louder their efforts the less He liked it. He simply closed His ear to it.

The viol was probably an instrument consisting of ten strings stretched over a sound box. In Egypt such instruments could be three metres (ten feet) or more high. (Compare our double bass).

Amo 5:24

“But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream.”

What they should rather do was to ensure that justice flowed smoothly through their society, and that their righteousness was not ‘on and off’, but continually flowed out of them like a perpetual river which was constantly fed with water, and flowed freely, never ceasing to flow even in the hottest dry summer. (In Israel far too many rivers dried up in the summer when there was no rain to feed them). Then they would be able to worship Him and be acceptable.

Alternately we could translate ‘let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream’ indicating that God’s righteous judgment is coming on them because of their sins (compare Isa 10:22).

Amo 5:25

“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?”

Looking on Israel past and present as one He asked whether they really thought that they, as Israel, had brought to Him genuine sacrifices and offerings during their forty years in the wilderness. The answer that they should have given, and which would have been given by an intelligent observer, was ‘no’. And this was obvious from the fact that because of their unbelief they had had to spend forty years in the wilderness at all. The point is not that they had not engaged in offering sacrifices at all, but they had not been genuinely to Him as the One Who demanded righteousness. They had, of course, actually offered sacrifices in the wilderness, but the emphasis is on the fact that that worship had had as little to do with genuine worship of YHWH as their worship at this present time. Amos was not denying that sacrifices were offered, only saying that they were not genuinely offered to YHWH. (As now they were THEIR sacrifices, not HIS).

For the truth was that they were all the same, and had been from the beginning. His present hearers were no better than their fathers. Their fathers too had mechanically brought sacrifices and offerings to Him in the wilderness for forty years. But they had not really brought them to Him, for their supposed worship had not been backed up by their lives and their behaviour in a true response to he covenant. They too had overlooked the need for justice and righteousness and obedience, which was why they had had to spend forty years in the wilderness in the first place until all had perished there, instead of only being in the wilderness for just a few months between Sinai and Kadesh, and it was why they had not been allowed to even approach the promised land.

‘Oh house of Israel.’ They and their fathers were all one together, for they revealed their oneness by behaving in the same way.

Amo 5:26

“Yes, you have borne the booth (sukkat) of your king and the pedestal (ciyyun) of your images, the star of your god (i.e. your star-god), which you made to yourselves.”

This statement is applied to both the time in the wilderness and the present, for they were really all the same within their hearts. It is saying that it had been true that outwardly they had paid lip service to Yahwism in the wilderness, just as they did today, while at the same time worshipping other gods. Thus the truth was that YHWH had not really been their King then, any more than He was now, for had He been they would not have also had shrines to their ‘king’, and pedestals for their images, even for ‘the star-god that they had made for themselves’. Their worship had thus been syncretistic then and it still was. The reference to the star-god may have had in mind current worship rather than wilderness worship, but we must bear in mind that we actually know little about their false worship in the wilderness (indeed we actually know almost nothing about the final thirty eight years in the wilderness which are on the whole passed over without comment until the actual commencement of the new approach to Canaan), apart from that of the molten calf, but that, and their association with Egypt, and the presence of Egyptians and other foreigners among them (Exo 12:38), makes a star-god a good possibility even then. Egypt, for example, had many star-gods.

(Note. This could be translated, ‘ Yes, you have borne Sakkuth your king (or equally as ‘the shrine of Molech’), and Kaiwan your star-god, which you made to yourselves’. Sakkuth and Kaiwan are both mentioned in Assyrian text lists as gods, and names of the planet Saturn. Thus both are mentioned as star-gods. But this very fact that both were connected with Saturn does not fit in with the description of Sakkuth as on the one hand their king, and Kaiwan on the other as their star-god, unless of course the two names applied to an identical god who is mentioned in parallel. But even more importantly there is no suggestion elsewhere of the worship of Assyrian deities in Israel at this time of freedom from Assyrian oppression and no reason why Assyrian gods should have been worshipped. It is far more probable that Egyptian gods, or local gods, were in mind.

In Act 7:43 this is cited on the basis of LXX as, ‘you took up the booth of Moloch, and the star of the god Rephan’. This would support the idea of local gods. The inference is then drawn in Acts that Israel during the time in the wilderness worshipped ‘the host of heaven’ (Canaanite sky-gods), which there is no reason to deny. But we must not take the citation of LXX as evidence that it was citing the original Hebrew text, any more than our citation of a modern translation as ‘the word o God’ is a guarantee that it has actually correctly translated the Hebrew text in all cases. End of note).

Amo 5:27

“Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says YHWH, whose name is the God of hosts.”

And it was because of their idolatry, and their lack of true righteousness and obedience to the covenant, that YHWH had determined to send them into captivity and exile ‘beyond Damascus’. This very description fits well into a time when ideas of Assyria were still vague. Many had been taken into captivity to Damascus and its surrounding area, but this would be something far worse. They would be taken far off to a distant land. News had no doubt reached Israel and Judah, even by this time, of what Assyria did to recalcitrant nations, and such a fate was precisely what Lev 26:33; Lev 26:38 and Deu 28:64 had foreseen.

‘Says YHWH, whose name is the God of hosts.’ All this would happen because YHWH, Whose Name is the God of hosts, had spoken. Amos’s continual mention of YHWH as ‘the God of hosts’ probably includes both the thought that He was the God of the heavenly hosts (including the stars), and also the God of all hosts on earth. In other words all activity in and upon the world of any kind was under His control.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Amo 5:21. Feast-days Sacrifices.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

We have here the Lord’s threatenings concerning the captivity of the people, and which we know came to pass. Stephen, the first martyr, made a quotation from this scripture. Act 7:42-43 . But what I particularly beg the Reader to remark with me, through this whole Chapter is, that we can clearly discover sweet and blessed tokens of grace mingled with threatenings; so that we feel constrained, again and again, as we go through it, to cry out with the Prophet, the Lord will not retain his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. Mic 7:18-20 .

REFLECTIONS

As we read this Chapter, and as we close it, we may cry out with the Psalmist, I will sing of mercy and judgment; and direct our song unto the Lord; to thee, 0 Lord, will I sing. It is truly blessed to observe, how in the midst of judgment the Lord remembers mercy; and even while the Lord is chastening his people for their sins, he is coming forth to their deliverance in his grace. And it is doubly blessed when the cause is discovered; namely, his own free, rich, and sovereign love, and his covenant engagements in Christ. And though he punisheth them for their sins, and as it is said in scripture, takest vengeance of their inventions, yet he regardeth their persons, and forgiveth their iniquities. And it is still more blessed, when the soul of a poor self-condemned sinner is enabled to follow up the precious truth in the heart-felt enjoyment of his own soul. It is founded in covenant love and faithfulness. It is secured in the relationship in which the Great Redeemer hath put himself to his people. It is confirmed in the ransom and full equivalent paid by their Almighty Surety for the sins of his people; and God the Spirit sets to his seal the firm and unquestionable truth. Thus bringing with it all the testimonies of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; the poor sinner, when returning by grace unto the Lord, finds confidence ill conning, and rejoices in hope of the glory of God!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Amo 5:21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Ver. 21. I hate, I despise your feast days ] Wherewith ye think to stop my mouth and to make me your debtor; saying, as that Roman emperor, when his enemy came against him, Non sic Deos coluimus ut ille nos vinceret, We have not so served the gods that they should serve us no better than to give the enemy the better of us. The feast days and solemn assemblies you so much build upon are yours, and not mine; “I never commanded them” (viz. as you may use them), “neither came they ever into my mind,” Jer 32:35 . So far am I, therefore, from accepting your sacrifices, as that I hate, I despise, I will not smell: an elegant asyndeton, importing God’s utter distaste of what they did (“The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more, when he bringeth it with a wicked mind!” Pro 21:27 ), and assuring a sudden vengeance, as in that quick and smart passage, Go, preach, baptize, “he that believeth not shall be damned,” Mar 16:16 . Will-worship and outsideness in religion is very odious to the Almighty; and stinks worse in his nostrils than any ill vapour from the vilest dunghill doth in ours: or as those poisonous smells that ascended up once from the five cities of the plain, and brought down from him a counter poison of fire and brimstone. Rome also (that spiritual Sodom) shall be destroyed in like sort, with a terrible fire, Rev 17:16 ; Rev 18:8-9 , for her detestable will-worships, superstitions, and idolatries, which no other nitre can possibly purge. Rev 13:18 , the whole “number of the beast,” whatsoever is numbered to belong unto him, is but the “number of a man,” human inventions and will wisdom; men will have it so; and this is the sum of all Popish religion. When the wit of man will be overpleasing God, with better devices than his own, will needs despite him with seeming honours; it turns to madness, and ends in mischief.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Amo 5:21-24

21I hate, I reject your festivals,

Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.

22Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.

23Take away from Me the noise of your songs;

I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.

24But let justice roll down like waters

And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amo 5:21-24 Do these verses show that God rejects the sacrificial system given in Leviticus 1-7? There are many strong passages in the Prophets that show God’s displeasure at His people’s practice of the sacrificial system (cf. Isa 1:11-17; Jer 6:20; Jer 7:21-23; Hos 6:6; Amo 5:21-27; Mic 6:8). The sacrificial system was YHWH’s way of dealing with human sin so as to develop and continue a personal, loving, trusting relationship with His highest creation. However, Israel not only turned it into mere ritual and form, but even merged it with pagan practices. YHWH wants fellowship! YHWH wants a people who reflect His character! YHWH wants to reach all humans through the witness of a chosen group (cf. Gen 12:3; Exo 19:5-6).

Amo 5:21 I hate, I reject your festivals,

Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies These are strong terms! They were very religious, but their attitudes and hearts were far from God. Their religiosity was an abomination to God (cf. Isa 29:13)! The first two VERBS, I hate (BDB 971, KB 1338) and I reject (BDB 549, KB 540) are Qal PERFECTS, which denote a settled, complete attitude.

The term festivals (BDB 290) is often used to denote the three major annual feasts (cf. Exo 23:15-16; Leviticus 23). These were required feasts for all males.

The term delight (BDB 926, KB 1280, Hiphil IMPERFECT) is literally smell, which refers to the Mosaic phrase soothing aroma, denoting YHWH’s acceptance of a sacrifice (e.g., Gen 8:21; Exo 29:18; Exo 29:25; Lev 26:31; 1Sa 26:19).

Amo 5:22 Religiosity without relationship is an abomination (cf. Isa 1:10-20; Jeremiah 7). YHWH does not reject the sacrificial system, but its inappropriate use (ritual without repentant faith; form without appropriate attitude)!

I will not even look Look (BDB 613, KB 661, Hiphil IMPERFECT) is used in the sense of accept or acknowledge.

fatlings This (BDB 597) refers to specially cared for young animals which were raised to be sacrificed.

Amo 5:23 take away from Me the noise of your songs This (BDB 693, KB 747) is a Hiphil IMPERATIVE MASCULINE SINGULAR. Even sacred, glorious music without the proper motive is a farce, hypocrisy, and an abomination to God. God desires motive, not only form!

This verse does show that the northern tribes adopted the worship forms (i.e., music developed by the prophetic guilds, cf. 1Sa 10:5) of the temple in Jerusalem (developed by David, cf. 2Sa 6:5; 2Sa 6:15). The leaders (Jeroboam I) wanted these northern altars (i.e., Dan and Bethel) to duplicate the worship techniques so that the common people would not sense a difference.

It is surprising that the VERBS are SINGULAR. It is just possible that in Amo 5:23 Amos is addressing the high priest at Bethel.

NASB, NRSV,

TEV, NIVharps

NKJV, NETstringed instruments

NJBlyres

REV, JPSOAlutes

As the number of English translations demonstrates, moderns do not know to what type of stringed instrument this refers. To note the number of other instruments it is often associated with see 2Sa 6:5 and Psa 92:3. It is possible that Assyrian wall pictures have depicted this instrument as strings with a sounding box, something like our bass fiddle. See James M. Freeman, Manners and Customs of the Bible pp. 221-222.

Amo 5:24 This is one of the most famous verses in Amos. God desires His people to focus on who He is, not on certain worship days, but on every day. True faith is what we are, not what we do; but who we are will be clearly seen in what we do, how we do it, and why we do it (cf. Matthew 7).

Justice and righteousness are parallel, as in Amo 5:7. In this context they refer to human obedience to the Mosaic Covenant lived out in a proper relationship between God and worshiperworshiped and worshiper.

The VERB roll down (BDB 146, KB 193) is a Niphal JUSSIVE, which denotes an IMPERATIVE sense.

an ever-flowing stream This (BDB 450) refers to a spring that never runs dry (i.e., is not seasonal). It is a powerful metaphor of a life of active faith (cf. Jer 22:3; Eze 45:9; Mic 6:8).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

I hate, &c. Compare Pro 21:27, Isa 1:11-14. Jer 6:20.

I will not smell, &c. Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 26:31) App-92.

solemn assemblies Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 23:36. Num 29:35. Deu 16:8). App-92.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Amo 5:21-27

RIGHTEOUSNESS DEMANDS REPENTANCE-

RID RELIGION OF HYPOCRISY

TEXT: Amo 5:21-27

Gods threatened judgment will not be averted by all their worship because even their worship is hypocritical.

Amo 5:21-23 I HATE, I DESPISE YOUR FEASTS . . . TAKE THOU AWAY FROM ME THE NOISE OF THY SONGS . . . Amos is not denouncing Mosaic revelation and legislation any more than any other prophet did. The prophets emphatically advocated that the people of their day return to purified practice of Law of Moses. The prophets commanded that the Law be observed! Just two examples should be sufficient here to show this (cf. Jer 26:4-5; Mal 4:4). For further information on this, see Special Study No. eight, pages 91, 92. The prophets did not institute some revolutionary or evolutionary new religion devoid of the Mosaic legislation! They came to call the people back to keeping the pure Law of Moses from the heart, What Amos is denouncing, as is plain from the context, is the perverted, hypocritical, idolatrous forms of religious ceremony these Israelites were then practicing. He is merely denouncing what practically all the prophets before him and after him denounced (cf. Isa 1:11 ff; Jer 7:1 ff; Jer 6:20 ff; Mal 1:8 ff). God is not only not pleased with this syncretistic (mixture of heathen and Jewish worship) religion, He hates it-it is an abomination to Him and vain and useless as far as the worshipper is concerned! Every sacrifice or offering made aroused in the heart of the All-Righteous and Perfectly-Holy God a divine hatred. The chanting of their religious psalms and the playing upon the harps was a weariness to God which He commands to be stopped. So, it was not that God hated the very feasts, offerings and songs He Himself had commanded in the Law-these ceremonies in themselves were not wrong. It was the perverse and rebellious nature of the people performing them that made them offensive to God. The people were hypocrites (play actors). They were worshipping Jehovah only in pretense while their real affections were centered on their idols and images. They were neglecting the weightier matters of the law. justice and mercy and faith (cf. Mat 23:16-36). This same principle is true of those who claim to be covenant people of God today! Religious ritual, no matter how scripturally accurate it may be, will not substitute for loving God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving ones neighbor as ones self. If this principle is truly adhered to one will certainly make every effort to be scripturally accurate in ritual.

Zerr: Amo 5:21. Before taking up the comments of each verse, I request the reader to indicate, either in bis Bible if he Is marking it, or in whatever place he is making notes, that Amo 5:21-27, and Amo 6:1-5, are to be regarded as one paragraph with one general subject. That has to do with one of the outstanding apparent contradictions in God’s tbreatenings and predictions against His people. In more than one place they have seemed to be condemned for doing some of the very things that the Mosaic system required. We cannot believe that God would tell a man to do something, and then condemn him for doing it. When it seems to he so, there is an explanation in the premises and we should examine them for it. I have composed at length a note, based on the truths and facts of history, both sacred and profane, that fully clarifies this seeming difficulty, and the reader is urged to consult that note again with extreme care, before proceeding with the study of these comments. That note is offered in the comments on Isa 1:10. I shall now take up the comments on the verse of this paragraph, followed with the others in their order, explaining them in the light of the general subject of the suggested general paragraph. The note referred to will explain why God hated their feast days. In their solemn assemblies they used sweet incense under the law, and the only use that could be made of it would be to smell it. God refused to smell the odor of their incense for the same reason that he hated their feast days. Amo 5:22. The sacrifices and offerings mentioned were required by the law of Moses, but God was rejecting them for the same reason mentioned above. Amo 5:23. Instrumental music was not introduced by the law of Moses, hut it was later instituted by David and the Lord sanctioned it by giving it His glory (2Ch 29:25; 2Ch 5:14). But although the Lord had blessed the use of the musical instruments with his glory, after the leaders became so corrupt, that service was rejected on the same ground as were the others mentioned above.

Amo 5:24 BUT LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN AS WATERS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A MIGHTY STREAM. This passage is usually interpreted, Let an overflowing justice and righteousness between men take the place of your hypocritical dealings and sacrifices and flood the land. K & D say, Because the Lord has no pleasure in this hypocritical worship, the judgment shall pour like a flood over the land . . . Mishpat (justice) is not the justice to be practiced by men; for although Jehovah might promise that he would create righteousness in the nation, so that it would fill the land as it were like a flood, He only demands righteousness generally, and not actually in floods. They further state, The verse is to be explained according to Isa 10:22, and threatens the flooding of the land with judgment and the punitive righteous of God. Lange says, Such worship, instead of averting the judgment, rather provokes its full execution. It should pour over the land, like a flowing stream. It is wrong to interpret the verse as an exhortation to the people to practice judgment and righteousness. The image of a flood of waters is much too strong for such a thought; it points rather to an act of God. In spite of the weight of this scholarship there are those who interpret this passage as a command to the people, e.g. Laetsch, . . . let judgment, Gods norm, His Law . . . run down as water, spreading throughout the country, and righteousness, good works demanded by the Law . . . fill the nation like a mighty stream . . . We believe the view of K & D and Lange best represent a correct contextual interpretation.

Zerr: Amo 5:24. Judgment is from mishpat, which Strong defines, “Properly a verdict (favorable or unfavorable) pronounced judicially.” Since the term is connected with righteousness as a mighty stream, we know the word means a favorable verdict. The leaders had imposed upon the poor and decided matters unjustly against them. This verse is an exhortation for them to reverse that practice and render decisions that are just.

Amo 5:25-27 DID YE BRING UNTO ME SACRIFICES . . . IN THE WILDERNESS . . . YEA, YE HAVE BORNE THE TABERNACLE OF YOUR KING AND THE SHRINE OF YOUR IMAGES . . . THEREFORE WILL I CAUSE YOU TO GO INTO CAPTIVITY BEYOND DAMASCUS . . . Amos asks a rhetorical question, that is, he asks a question for which he is going to supply the answer and which answer is already well known by his audience. Did the nation bring God sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years? Indeed they did, and just like in Amos day they were, for the most part, hypocritical sacrifices to heathen idols while they called it worship to Jehovah! The Northern Kingdom had from its very origin adopted the idolatrous worship of calves as its national religion (1Ki 12:26-28), a device of Jeroboams own heart, and the history of the twelve tribes is a record of ever-repeated idolatry and rebellion against God. This tendency dated back to the early days of Israels acceptance as Gods covenant nation. It was only forty days after the solemn declaration of this covenant when Israel asked Aaron to make gods for them to go before them, and worshipped the golden calf (Exo 32:1-6). She did not cease to worship idols even after Gods longsuffering and the intercession of Moses kept them from being exterminated (Exo 32:7 to Exo 34:11). Forty years later Moses warns them (Deu 9:6-24) against idolatry, and twice in particular against that special form of idolatry with which Amos charges them here: the worship of the host of heaven, of sun, moon, and stars (Deu 4:19; Deu 17:2-3). Star worship was one of the earliest and most widespread forms of idolatry in Israel. The false gods worshiped by Abrahams ancestors in Ur of the Chaldees (Jos 24:2) were astral deities. The images which Rachel had taken from her father (Gen 31:30 ff), and which were later buried by Jacob (Gen 35:2 ff) were teraphim, small statuettes of Ishtar. In Egypt, Israel was exposed to the danger of various forms of idolatry, among them worship of the sun-god Ra (also called Amon). So, by ancestry, by environment in Egypt, by the proximity of the Amorites and other nations addicted to star worship during the wilderness wandering, and by their rebellious spirit (Exo 32:9; Deu 9:6; Psa 95:10-11), the Israelites were inclined to star worship.

Zerr: Amo 5:25. God never asks a question for the sake of his own information, so this one is a reminder for the people of Israel, calling their attention to the practices that they followed alt through the wilderness. Amo 5:26. The Lord admits that Israel had performed the services stated ill the preceding verse, but they were offset by their practices of idolatry. Moloch was one of the invisible gods of the heathen, and the Israelties look up the worship of that false deity. Chiun was an image that they made, a star or chief article they made in honor of the heathen god that they worshiped. Amo 5:27. Therefore means that God concluded to punish his people because of these idolatrous practices which they thought they could add to the ordinances of the divine law. Captivity beyond Damascus. That city was the capital of ancient Syria and it was located just north of Palestine. But the Jewish nation was destined to go into captivity under both the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, which were located far away in the territory of the Euphrates, and that was literally beyond Damascus, The two empires were in. control in succession from one another, hut they were virtually in the same part of the world, hence the Jewish people all came finally to be held in captivity in the same general location according to the various prophecies.

In the wilderness Israel carried the tabernacle (tent) wherein they had Sakkuth, the Assyrian-Babylonian god identified with Saturn. Him they regarded as their Moloch (their king or god). This has no reference to the tabernacle of God legislated by Moses. Israel aped the heathen festival processions in which their star gods were carried about, The names used by Amos in Amo 5:26 (Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god) may be an ancient as the idols, or he may be calling these ancient idols by the names current at his time. The sin remains the same, star worship. Stephen, in his famous defense (Act 7:41 ff), quotes from Amos here and states that because Israel refused to acknowledge and serve the true God as He had revealed Himself to them, God surrendered them in divine judgment to their self-chosen ways which could end only in ruin and damnation. The generation of Amos day, in mixing idolatry with sacrifices done in the name of Jehovah, was just like the contemporaries of Moses, practicing idolatry and all the while claiming to be worshipers of Jehovah.

But the judgment of God shall overwhelm them like a flood and carry them off into slavery and bondage to a land far beyond Damascus. The precise location of their captivity is not yet revealed-it is reserved for Hosea to be the first to mention Assyria as the exact location (Hos 9:3; Hos 10:6; Hos 11:5). Hosea also has a great deal to say about Israels worship of idols (Hos 3:1; Hos 4:12-13; Hos 4:17; Hos 6:10; Hos 7:16; Hos 8:4-5; Hos 10:5-6; etc.). Hosea paints an even worse picture of degradation in the land as a result of its idolatry than was painted by Amos! The terrible consequences of rebellion against God grew steadily worse-injustice, crime, immorality of all degrees soon led to complete anarchy in the land. In 722-721 B.C. the ten tribes of the Northern kingdom were subjugated by the Assyrian king and the people were deported to Assyria never to return as a nation (2Ki 17:1-6).

Questions

1. Did the prophets seek to abolish the law and institute a new type of religion?

2. Why were their feasts and sacrifices and worship services offensive to God?

3. What is the meaning of let justice roll down as waters . . .?

4. Did Israel worship idols in the wilderness? Explain!

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

hate: Pro 15:8, Pro 21:27, Pro 28:9, Isa 1:11-16, Isa 66:3, Jer 6:20, Jer 7:21-23, Hos 8:13, Mat 23:14

I will: Gen 8:21, Lev 26:31, Eph 5:2, Phi 4:18

smell in your solemn assemblies: or, smell your holy days

Reciprocal: 1Sa 4:3 – it may save 1Sa 15:22 – Hath the Lord Psa 51:16 – delightest Psa 51:17 – thou Isa 1:14 – my soul Isa 43:23 – honoured Isa 61:8 – I hate Hos 2:11 – her feast Hos 5:6 – they Hos 6:6 – I desired Mal 1:10 – I have Mal 1:13 – should I accept Mat 5:23 – thou Mar 12:33 – is more Luk 16:15 – for Joh 18:28 – and they Act 17:25 – is 1Ti 4:8 – bodily Heb 10:4 – not Heb 10:5 – Sacrifice

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Before taking up the comments of each verse, I request the reader to indicate, either in bis Bible if he Is marking it, or in whatever place he is making notes, that all of the verses from the present one through the end of the chapter, and through the first 6 verses of the next chapter, are to be regarded as one paragraph with one general subject. That has to do with one of the outstanding apparent contradictions in God’s tbreaten- ings and predictions against His people. In more than one place they have seemed to be condemned for doing some of the very things that the Mosaic system required. We cannot be-lieve that God would tell a man to do something, and then condemn him for doing it. When it seems to he so, there Is an explanation in the premises and we should examine them for it. I have composed at length a note, based on the truths and facts of history, both sacred and profane, that fully clarifies this seeming difficulty, and the reader is urged to consult that note again with extreme care, before proceeding with the study of these comments. That note is offered in the comments on Isaiah 1: 10, volume 3 of this Com:- MENTABY. 1 shall now take up the comments on the verse of this paragraph, followed with the others in their order, explaining them in the light of the general subject of the suggested general paragraph. The note referred to will explain why God hated their feast days. In their solemn assemblies they used sweet incense under the law, and the only use that could be made of it would be to smell it. God refused to smell the odor of their incense for the same reason that he hated their feast days.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Amo 5:21-24. I hate and despise your feast-days This and the three following verses are the same in sense with Isa 1:11-16, and the other texts referred to in the margin, on which the reader is desired to consult the notes. They all show of how little signification the external rites of religion are, unless they be accompanied with living faith in, and sincere love to God, and a universal obedience to his will; or without holiness of heart and life. Take away from me the noise of thy songs The psalms and hymns sung with vocal and instrumental music, the usual accompaniments of sacrifices among the Jews and heathen. As the worshippers at Beth-el imitated the temple worship in other particulars,

(see Amo 4:4,) so it is likely they did in this part of the public worship: see Amo 8:3. The prophet calls their songs a noise, like that of an untuneful voice, because their melody, not proceeding from a true principle of religion, was not grateful to God. There are great authority and majesty in this passage, Amo 5:21-24; and the grandeur of the image in the following words, with which it closes, must strike every reader. But let judgment run down as waters Rather, let justice have its free course, so that the meanest persons may feel the benefit of it; and let your benignity be great and universal to your fellow-creatures.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

An accusation of religious hypocrisy 5:21-22

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The Israelites enjoyed participating in the religious festivals and assemblies in which they professed to worship Yahweh. God had commanded the Israelites to observe several feasts and one fast each year, and these are probably the festivals in view. The feasts were Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost (also called Harvest or Weeks), Trumpets, and Tabernacles (also called Booths or Ingathering). The fast was the Day of Atonement. The first four feasts took place in the spring, and the last two and the Day of Atonement were fall festivals. It is not certain, however, how faithfully the apostate residents of the Northern Kingdom observed these special days. Yahweh hated the Israelites’ worship assemblies, however, because the people were not worshipping Him from their hearts (cf. Amo 5:15; Isa 1:13-14). They were only going through the motions of worship. The repetition of "I hate," "I reject," and "Nor do I delight," stresses how much He detested this type of worship. Notice also, "I will not accept," "I will not look," and "I will not listen," in Amo 5:22-23.

"The presence of the poor and oppressed . . . witnessed to their failure to please God. The neglected widow and the poor child in dirty rags were theological statements condemning the attitudes of the oppressors. Amos viewed the sacrifices as objects of God’s hatred because they furthered the spiritual ignorance of the people by giving them a false sense of security." [Note: Niehaus, p. 431.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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