HEAR THIS WORD, O house of Israel, this lament I take up concerning you:
2“Fallen is Virgin Israel,
never to rise again,
deserted in her own land,
with no one to lift her up.”
3This is what the Sovereign LORD says:
“The city that marches out a thousand strong for Israel
will have only a hundred left;
the town that marches out a hundred
will have only ten left.”
4This is what the LORD says to the house of Israel:
“Seek me and live;
5do not seek Bethel,
do not go to Gilgal,
do not journey to Beersheba.
For Gilgal will surely go into exile,
and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
6Seek the LORD and live,
or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire;
it will devour,
and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
7You who turn justice into bitterness
and cast righteousness to the ground
8(he who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns blackness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the land—
the LORD is his name—
9he flashes destruction on the stronghold
and brings the fortified city to ruins),
10you hate the one who reproves in court
and despise him who tells the truth.
11You trample on the poor
and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine.
12For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13Therefore, the prudent man keeps quiet in such times,
for the times are evil.
14Seek good, not evil,
that you may live.
Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you,
just as you say he is.
15Hate evil, love good;
maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy
on the remnant of Joseph.
16Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says:
“There will be wailing in all the streets
and cries of anguish in every public square.
The farmers will be summoned to weep
and the mourners to wail.
17There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
for I will pass through your midst,”
says the LORD.
Original Meaning
THE LAMENT NATURE of this message is introduced in verse 1. In other texts a mourning theme like this is connected to the death or funeral of a loved one (Gen. 23:2; 50:1–4; 2 Sam. 1:17–27) or a nation (Lam. 1–4). People also lamented the approaching threat of death of a person because of sickness, oppression, or injustice (Ps. 6; 13; Jer. 11:18–23), or the impending demise of a nation (Isa. 15:1–9; Jer. 48:36–44; Ezek. 27:1–36).1 When people in ancient times mourned, they often shaved their hair, wore sackcloth, sat in ashes, wept, and sometimes employed professional mourners.2
Since these were the normal cultural behaviors for people giving laments, it is safe to assume that Amos follows at least some of these practices. He may be weeping as he sings this dirge. If his stern condemnations in earlier sermons have not softened any hearts, perhaps his plaintive cries will cause some to listen with a sympathetic ear. This sad dirge, which reveals the agony of the prophet’s heart, may cause them to change their thinking.
The presence of the qinah dirge in 5:2–3, which is characteristic of laments, and the repeated mourning vocabulary in 5:16–17 demonstrate that this is indeed a lament. But why is Amos expressing grief over the end of the nation of Israel when it is in fact a strong military power in the ancient Near East during the reign of Jeroboam II? Amos is prophesying the approaching doom of the nation, which he foresees in the near future. His wailing chant is designed to send shock waves through the nearly “dead” nation of Israel to bring them back to reality. This is the prophet’s dramatic rhetorical attempt to convince the people of their true status before God.3 Although they think everything is great, in actuality they are enjoying their final few days of the good life.
This sermon is arranged in a chiastic structure of conflicting themes (death in vv. 1–3, 16–17; life in vv. 4–6, 14–15; note also accusations in vv. 7, 10–13),4 with the central emphasis placed on the pivotal doxological hymn that commemorates the name and power of Yahweh (5:8–9), the almighty God who determines the future of the nation.
A Lament the death of the nation (vv. 1–3)
B Call to seek God and live (vv. 4–6)
C Accusations of no justice (v. 7)
D Hymn to Yahweh (vv. 8–9)
C′ Accusations of no justice (vv. 10–13)
B′ Call to seek God and live (vv. 14–15)
A′ Lament the death of the nation (vv. 16–17)
Commentators have derived different emphases in 5:1–17. (1) Some make the call to seek God and repent the main emphasis, treating the laments as mere warnings to bring the people back to God. (2) Others make the laments predominant and treat the calls to seek God as empty offers of hope because the nation’s destruction is already determined. (3) Still others refer the laments to the nation as a whole but apply the calls to seek God to the righteous remnant that will respond to the prophet’s message (5:14–15). This last alternative seems the best way to understand this passage because it maintains the validity of both the lament and the call to seek God.5 The prophet’s purpose is to convince the nation that things are so bad that God will soon bury its memory, but in the process he persuades a few responsive people to seek God and live.
Lamenting the Death of the Nation (5:1–3, 16–17)
THIS FUNERAL SONG begins and ends by emphasizing the horror of the death of the nation of Israel.6 Amos’s emotional dirge pictures Israel (or the city of Samaria)6 as a virgin, which implies that she is like a young girl in the prime of life, about ready to enter the most exciting and fulfilling time of her life: being a wife and mother. But tragedy strikes and wastes her potential; her untimely death brings to an end her great hopes and dreams, as well as God’s wonderful plans for her.
Amos personifies the nation as already fallen (a perfect verb describing completed action), a phrase that is used in other laments as a euphemism for death (2 Sam. 1:19, 25, 27; Lam. 2:21). This once vibrant virgin now lies totally helpless without hope of revival. She has been deserted by friends, family, and God. Using the analogy of dead troops left to rot on the battlefield, she is alone without anyone to care for her or to bury her. The bitterness of the prophet’s grief is evident and the finality of Israel’s destruction is clear. 7
Verse 3 points out why the nation has no hope: Its army has been decimated (90 percent of the troops have been killed),8 exactly as Amos predicted in 2:13–16. The existence of a small remnant of these troops should not be seen as a sign of hope from the prophet, for who would gain hope from hearing the news that three of your four children were killed in a car accident?9
When the army is defeated, the rest of the nation will go into mourning, following the example of Amos (5:16–17). Everyone will mourn because death will touch every family. People will wail in the streets, in the town square, and in the vineyard; the nation will be in shock. The magnitude of the weeping will be enormous. When death comes, it is natural to ask why, but on this occasion people will already know the answer. Amos has told them that this death will come about when God “pass[es] through your midst,” a phrase borrowed from the Exodus and Passover events (Ex. 11:4; 12:12). The difference is that now God is not passing over his people and judging an evil foreign nation; instead, he is destroying the families in Israel. What a reversal of fortunes! God has turned the great Exodus themes into death threats.
A Call to Seek God and Live (5:4–6, 14–15)
NEXT TO THESE devastating lamentations is what appears to be a prophetic call of hope. It is confusing to find such final statements about the death of the nation beside these exhortations to seek God and live. How can they both be true? S. Paul believes this is one final offer of hope if the people will only repent; thus, he does not take seriously Amos’s statement that the nation is dead. Their repentance can cancel God’s plan to judge them, just as Nineveh’s repentance caused God to have compassion and not destroy the city (Jonah 3:3–10).10
I have difficulty in seeing this as a real offer of hope for the whole nation. It seems more likely that it functions rhetorically in two ways: (1) as a partial explanation for why God is judging the wicked—they are not seeking God but wasting their time at various temples; and (2) as an encouragement to a small “remnant” of seekers (Amos 5:15) to respond positively to God and not get fooled by all the religious activity at Israel’s temples.
Both of these audiences in the crowd that listens to Amos must understand there is a difference between going to the temples at Bethel, Gilgal (Hos. 4:15), or Beersheba and truly seeking God. One obvious reason why these religious shrines will be of no help is because they will be destroyed and the people living there will go into exile. There will be no protection or security gained from worshiping there. The fire of military destruction will sweep through “the house of Joseph” (the northern nation of Israel), and no one will be able to stop it (Amos 5:6). Elsewhere (4:4–11; 5:21–27; 8:14) Amos suggests that people are not truly seeking or worshiping God at these temples; therefore, God is not willing to accept their sacrifices or their wild music. Yet there is no indication that Amos is trying to argue here in favor of worshiping only at Jerusalem.
Amos’s exhortation to the small remnant that desires to please God is that they should seek to know him, turn to him for forgiveness, follow the divine patterns of hating evil and loving good, establish justice in the courts (5:14–15), and call on God for mercy and protection. They also should not be fooled by the syncretistic worship and pious words they hear at the various temples around the country. God searches the heart and knows the true intentions of the thoughts. Seeking God requires an attitude of dependence, a love for God, a humble submission, faith that affects behavior, and a willingness to follow his covenant stipulations.
The results of this vital relationship with God will be life (5:6), the Lord’s presence with them (5:14), and the possibility of his mercy (5:15). This is no guarantee that everything will be okay if a few people seek God, but there is no possibility of God’s abiding presence with them if they refuse to seek him with all their heart.
Accusations of No Justice (5:7, 10–13)
IN THE MIDST of this wailing lament song is a series of accusations that seem to function as another reason for God’s plan to destroy the nation of Israel. Perhaps some are wondering why God would want to destroy his people. The straightforward answer goes back to the way these people treat others. Some in Israel have perverted the central religious and social ideals of righteousness and justice. Their moral values are not governed by relationships of justice in the courts, honesty, fairness, equality (5:10, 12), and respect for the norms of the covenant.
Justice is an outworking of God’s character of holiness, but the nation does not emulate him. They have changed the sweet experience of dealing with people based on righteousness into a bitter and evil thing through their mistreatment of those who are poorer or less powerful. By manipulating the courts through bribery, supplying false witnesses, and intimidating judges, the powerful political and business leaders are able to maintain their lifestyles and insulate themselves from accusations of unfairness. Amos laments these unbearable injustices. These rich people make life miserable for the poor, who suffer under them.
As a result, God will not allow the wealthy to enjoy the fruits of their crimes. They will not be able to live in their fine mansions built of expensively cut stones or appreciate the wine that comes from their well-groomed vineyards (5:11). They make others poor and homeless; now the same will be done to them.
Verse 13 also contains a condemnation of these “prosperous” (śkl) people in Israel (not the poor “prudent” person, as in NIV). This understanding of śkl creates a parallelism with the people condemned in 5:11–12. The judgment clause after the word “therefore” in verse 11 is then parallel to the “therefore” judgment in verse 13. God will cause these prosperous and unjust leaders to “be silent,” a euphemism for death (cf. Jer. 6:2; 47:5; 48:2; 50:30),11 when he destroys the nation on the day of their judgment. Amos sorrowfully proclaims their crimes of injustice will not pay rich dividends any longer, for they will soon be dead.
Hymn to Yahweh (5:8–9)12
THE CENTRAL PART of this chiastic dirge appropriately focuses on God, the One who will bring about the death of Israel. Using a series of participles (“he who . . .”), which is typical of other hymns, Amos reminds his audience that he is not talking about a weak power or a pantheistic personification of nature. In this muted polemic against the pagan astral gods,13 Yahweh is seen as the One who created the magnificent spectacle of nature that people see every night in the heavens—the constellations of Pleiades and Orion (see also Job 9:9; 38:31; Isa. 40:26). The prophet is using positive traditions to support his view of God; he may even be quoting from a well-known hymn that the people sing in their temple worship services.14
The middle of this hymn emphasizes God’s sovereign power to change the course of nature. While the people of Israel “turn [change] justice into bitterness” (Amos 5:7), God can change night into day or day into night. “Those who are guilty of social inversion will now witness and suffer cosmic inversion.”15 God can bring both the security and blessing of the day as well as the dangers and threats of darkness.
This hymn is particularly interested in the negative changes as characterized in the flooding of water over the face of the earth (Amos 5:8c), a haunting illusion to God’s destruction of the whole earth at the time of Noah’s flood (Gen. 6–8). These examples not only illustrate the potential of God’s power, but they dramatically make the point that no person or nation can hope to withstand the awesome power of God. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the God who can and will do these things (Amos 5:8d).
In the second part of the hymn (5:9), Amos focuses on the application of God’s power over the wealthy people in his audience. Today they may live securely in expensive mansions in strongly fortified cities, but soon God will flash destruction over these places and leave them in ruins (see 3:11, 14; 4:3–4; 5:11).16 This hymn supports Amos’s persuasive attempt to convince the people that their relationship to God is central to their future. God has the power over life and death, and death will soon bring mourning and wailing to the nation of Israel.
Bridging Contexts
THE ALTERNATIVES OF life or death. Amos’s dirge draws a line of connection between Almighty God (life and death, justice and righteousness) and the people. Life for people is not guaranteed, but it is a possibility for those who seek God and hate injustice. Since God is the sovereign power over nature and humanity, he is the One who establishes standards of justice for all people. He administers judgment to those who practice injustice. Blessing, joy, security, and success are not inalienable rights or something everyone deserves; they are gifts of God’s mercy. Human appreciation of life is usually heightened to the extent that a person understands the preciousness and precariousness of life.
Some have no thought or fear of death, believing they are indestructible. Others value life because they know that the withdrawal of God’s presence with them could bring death (5:14). God’s power can suddenly change day into night, life into death (5:8). He can bring destruction on the whole earth or on individual homes and cities (5:9). No military power or high social position can protect a person from death. God’s administration of death is particularly focused against those who do not seek him and who pervert his standard of justice.
These connections are not new with Amos but go back to the basic choice that Moses presented to the Israelites when they were getting ready to enter the Promised Land:
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways. . . .
This day I call heaven and earth as witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land. . . .” (Deut. 30:15–16a, 19–20)
In the New Testament life is associated with the Father and especially the Son of Man, who has received the authority to judge the world (John 5:26–27). Although the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), those who believe in Christ will have life (John 6:25–26). These passages demonstrate a pervasive and consistent theological position on God’s control of life and death. Can a more convincing argument be developed to support the exhortation that people should seek God if they want to live? How can anyone who refuses to seek God think he or she has any hope for the future? Only those who foolishly think that they (rather than God) control their own lives would make such a mistake.
Is there a reason to lament? Lamentation and wailing seem a normative practice in the Hebrew culture of the Old Testament, and it is mentioned from time to time in the New Testament. Many of these examples relate to the death of someone, but better parallels to this passage in Amos are those examples where someone weeps because God’s people have not responded to a prophet’s ministry and will be judged. The prophet Jeremiah laments his own personal trials and failures (Jer. 11:18–23; 15:10–21; 20:7–18), but he also mourns and intercedes with God when he hears that God is going to judge his covenant people and send them into exile (8:18–9:2; 14:17–15:2). Jeremiah cries out in anguish and asks for mercy:
Have you rejected Judah completely?
Do you despise Zion?
Why have you afflicted us
so that we cannot be healed? . . .
For the sake of your name do not despise us;
do not dishonor your glorious throne.
Remember your covenant with us
and do not break it.17 (14:19, 21)
Although Jesus weeps when Lazarus dies (John 11:33–35), much more significant is his weeping over Jerusalem because he wants to gather these people together into his kingdom (Matt. 23:37). Paul also seems to be in mourning and in anguish over the stubborn resistance of his Jewish brothers and sisters, who refuse to respond positively to the messianic claims of Christ (Rom. 9:1–3).
In each case a messenger of God declares his message, an audience rejects this revelation, and a deep sorrow over the coming divine judgment arises. The first two factors are common to many forms of prophetic speech, but the third is unique to the lament. In the process of persuasion, the lament is a powerful alternative to accusation and condemnation. It expresses an attitude of identification and sympathy rather than opposition and conflict. In the lament the speaker takes the side of the audience and expresses regret (and sometimes uncomfortableness or disagreement) for what is about to happen.
This perspective leads the audience to react appreciatively because of the support offered rather than defensively because of the speaker’s severe condemnation. The lament builds a bridge of commonality with the one who suffers, but it does not deny the truth that God will bring judgment. In many ways the lament may be a more effective persuasive tool than the judgment speech because the listeners finally realize the emotional depth of the speaker’s concern for them.
The reason for giving a lament must arise from the inner agony of the messenger and not from a desire to manipulate the emotional response of the audience. The apostle Paul was willing to have himself “cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers” (Rom. 9:3), and Moses was willing to have his name blotted from God’s book for the sake of the nation of Israel (Ex. 32:32).18 Jesus expressed deep sorrow for the stubborn and unresponsive people of Jerusalem, and surprisingly for the hypocritical Pharisees (see Matt. 23).
It is essential to notice that in moving to a lament form of expression, a speaker does not modify his or her theological beliefs. Moses and Paul did not all of a sudden change their minds about the sinfulness of their audience and take a mushy position that God’s love will somehow overlook all their evil. Laments are not a sign of weakness or pastoral compromise, a denial of responsibility, or a softening of a belief in God’s justice. Rather, they are personal expressions of real sorrow that people are so set in their sinful ways that the Lord must end his long-suffering patience and mercy and bring severe judgment on them.
Contemporary Significance
GRIEF AND LAMENT. When I hear of a life-or-death situation, my mind remembers my mother-in-law, Dorothy, who died twenty some years ago of Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), or Glen, a close friend who died this past year of a rare incurable cancer called Multiple Myeloma. If a friend or relative has one of these diseases, there is usually little hope of survival unless God provides a miracle. In these contexts there seems to be little choice; one must learn to accept the inevitable, center one’s energies on whatever medical treatment is available, enjoy the pleasures of each day, try to keep the spirits up, and hang on to trust in God’s sovereign plan. Although one can easily slip into denial and try to avoid discussion of death, the disease and its emotional consequences cannot be managed by refusing to acknowledge it.
Most visitors feel uncomfortable talking to people with incurable diseases because there is little hope and no explanation as to why this is happening. In private there is plenty of lamenting and mourning, but a public expression of sorrow is usually silenced by social pressure.
It is instructive to see the way people deal with the threat of physical death. Lamenting may be rejected because it is seen as blaming God; it is not a mature way of faith but a surrender to the negative instincts of giving up all hope. Others with good intentions may object, asking:
Haven’t the New Testament and resurrection morning effectively eliminated the need for lament? Aren’t the Old Testament cries of anguish superseded, rendered unnecessary? Might they even be a sign of unbelief now that God has raised Jesus from the dead? . . . If Jesus’ followers really believed in the resurrection, if they really believed in the power of God to overcome evil and provide joy and comfort in his Spirit, the lament wouldn’t be needed. Maybe laments are for those who can’t really believe as they ought.19
This kind of reasoning may sound like good theology, but it seems to imply that the coming age is here already and that this present evil age of suffering is past. In one sense death was defeated by Christ’s death and resurrection, but the final elimination of death and sorrow is yet to be fulfilled at some future time (Isa. 26:19; 1 Cor. 15:24–26). Death still does have power over believers and unbelievers. Those who want to eliminate grief usually fail to bring any comfort by their pious remarks and only increase the weight of guilt and grief for those who need to mourn. Criticisms of mourning should not be centered on the sufferer’s unbelief or on belief in the resurrection, because the lament is simply an honest confrontation of God with questions and struggles that are not understood and emotions that are overwhelmed with sorrow and confusion.
A. Resner suggests that part of the reason for this dilemma about grief is that the church has lost the legitimate use of the Old Testament lament tradition.20 R. Davidson suggests that our truncated canon, our lopsided liturgy, and our incomplete preaching of the whole counsel of God have created a need for psychotherapy and self-help groups.21 He quotes a therapist who says that “churches have not learned that the best way to pass from defensive rationalizations to secure faith is to let doubt, inconsistencies, confusion and rebellion come out in the open instead of using various forms of spiritual coercion to keep them hidden.”22
The believer does not need to deny feelings of pain and loss, for God was willing to listen to the groaning and weeping of his people in the past. He repeatedly responded to the cry of his people, comforted them, and helped them. Those who do not cry out to God make him irrelevant to their lives and delay healing by not embracing the pain they experience. The Old Testament believers did not exclude God as part of the solution to their misery but openly expressed their exasperation and grief over the calamities of life.
Amos, Job, and the psalmists allow us to face our deepest fears and sorrows simply because they voice their grief. They do not face this pain alone but bring it to God, who can do something about it. Underlying the sorrow is a faith that believes God is trustworthy and understanding; he is a resource who can change the lament orientation into assurance and praise.23 The effort to eliminate human laments to God has the effect of making God impotent to change our sorrows or understanding and unable to bring comfort to our spirits. It also eliminates the question of theodicy and related questions about the purpose, meaning, and justice of human life with God.24 It discourages honest and open interaction with God based on what people really feel.
Those who discourage lamenting take away a canonical form of expression that is an accepted and meaningful way in which past saints dealt with their grief.25 The church should not teach people to suppress their deepest feelings and to pretend that we are big enough to handle the trials of life on our own without God. E. Kubler-Ross’s study of the five stages of grief suggests that acceptance of death is only possible if we stop our denial and isolation, deal with anger and depression, and gain the loving support of others.26 Although she does not employ biblical laments, it seems that Old Testament laments are the Hebrew culture’s way of handling this issue in a constructive way.
If the church can come to the place where it will allow laments, then Amos’s lament in 5:1–17 begs us to ask a second, more difficult question. Should Christians or the church community, like Amos, be involved with lamenting God’s legitimate punishment of people and nations? This raises all kinds of disturbing thoughts. Do not rebellious people deserve God’s wrath? Should we feel sorry for those who have freely chosen to reject God and his Word? These questions reveal some of our deepest attitudes toward ungodly sinners in this world. Should we pray against them or for God’s mercy on them? Do we love them enough to have a theodicy crisis when God judges them? Do we just tell them a few Bible verses, or do we cry out to God in intercession for their lives? Do we show them our deep emotional hurt (assuming we do feel it) that they have chosen to reject God’s way?
We know that Moses, Paul, and Jesus lamented over those who rejected God, and I have seen a mother lament her son’s depraved life of sin, but the church seldom follows these examples by mournfully expressing its profound grieving love for the lost. Have we just lost our ability to lament, or have we also lost our compassion on those who will die and experience God’s judgment?