TEXT [Commentary]

  C.   Listen, People of Israel (5:1-17)

1 Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing:

2 “The virgin Israel has fallen,

never to rise again!

She lies abandoned on the ground,

with no one to help her up.”

3 The Sovereign LORD says:

“When a city sends a thousand men to battle,

only a hundred will return.

When a town sends a hundred,

only ten will come back alive.”

4 Now this is what the LORD says to the family of Israel:

“Come back to me and live!

5 Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel;

don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba.

For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile,

and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”

6 Come back to the LORD and live!

Otherwise, he will roar through Israel[*] like a fire,

devouring you completely.

Your gods in Bethel

won’t be able to quench the flames.

7 You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed.

You treat the righteous like dirt.

8 It is the LORD who created the stars,

the Pleiades and Orion.

He turns darkness into morning

and day into night.

He draws up water from the oceans

and pours it down as rain on the land.

The LORD is his name!

9 With blinding speed and power he destroys the strong,

crushing all their defenses.

10 How you hate honest judges!

How you despise people who tell the truth!

11 You trample the poor,

stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent.

Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses,

you will never live in them.

Though you plant lush vineyards,

you will never drink wine from them.

12 For I know the vast number of your sins

and the depth of your rebellions.

You oppress good people by taking bribes

and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

13 So those who are smart keep their mouths shut,

for it is an evil time.

14 Do what is good and run from evil

so that you may live!

Then the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper,

just as you have claimed.

15 Hate evil and love what is good;

turn your courts into true halls of justice.

Perhaps even yet the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies

will have mercy on the remnant of his people.[*]

16 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, says:

“There will be crying in all the public squares

and mourning in every street.

Call for the farmers to weep with you,

and summon professional mourners to wail.

17 There will be wailing in every vineyard,

for I will destroy them all,”

says the LORD.

NOTES

5:1 listen. See note on 3:1.

funeral song. The term qinah [TH7015, ZH7806] describes a lament or dirge for the dead; such funeral songs have a distinct meter or cadence. Typically, the dirge or funeral song consists of four discernible movements, including a description of the tragedy (5:2-3), a summons to respond (5:4-6, 14-15), a direct address to the fallen (5:7-13), and a call to mourning (5:16-17; cf. Stuart 1987:344).

5:2 virgin Israel. Amos addressed the kingdom of Israel as a virgin (bethulah [TH1330, ZH1435]), perhaps a reflection of the nation’s status as the bride of Yahweh (so Niehaus 1992:411). The image is that of a “youthful maiden” tragically and violently cut off in the prime of her life (Stuart 1987:345). Later, the prophet Jeremiah would apply the same expression to the kingdom of Judah (Jer 18:13; cf. Lam 1:15 [NLT mg], of where the city of Jerusalem is portrayed as a “trampled virgin”).

has fallen. According to Niehaus (1992:411), the so-called prophetic perfect aspect of this verb views Israel as already fallen—her fate is sealed. The verb “fallen” (napal [TH5307, ZH5877]) “evokes pictures of defeat in battle” (Andersen and Freedman 1989:474).

abandoned. Divine abandonment by Yahweh is a curse threatened against Israel for violation of covenant stipulations (cf. Deut 32:15, 20). God will “abandon” (natash [TH5203, ZH5759]) those who abandon him by their worship of other gods. Jeremiah uses this word to describe Yahweh’s forsaking of the kingdom of Judah as a result of idolatry (Jer 12:7).

5:4 Come back to me. The appeal to “come back” to God is the summons to respond to the prophet’s funeral song (see note on 5:1). The repetition of the summons (5:6) and the use of the imperative form of the verb indicate the desperate situation Israel faced and the urgency of the hour for making a decision. The word translated “come back” (darash [TH1875, ZH2011], “seek”; cf. NIDOTTE 1.993) may be translated “worship” in some contexts; here it connotes “one’s whole duty to God” (Smith and Page 1995:99). For Amos, seeking God required the tangible demonstration of imitating his holiness through a lifestyle committed to social justice. Simply stated, this meant both doing good and running from evil (5:14). The chiastic restatement of this truth addresses the relationship between motive and action, as the people need to hate evil and love what is good (5:15). Andersen and Freedman (1989:482) summarize: “The key is in finding not the right place to go, but the right thing to do and the right way to do it. The true search for God, like the search for the true God, begins in the heart.”

live. Life is connected with the worship of the true God (also 5:14) because the fear of the Lord is a life-giving fountain (Prov 14:27). The Lord God is the source of Israel’s life (Ps 68:26). Only destruction and death follow in the wake of idol worship (5:5-6; cf. Prov 11:19; 14:12). Later, the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel will call the kingdom of Judah to heed God’s word and thus live (Jer 17:21; Ezek 18:32). It is possible that Amos had more in mind than physical life, more than simply escaping the violence and death of impending war, in his summons to Israel to seek God and live. The word “live” implies a basic restoration of covenant blessing (Stuart 1987:346). The prophet may also have had inklings of spiritual life and even life after death, since already the psalmist understood something about the “Book of Life” (Ps 69:28; cf. Exod 32:33).

5:5 Bethel. See note on 3:14.

Gilgal. See note on 4:4.

Beersheba. Apparently Beersheba had become a place of pilgrimage and idolatry for the Hebrews, perhaps both for the people of Judah and Israel (cf. 8:14). The reference to Beersheba, located 25 miles southwest of Hebron, shows that the prophet included Judah in this threat of divine judgment (cf. 2:4-5).

exile. The scattering of Israel into foreign lands as punishment for the sin of idolatry is one of the curses threatened by Yahweh for violation of his covenant (Deut 28:36-37, 64; cf. Lev 18:24-30, where the land of covenant promise “vomits out” those who defile it).

5:6 fire. Fire is a symbol of both judgment (e.g., Deut 9:3) and purification (e.g., Mal 3:2) in the OT. Destruction by fire is a curse invoked by Yahweh and is associated with covenant violation, especially idolatry (cf. Deut 32:22). God himself is described as “a devouring fire. . . a jealous God” (Deut 4:24; cf. Heb 12:29).

5:7 twist justice . . . righteous like dirt. The prophet pairs “justice” (mishpat [TH4941, ZH5477]) and “righteousness” (tsedaqah [TH6666, ZH7407]) three times in this section (5:7, 24; 6:12). Hubbard (1989:167) observes that is “the best summary available to define the covenant responsibilities of God’s people. Just because justice (cf. Isa 30:18) and righteousness (Mic 7:9) are essential activities of Yahweh, they must become prime duties of his people.” See note on 5:24.

5:8 Pleiades and Orion. This reference to the constellations is part of a hymn fragment containing three creation doxologies (see the discussion in Andersen and Freedman 1989:486-488). Pleiades is a star cluster in the constellation of Taurus (“the Bull”), and Orion is the constellation known as “the Hunter.” The pair is also mentioned in Job as testimony to God’s wisdom and power (Job 9:9; 38:31). In addition to God’s power and wisdom, Amos emphasized the order and rhythm of God’s creation (with the cycle of constellations crossing the heavens [5:8a], the temporal patterns of day and night [5:8b], and the seasonal rainfalls [5:8c]).

5:10 honest judges. The office of judge was established by Moses after the Exodus as a practical solution to the burden he shouldered in arbitrating legal cases (Exod 18:17-22, 24-26). The judges were to be capable and honest individuals who feared God and hated bribes (Exod 18:21). Those appointed judges were charged to make fair decisions for Hebrews and foreigners alike (Deut 1:16-17). Since they were serving as judges for God himself, who is a perfectly fair judge, they must render similar justice (Ps 7:11; see also commentary on 3:1-15). The Mosaic law enacted prohibitions against bribing judges because the practice blinded the eyes of the wise and corrupted the decisions of the godly (Exod 23:8; Deut 10:17; 16:19). Sadly, the testimony of the OT prophets indicates this law often went unheeded (cf. 5:12; Isa 1:23; 5:23; Mic 7:3; Hab 1:4). Both the OT and the NT foster expectations for an ideal judge, the righteous judge who will never judge by appearance, false evidence, or hearsay (Isa 11:3; cf. 2 Tim 4:8).

5:11 The punishments cited here are listed among the curses that will be inflicted upon Israel for disobedience to Yahweh’s covenant stipulations (Deut 28:30).

5:12 sins. Amos employed the same word (pesha‘ [TH6588, ZH7322]) in his indictment of Israel’s neighboring nations (see commentary on 2:6-16).

5:13 evil time. Amos had summed up the evil of his day as a lack of justice (5:7, 12, 15) and here says that the prudent should remain quiet during such times, perhaps in keeping with the advice of Hebrew wisdom tradition (“a time to be quiet,” Eccl 3:7).

5:14 helper. Lit., “the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be with you.” The expression alludes to the language of the covenant “adoption formula”—“I will be your God and you will be my people” (cf. Jer 31:33). The reference to God’s presence with his people may be an allusion to the refrain, “the LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us,” part of the poetic affirmation that God is Israel’s helper (Ps 46:7, 11).

5:15 hate evil . . . love what is good. See note on 5:4.

mercy. This is the only time Amos used the word khanan [TH2603, ZH2858] (mercy). This verb means “show favor, be gracious” and usually occurs with God as the subject (cf. NIDOTTE 2.203-206). The prophet had hope that perhaps God would show mercy to the people who remained because that is an aspect of his character—he has the capacity to show mercy to anyone he chooses (Exod 33:19).

5:16 professional mourners. Lit., “the ones who know lamenting” (yod‘e nehi [TH3045/5092, ZH3359/5631]). Jeremiah mentions “the women who mourn” (Jer 9:17), professionals paid by families to mourn at funerals and other catastrophic events like plagues and wars. See S. M. Paul 1971:179-180 on the guilds of professional mourners in the biblical world.

5:17 wailing. The noun misped [TH4553, ZH5027] (wailing) is repeated three times in 5:16-17. The emphasis on mourning is an ominous foreboding of the impending destruction of the Hebrew northern kingdom. S. M. Paul (1971:178) has noted that this message from Amos (5:1-17) begins as it ends—with “the tones and sounds of lamentation.”

COMMENTARY [Text]

The oracle addressed to the people of Israel (5:1-17) is the third of five messages delivered by Amos that comprise the middle section of the book (chs 3–6). Andersen and Freedman analyze chapters 5–6 as a distinct “book” of prophecy—the “Book of Woes.” They summarize that the theme of the middle section of the book of Amos is one of woe rather than doom, warning rather than certain judgment—“the prophet still has hope that repentance might avert the final catastrophe” (1989:461). Others recognize the woe oracles as an indication that God has firmly determined to destroy the nation of Israel since the prediction of future judgment “is treated as a judgment already executed” (Mays 1969:84; cf. Van Gemeren 1990:132). According to this view, Amos invites the people of Israel to their own funeral because they are already as good as dead as far as God’s judgment is concerned (cf. Jeremias 1998:85). One may mediate the two poles of understanding by recognizing that the woe oracles or laments serve both to announce the certain doom of the nation as a whole and to warn individuals to heed the call to seek God in repentance. As G. Smith (2001:312) appropriately observes: “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.”

Wendland is among those scholars who understand a major break in the literary structure of chapters 5 and 6 with the interjection “woe” (hoy [TH1945, ZH2098]) and the introduction of the woe oracles proper (5:18; 6:1). In fact, Wendland (1988:14) identifies chiastic features in this rhetorical unit and analyzes the message of 5:1-17 as “the structural-thematic center of Amos.” He then proceeds to isolate the hymn fragment (5:8-9) as the centerpiece of the section, flanked by the speech-acts of lamentation, exhortation, and accusation arranged in an inverted pattern. Of special interest to our study is the hymn fragment (5:8-9), “which sets forth the nature of the God of Israel” (Smith and Page 1995:96).

First, Amos’s hymn fragment celebrates God as creator by acknowledging the stars as his handiwork (5:8a). Implicit in this testimony is God’s majesty and power. Oden (1998:66-67) views those attributes of God that display his way of being present to, knowing, and influencing the world of creation as intrinsic qualities of the divine majesty. These intrinsic qualities include God’s omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Amos recognized that God is everywhere in all the heavens and earth (Jer 23:24; cf. Acts 17:28); that God knows the end from the beginning (Isa 46:9-10; cf. Rom 11:33-34); and that God is all-powerful—nothing is too hard for him (Jer 32:17; cf. Matt 28:18).

Second, Amos understood that it is God who brings order to creation and to life (5:8b and c). The biblical Creation account depicts a God who brings order out of chaos by his very word (Gen 1–2; cf. Ps 33:6). The unfathomable wisdom behind the design and order of creation is personified as a master architect (Prov 8:30), and his handiwork in the natural world is obvious (Ps 19:1-4). Much like the story of Job, in which the challenge to divine justice is met by God’s appeal to his own activity in ordering the universe (Job 38–41), so Amos appeals to God as creator in his preaching about divine justice.

Third, no human achievement is beyond God’s destructive power (5:9). The story of the tower of Babel illustrates this truth in a literary fashion, with God intervening to topple the monument built to exalt “human greatness” (Gen 11:4). The history of the nation of Edom is another example of God bringing low the proud, rooting them out of their seemingly impenetrable rock fortresses (Jer 49:15-16; cf. Obad 1:3). Hubbard (1989:171) comments, “once again (cf. 1:4; 3:9, 11; 4:3), Amos acknowledges God’s special enmity against the human arrogance that thinks itself impregnable to divine judgment.” This is why the psalmist admonishes us not to trust in puny human strength or flawed human ingenuity (Ps 147:10; cf. Ps 33:16-17), but rather to affirm God as our strength and fortress (Pss 18:1; 46:1; cf. Jer 16:19).

In summarizing the theology of the hymn fragments in Amos (4:13; 5:8-9; 9:5-6), Andersen and Freedman (1989:490) state, “they celebrate his limitless, terrifying power, his control of the elements and forces in his creation, and his continued supervision and deployment of these agencies and forces. The most ominous threat of all is that every aspect of creation can be canceled, the work reversed and undone.”

We must take note of one final theological tenet that encases the hymn fragment (5:8-9) in this portion of Amos’s message to the people of Israel (5:1-17). Three times the prophet exhorts his audience to “come back to the LORD and live” (5:4, 6, 14). We have already established the relationship the Bible develops between “life” and “God” (see notes on 5:4). But this relationship between life and God naturally prompts a follow-up question: What does it mean for God to be “a living God”?

The title “living God” is applied to the Godhead in both the Old Testament and the New Testament (Josh 3:10; 1 Sam 17:36; Jer 10:10; Heb 12:22; Rev 7:2). Likewise the people of God in both testaments are known as those who belong to the “living God” (Dan 6:20; Hos 1:10; 2 Cor 6:16; 1 Tim 3:15). According to Oden (1998:65), the divine tetragrammaton (yhwh [TH3068, ZH3378], “I am”) “points awesomely to God’s incomparable aliveness.” The reality of this dynamic, eternal, underived life-energy of God’s being means the Godhead cannot be represented by static images, idols of gold, silver, stone, and wood (Ps 115:2-8). In fact, “idols do not live, except in the imagination of death-bound mortals” (cf. Jer 10:10-11; Oden 1998:64). For this reason, the Old Testament prophets mock the gods who cannot see, hear, or act, as well as those who worship and seek help from the inert images they themselves have fashioned (cf. Isa 44:6-20; 46:5-7; Hab 2:18-20).