CHAPTER 5

(787 B.C.)

A SONG OF LAMENT AND GRIEF OVER ISRAEL

¹Hear you this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O House of Israel. (Hear you this word which I take up against you, refers to the certitude of the coming judgment because Israel would not repent, because they saw no need to repent. The phrase, Even a lamentation, O House of Israel, is the same as a funeral dirge.)

²The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. (The Northern Kingdom is here compared to a virgin, because never hitherto conquered. She shall no more rise, means that she will never again be restored as a separate nationality.)

³For thus sa ys the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the House of Israel. (So great would be the destruction of her armies in the battles with the Assyrians that battalions a thousand strong, or companies a hundred strong, that marched away from the cities to the war would only have a hundred, or ten, survivors, respectively.)

GODS CALL FOR ISRAEL TO REPENT AND AVERT JUDGMENT; SEEK ME AND YOU SHALL LIVE.

⁴For thus says the LORD unto the House of Israel, Seek you Me and you shall live (this is a pure and plain offer to repent, which would avoid the Judgment, but sadly, all to no avail!):

⁵But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought. (Beth-el was the great center of the worship of God under the similitude of a calf. But that idol could not quench the fire that broke out in the house of Joseph. Gilgal, Beer-sheba, and Beth-el are in Judah. The idea is: those from the Northern Kingdom who tried to escape to the Southern Kingdom, that is, when judgment came, would not succeed. Whatever their plans were, they shall surely go into captivity.)

⁶Seek the LORD, and you shall live; lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el. (The idea is: Turn to the Lord, or suffer the fire of judgment!)

⁷You who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off Righteousness in the Earth (God can have no fellowship either with falsehood in doctrine [Vs. 5] or evil-doing in conduct, as is described in this Verse. The latter denounces bribery and injustice. Justice was cast to the ground and perverted to most bitter wrong),

⁸Seek Him Who makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: Who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the Earth: the LORD is His Name (the seven stars refer to the Pleiades. Orion is the constellation commonly known as the Giant. The space in the sword of the Giant alone is estimated to be 2,200,000,000,000,000,000 [two quintillion, two hundred quadrillion] times larger than the sun. Therefore, what is here discussed, referring to Gods Creation, is so large that it beggars description.

The entirety of the phrase, The shadow of death into the morning, pertains to the coming Resurrection of Life. As well, And makes the day dark with night, refers to the coming Resurrection of Damnation):

⁹Who strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. (The idea is that God can smite the strongest; no fortress is a refuge from Him.)

¹⁰They hate him who rebukes in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks uprightly. (The pronoun they refers to the Judges of Israel. The pronoun him refers to Amos, who was hated because he spoke uprightly. He no doubt stood in the gate of the city and rebuked the worshippers who were coming to Beth-el. If so, this would have been extremely annoying to the religious leaders!)

¹¹Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and you take from him burdens of wheat: you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink wine of them. (Gods Anger burns against exactions [burdens] upon the poor; the luxury obtained by such oppression is short-lived; He knows the multitude and magnitude of such cruel deeds.)

¹²For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

¹³Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. (The pronoun they refers to evil Judges. Turn aside addresses the perversion of justice. Consequently, prudent men suffered wrong in silence and did not prosecute those who injured them, knowing it to be useless, because of the corruption of the courts of law.)

¹⁴Seek good, and not evil, that you may live: and so the LORD, the God of Hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken.

¹⁵Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of Hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. (The prescription for the avoidance of these terrible judgments is given here. In effect, the Holy Spirit condescends to give another Altar Call by saying, Seek good, and not evil, that you may live.)

REASON FOR LAMENTATION

¹⁶Therefore the LORD, the God of Hosts, the LORD, says thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

¹⁷And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through you, says the LORD. (Wailing shall be in all streets, refers to the coming invasion of the Assyrians, because Israel refused to seek the Lord. Such speaks of terrible suffering. And in all vineyards shall be wailing, portrayed the fact that the carnage would be not only in the cities, but the countryside, as well!)

¹⁸Woe unto you who desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. (A double Woe is the burden of this Message. The first was pronounced upon false profession [Vss. 18-27]; the second, upon false peace [Chpt. 6]. Woe unto you who desire the day of the LORD! professes Israels claim of readiness to welcome the establishment of Messiahs Kingdom, which would commence with the Coming of the Lord.

The idea of the Verse, and which precipitated their audacious reply concerning the Day of the LORD, is in answer to Amos demand, prepare to meet your God, O Israel [4:12].)

¹⁹As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. (The idea of this Verse is: Israel, because of refusal to repent, is destined for death. It cannot be avoided!)

²⁰Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? (Amos further appeals to them, by asking the question, Do you not feel in your inmost hearts that, in the case of such guilt as yours, the Lord can visit but to punish?)

GOD HATES HYPOCRISY

²¹I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. (Regarding their man-made religion, even though it closely resembled Gods True Way of Salvation, still, the Lords response is, This I hate. Let it be understood: God hates every proposed form of atonement other than the Cross of Christ [Gal. 5:2].

And I will not smell in your solemn assemblies, pertains to the sweet savor which ascended to the Lord upon proper Burnt Offerings being offered unto Him [Ex. 29:18]. He is saying that no sweet savor ascends to God from such sacrifices. So the phrase is equivalent to I will not accept and I will take no delight in [Gen. 8:21; Ex. 29:18; Lev. 26:31].)

²²Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. (This Passage proclaims the fact that they maintained the formal ritual of the Mosaic worship in their idolatry. It is the same presently as it regards Christ and the Cross. Such are mentioned by the modern Church; however, as Israel of old, the object of faith is something else entirely.)

²³Take you away from Me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your viols. (The idea is: while the sacrifices were being offered before the golden calf, Psalms and Hymns of praise were being offered to God, accompanied by exquisite sacred music. But the Lord would have none of this! Why? The object of their faith was in the ritual, and not at all in what the sacrifices were supposed to represent, namely, the Coming Redeemer, Who would give His Life on the Cross!)

²⁴But let judgment run down as waters, and Righteousness as a mighty stream. (Improper faith always results in improper justice. Proper faith, which is Faith in Christ and what He has done for us at the Cross, always results in Righteousness [Gal. 2:20-21].)

THEIR IDOLATRY AND JUDGMENT

²⁵Have you offered unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O House of Israel? (Verses 25 through 27 reveal that the evil of associating idols with God had been their rule from the beginning, and now re-appeared in the calf of Beth-el it was the resurrection of the Golden Calf. In other words, they were without excuse!)

²⁶But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves. (God did not question the fact that they did offer sacrifices in the wilderness. His objection was that the sacrifices were not always to Him. The unto Me is emphatic. If God is not served Alone, and with the whole heart, He is not served at all. If the Offering is accepted, then the offeror is accepted. If the offering is rejected, then the offeror also is rejected. Israels offering was rejected! [Gen., Chpt. 4].)

²⁷Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says the LORD, Whose Name is The God of Hosts. (Enemies of Inspiration affirm that Stephen erred in saying, Babylon and not Damascus [Acts 7:43]. However, there are two replies to this:

First, Babylon is beyond Damascus. Second, Stephen did not say, As it is written in the Book of the Prophet, but rather, in the Book of the Prophets, i.e., the Scriptures. The Prophets more than once predicted a captivity beyond Babylon. And so it fell out. The Ten Tribes were carried beyond Damascus and the two Tribes beyond Babylon.)