Amos 5 Study Notes

5:1-6:14 This lengthy and complex passage presents the core of the accusation against Israel. The passage begins with the lament in 5:2 that there was no one to raise . . . up fallen Israel, and it ends in 6:14 with God raising up an enemy against Israel. The idea of lamentation dominates the passage, appearing as a lament over Israel’s doom (5:1-3), in the predicted laments of 5:16-17, and in the funerary situation at 6:9-10. The main accusations are given in 5:4-6:7 in two sets of verses (5:4-15 and 5:18-6:7), and these two sets are similar. In the first set, Israel presumptuously assumed that its pilgrimages satisfied God (5:4-7), even while they were oppressing the poor (5:10-15). In the second set, Israel again assumed its worship and festivals satisfied God, presumptuously certain that the day of the Lord would bring them no trouble (5:18-24) even while they lived in arrogant luxury in Samaria (6:1-7). In both sets, therefore, their religious arrogance is placed alongside their arrogant indifference toward the poor. Also, in the first set, God is praised as Maker of the heavens (5:8-9), while in the second set, ironically, Israel worships the sky gods (5:25-27). Amos 6:8-11 pictures the judgment that is coming to Israel. Finally, 6:12-14 summarizes the whole with a proverb (v. 12), an accusation (v. 13), and a judgment (v. 14).

5:2 Israel is lamented as a virgin because the land should have been kept secure but now had been raped by invading armies.

5:3 This verse specifies the nature of punishment. Israel would be decimated.

5:4-5 Bethel . . . Gilgal, and Beer-sheba were three pilgrimage shrines. Bethel was where Jacob had his vision of the stairway into heaven (Gn 28:12-19), but it was also one of the places where King Jeroboam I of Israel set up calf idols (1Kg 12:28-29). Gilgal was the embarkation point for the crossing of the Jordan River and the invasion of Canaan, and Joshua set up a memorial there (Jos 4:19-20). Beer-sheba, far to the south, is closely associated with the sojourns of Abraham (Gn 21:14), and we know from archaeology that there was a shrine there.

5:6-7 Fire would be the agent of destruction, as in the oracles against the foreign nations in chaps. 1-2. Even their sacrifices at Bethel would not be able to save them.

5:8 The focus here is on Yahweh’s power over the skies; this is important in light of the accusation in v. 26.

5:9-12 Israel was guilty of oppressing the poor and taking bribes, and would receive the penalties of the Mosaic law (Dt 28:30).

5:13 Because the people with power were so hostile to anyone who told the truth in the courts of law (v. 10), honest and decent people were being silenced.

5:14-15 A repetition of the call to repent. Perhaps makes the point that even repentance does not obligate God to be gracious (cp. note at Jl 2:14).

5:16-17 The focus on the farmer and the vineyards in these verses suggests that the lamentation came about because of crop failure.

5:18-19 The Israelites assumed that because they were the chosen people, they would be exempt from judgment on the day of the Lord.

5:20-24 God speaks in vivid terms of his disregard for all the aspects of Israelite religion that presumably was directed toward him. All that would please God would be an abundance of justice.

5:25-26 This text is the source of great confusion because it appears to teach that the Israelites made no sacrifices during the wilderness period, contrary to what is recorded in the Pentateuch (Ex 24:5). Probably Am 5:25 should be joined to v. 26, as follows: “Did you offer sacrifices and grain offerings to me forty years in the wilderness, House of Israel, while you were taking up Sakkuth your king?” Read this way, Israel did make sacrifices to God while in the wilderness, but the people also carried images of the Sakkuth and other gods. During Amos’s time, however, they were more brazenly combining the worship of the Lord with the worship of these pagan gods. Sakkuth and Kaiwan were names of the sky deity of the planet Saturn.