Amos 5

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Dave Burnette's Commentary

Amos Chapter 5

Written By: God through Inspiration

Penned By: Amos

Date Penned: BC 760-750

Overview: Everyone Answers to God (c 1-9)

Theme: Reasons for Judgement (c 3-6)

Message: Amos Mourns for Israel (v 1-27)

Amos: Chapter 5 Commentary

(5:1) Amos shocked his listeners by singing a song of grief for them as if they had already been destroyed. The Isrealites believed their wealth and religious ritual made them secure, but Amos lamented their destruction.

(5:4) There is one sure remedy for a world that is sick and dying in sin, seek the Lord and live. Sin seeks to destroy, but hope is found is seeking God. In times of difficulty , seek the Lord. In personal discomfort and struggle, seek the Lord. When others are struggling, encourage them to seek the Lord also.

(5:7) The law courts should have been places of Justice where the poor and oppressed could find relief, instead, they had become places of greed and injustice.

(5:8) For thousands of years, navigators have staked lives and fortunes on the reliability of the stars. The constancy of the Heavens challenges us to look beyond them to their Creator.

(5:10-12) A society is in trouble when those who try to do right are hated for their justice. Any society that exploits the poor and defenseless or hates the truth is bent on destroying itself.

(5:12) Why does God put so much emphasis on the way we treat the poor? How we treat the rich, or those of equal status, often reflects what we hope to get from them, But since the poor can give us nothing, how we treat them reflects our true character. Do we, like Christ, five without thought of gain? We should treat the poor as we would God to treat us.

(5:12) There are several excuses for us to not help the poor, from they are lazy to sinful. Instead of making excuses we should ask what we can do to help the poor. Not so much a hand out but a hand-up to disciple them to succeed in life. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day but teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

(5:15) If Israel were to sweep away the corrupt system of false accusations, bribery, and corruption, and insist that only just decisions be given, this would show their change of heart. We dare not read this passage lightly or write it off simply as encouragement to be good. Instead, it is a command to reform our own legal and social system.

(5:16) Failure to honor the dead was considered horrible in Israel, so loud weeping was common at funerals. Paid mourners, usually women, cried and mourned loudly with dirges and eulogies. Amos said there would be so many funerals that there would be a shortage of professional mourners, so farmers would be called from the fields to help (Jeremiah 9)

(5:16) Here "the day of the Lord" means the imminent destruction by the Assyrian army as well as the future day of God's judgement. For the faithful that day will be glorious but for the unfaithful it will be darkness and doom (Joel 1)

(5:18-21) These people were calling for the Day of the Lord, thinking it would bring an end to their troubles. But God said, "You don't know what you are asking for" This "day of the Lord" will bring "judgement" and justice would bring the punishment they deserved for their sins.

(5:22-23) God hates false worship by people who do it out of pretense or for show. If we are living sinful lives and using religious ritual and traditions to make ourselves look good. God will despise our worship and will not accept what we offer, He wants sincere hearts, not the songs of hypocrites. When we worship at church, are we more concerned about our image or our attitude toward God?

(5:26) Moloch and Chiun were heathen gods associated with Saturn, Israel had turned to worshipping stars and planets, preferring nature over nature's God.Heathen religion allowed them to indulge in sexual immorality and to become wealthy through and means. Because they refused to worship and obey the one true God, they would cause their own destruction.

(5:27) Israel's captivity was indeed beyond Damascus. The people were taken to Assyria. God's punishment was more than defeat. It was a complete exile from their homeland.

Dave Burnette's Life Application

Extend the Hand of Christ

Each day we walk through the Bible chapter by chapter making an application of our text to help us grow in the Lord. Many applications can be made from each day's text. Today we continue with the book of Amos with Chapter 5. In our text today we see Amos morns for Israel as they believed their wealth and religion made them secure while suppressing and victimizing the poor. In making application we see that many today follow in the same path of preaching prosperity while ignoring and suppressing the poor. Today our focus should be on Ministry or Service to restore the poor, needy, and sin sick showing them the way to a better life is Jesus-Christ. How about you? Do you Restore the needy or are you too busy to help others who find themselves in sins pit? Let us learn from our text today and the warning of Amos to extend the hand of Christ who find themselves in a pit due to their sin.

Amos 5

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Amos 5

¹Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

²The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

³For thus saith 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.

⁴For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

⁵But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

⁶Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

⁷Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

⁸Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:

⁹That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

¹⁰They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

¹¹Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

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.

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

¹⁶Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, saith 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 thee, saith the LORD.

¹⁸Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.

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.

²⁰Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

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

²²Though 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.

²³Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

²⁴But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

²⁵Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

²⁶But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

²⁷Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.

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