ESV Global Study Bible :: Footnotes for Amos 5

Amos 5:1–17 Although they face imminent destruction, God still pleads with his people to return to him.

Amos 5:1 lamentation. Neither the prophet nor God takes delight in these messages of doom. Like mourners at a funeral, they grieve at what lies ahead for the unrepentant people.

Amos 5:2 Virgin Israel expresses the special value God places on Israel.

Amos 5:5–6 Israel should seek the Lord in the ways he has commanded, not in the pagan practices found at Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba.

Amos 5:7 For governments, justice involves a just use of power and maintaining a proper judicial system. For individuals, justice involves honest business dealings and faithfulness in keeping one’s word. Both governments and individual citizens should be especially concerned with protecting the poor and the weak from those with greater wealth and power.

Amos 5:8–9 Amos contrasts the limitless glory of the Creator with the things worshiped at the pagan-influenced shrines in Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba.

Amos 5:10 reproves in the gate. The walled cities of the ancient Near East had covered gatehouses with multiple sets of gates. If the enemy broke through one gate, they were immediately confronted with another. During times of peace, all the gates would be open. The gatehouse would provide a shady place where the old men of the city could observe events, and where they could decide the legal cases brought before them. But in Israel, justice was going to the highest bidder. See also vv. 12, 15.

Amos 5:14–15 God appeals to his people again (compare vv. 4–7). In that evil time (v. 13), they should seek good for those around them. If they do so, there may be hope for the nation, even at that late hour.

Amos 5:16–17 Although Israel could have returned to God, they would not. As a result, Amos announces that a great funeral cry of wailing . . . mourning . . . lamentation (see v. 1) will go up all over the land from the streets of the cities to the vineyards in the countryside.

Amos 5:18–6:14 This fourth message (see note on 2:6–6:14) gives details about the kinds of sins that will provoke Israel’s “funeral” as a nation (see note on 5:16–17). Three times the funeral cry of “Woe” appears: 5:18; 6:1; 6:4. Each woe introduces another category of sin.

Amos 5:18–20 Historically, this is the earliest known use of the expression the day of the Lord. The phrase also occurs in the prophetic works of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Obadiah, Zephaniah, and Malachi (see diagram). The people of Amos’s day may have used the term to refer to the time when the Lord would intervene and put Israel at the head of the nations (possibly based on Deut. 32:35–37). But Amos, and all the prophets after him, clarify what it will mean for the Lord to visit his people: if they are unfaithful, it will mean judgment. In Amos, “the day of the Lord” points to the coming judgment on the northern kingdom (Amos 5:27). In Zephaniah, it points to judgment on Judah. Other prophets use the term to signal God’s punishment of other nations. In some cases, the prophet uses the term to refer to something farther in the future (Mal. 4:5; and probably in Joel 2:31). All of this indicates that the “day” is not unique but may be repeated as circumstances call for it. New Testament authors apply the term to the return of Christ (1 Cor. 1:8; 2 Pet. 3:10).

Amos 5:21 God hates Israel’s religious feasts and solemn assemblies, their offerings (v. 22), and songs (v. 23) because of their persistent sinful conduct (see note on 3:15). He rejects their perversion of worship at Bethel (see note on 3:14). He despises the absence of justice and righteousness in their conduct toward one another (5:24).

Amos 5:22 I will not accept them. The Israelites may seem to be worshiping God, but he knows they do not love and obey him.

Amos 5:27 Exile beyond Damascus is exactly what happened (2 Kings 17:6). This is a startling prediction, since Assyria was comparatively weak in Amos’s time.