Amo 5:10-24 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate - They cannot bear an upright magistrate, and will not have righteous laws executed.

Amos 5:10-24

Verse 10

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate - They cannot bear an upright magistrate, and will not have righteous laws executed. Verse 11

Your treading is upon the poor - You tread them under your feet; they form the road on which ye walk; and yet it was by oppressing and impoverishing them that ye gained your riches.

Ye take from him burdens of wheat - Ye will have his bread for doing him justice. Verse 12

I know your manifold transgressions - I have marked the multitude of your smaller crimes, as well as your mighty offenses. Among their greater offenses were,

1. Their afflicting the righteous.

2. Taking bribes to blind their eyes in judgment. And,

3. Refusing to hear the poor, who had no money to give them. Verse 13

The prudent shall keep silence - A wise man will consider that it is useless to complain. He can have no justice without bribes; and he has no money to give: consequently, in such an evil time, it is best to keep silence. Verse 14

Seek good, and not evil - Is there a greater mystery in the world, than that a mall, instead of seeking good, will seek evil, knowing that it is evil?

And so the Lord - As God is the Fountain of good, so they who seek the supreme good seek him: and they who seek shall find him; For the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with him. Verse 15

Hate the evil, and love the good - What ruins you, avoid; what helps you, cleave to. And as a proof that you take this advice, purify the seats of justice, and then expect God to be gracious to the remnant of Joseph - to the posterity of the ten tribes. Verse 16

They shall call the husbandman to mourning - Because the crops have failed, and the ground has been tilled in vain.

Such as are skillful of lamentation - See the note on Jer 9:17. Verse 17

And in all vineyards shall be wailing - The places where festivity especially used to prevail.

I will pass through thee - As I passed, by the ministry of the destroying angel, through Egypt, not to spare, but to destroy. Verse 18

Wo unto you that desire the day of the Lord - The prophet had often denounced the coming of God's day, that is, of a time of judgment; and the unbelievers had said, "Let his day come, that we may see it." Now the prophet tells them that that day would be to them darkness - calamity, and not light - not prosperity. Verse 19

As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him - They shall go from one evil to another. He who escapes from the lion's mouth shall fall into the bear's paws: -

Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.

The Israelites, under their king Menahem, wishing to avoid a civil war, called in Pul, king of Assyria, to help them. This led to a series of evils inflicted by the Syrian and Assyrian kings, till at last Israel was ravaged by Shalmaneser, and carried into captivity. Thus, in avoiding one evil they fell into another still more grievous.

Leaned his hands on a wall, and a serpent bit him - Snakes and venomous animals are fond of taking up their lodging in walls of houses, where they can either find or make holes; and it is dangerous to sit near them or lean against them. In the East Indies they keep the faithful mongose, a species of ichneumon, in their houses, for the purpose of destroying the snakes that infest them. Verse 21

I hate, I despise your feast days - I abominate those sacrificial festivals where there is no piety, and I despise them because they pretend to be what they are not. This may refer to the three annual festivals which were still observed in a certain way among the Israelites. Verse 22

The peace-offerings of your fat beasts - מריאיכם merieychem probably means buffaloes; and so Bochart. Verse 23

The noise of thy songs - the melody of thy viols - They had both vocal and instrumental music in those sacrificial festivals; and God hated the noise of the one and shut his ears against the melody of the other. In the first there was nothing but noise, because their hearts were not right with God; and in the latter there could be nothing but (זמרת zimrath) cutting and scraping, because there was no heart - no religious sense in the thing, and nearly as little in them that used it. See on Amo 6:5 (note). Verse 24

Let judgment run down - Let the execution of justice be everywhere like the showers that fall upon the land to render it fertile; and let righteousness in heart and life be like a mighty river, or the Jordan, that shall wind its course through the whole nation, and carry every abomination into the Dead Sea. Let justice and righteousness prevail everywhere, and sweep their contraries out of the land.