Amos 5

Listen to this word I am speaking against you, people of Israel. It is a funeral song.

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

NoteA "lamentation" is a dirge, the song sung over a dead body at a funeral, which in Hebrew had its own limping, uneven rhythm that hearers would have recognized instantly. Amos sings one over a nation that is still standing.

2Israel, pictured as a young unmarried woman, has fallen, and she will not get up again. She lies abandoned on her own land, and there is no one to lift her up.

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

Note"Virgin of Israel" is a standard Hebrew way of speaking, like "virgin daughter of Zion" or "of Babylon": a city or nation personified as a young woman. It can carry the sense of a place no invader has yet taken.

3This is what the Lord GOD says: For the people of Israel, the city that marches out with a thousand soldiers will have only a hundred left, and the city that marches out with a hundred will have only ten left.

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.

NoteA town "going out" by a thousand means the fighting men it could muster. The figures describe a nine-in-ten loss in battle.

4This is what the LORD says to the people of Israel: Come looking for me, and you will live.

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

Note"Seek" was the ordinary word for going to a shrine to worship or to ask God for a decision. That is what makes the next verse a play on words: seek me, but do not go seeking at the usual holy places.

5But do not go looking for help at Bethel, do not enter Gilgal, and do not travel down to Beersheba. Gilgal will certainly be carried off into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

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.

NoteBethel was the chief royal sanctuary of the northern kingdom; Gilgal, near Jericho, was an ancient shrine tied to Israel's first entry into the land; Beersheba lay far to the south, a long pilgrimage away in Judah. All three were popular places of worship. "Gilgal shall surely go into captivity" is a pun in Hebrew, haggilgal galoh yigleh, that the English cannot carry.

6Look for the LORD, and you will live. If you do not, he will break out like fire against the family of Joseph. The fire will burn everything up, and no one in Bethel will put it out.

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.

Note"The house of Joseph" means the northern kingdom of Israel, whose leading tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, traced themselves to Joseph's two sons.

7You are the ones who turn fair judgment into something bitter, and who throw what is right down on the ground.

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

NoteWormwood is a shrub with an intensely bitter taste, used throughout the Old Testament as a byword for bitterness and poison. "Judgment" in the King James Version here means justice, the verdict handed down in a court, not condemnation.

8Look for the one who made the star groups, the Pleiades and Orion. He turns deep darkness into morning, and he darkens the day into night. He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the earth. The LORD is his name.

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:

NoteThe Hebrew names two star groups, kimah and kesil, traditionally identified with the Pleiades (the "seven stars") and Orion, though the identification is not certain. "The shadow of death" translates a Hebrew word meaning deepest darkness, with no necessary reference to dying.

9He brings sudden ruin down on the strong, so that ruin comes even on the fortress.

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

NoteThe Hebrew of this verse is obscure and translators differ sharply. The King James Version reads it as the weak being given strength against the strong; most modern versions read it as God flashing sudden destruction on the strong. Both are attempts at a text nobody is sure of.

10They hate anyone who speaks up to correct them at the city gate, and they cannot stand a person who tells the truth.

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

NoteThe open space just inside the city gate was where the town's elders sat to hear cases and settle disputes: it served as courthouse, council chamber and marketplace at once. "Rebuking in the gate" means bringing or arguing a charge there; "speaking uprightly" means giving honest testimony.

11So then, because you trample on the poor and take payments of wheat from him, you will not live in the cut-stone houses you have built, and you will not drink the wine from the fine vineyards you have planted.

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.

NoteLandowners took rent and dues from tenant farmers in wheat rather than money. "Hewn stone" (squared, cut blocks) marked an expensive house; ordinary homes were rough field stone and mud brick. "You will build but not live in it" was a set curse formula, familiar from ancient treaties and law codes.

12I know how many wrongs you have done and how great your sins are. You push honest people around, you take bribes, and at the city gate you shove the poor aside so they cannot get justice.

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.

Note"The just" here is a legal term: the party who is in the right in a lawsuit. The complaint is about bribed verdicts, not private morals.

13So a sensible person keeps quiet at a time like that, because it is an evil time.

13Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

NoteThis line is read two ways. It may mean that in such a time a sensible person stays quiet because speaking up in court is dangerous; or it may be bitter irony, the fact that honest men must keep silent is itself the disaster.

14Look for good and not evil, so that you may live. Then the LORD, the God of armies, will really be with you, the way you have been claiming he is.

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.

Note"Hosts" is an old English word for armies. The title pictures the LORD at the head of armies, whether Israel's forces or the heavenly ones. "As ye have spoken" means: as you keep claiming he already is.

15Hate evil, love good, and set up real justice at the city gate. It may be that the LORD, the God of armies, will be kind to the people of Joseph who are left.

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.

NoteA "remnant" is what survives a disaster, the part of a people left after war or exile. "It may be" is deliberate: this is a possibility held out, not a promise.

16So this is what the LORD, the God of armies, the Lord, says: There will be crying in every public square, and in every street people will say, "Oh no! Oh no!" They will call farmers in to mourn, and call those skilled at funeral songs to wail.

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.

NoteMourning at funerals was a paid trade; skilled singers, usually women, were hired to lead the wailing. Calling in farmers as well means the deaths outnumber the professionals. The wailing in the vineyards of the next verse replaces the shouting that normally went with the grape harvest.

17There will be wailing in every vineyard, because I will pass through your land, says the LORD.

17And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the LORD.

Note"I will pass through" echoes the night of the exodus, when the LORD passed through Egypt striking the firstborn and Israel's houses were spared. Here it is Israel that is passed through.

18How terrible for you who long for the day of the LORD! What good will that day do you? The day of the LORD is darkness, not light.

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.

Note"The day of the LORD" was already a familiar phrase to Amos's hearers, who used it for a coming day when God would step in, defeat their enemies and vindicate them. This is the earliest surviving use of it in writing, and it is used to turn the expectation around.

19It will be like a man who runs away from a lion and meets a bear, or who goes into his house, leans his hand on the wall, and a snake bites him.

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.

20Won't the day of the LORD be darkness and not light, deep gloom with no brightness in it at all?

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

21I hate your festivals. I want nothing to do with them. I take no pleasure in the smell of the offerings at your solemn gatherings.

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

NoteOfferings were burned so the smoke would rise as a pleasing smell; "I will not smell" is the formal language of refusing a sacrifice. "Feast days" are the pilgrim festivals; a "solemn assembly" is the closing mass gathering of such a festival.

22Even if you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. I will pay no attention to the peace offerings of your fattened animals.

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.

NoteThree distinct offerings. A burnt offering was an animal burned whole, with nothing eaten. A "meat offering" is not meat: in 1611 English "meat" meant food in general, and this offering was flour or grain with oil. A peace offering was a shared meal, most of the animal being eaten by the worshipers.

23Take the noise of your songs away from me. I will not listen to the music of your harps.

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

Note"Viols" is the King James Version's word for the nebel, a stringed instrument, a harp or lute, used in worship.

24Instead, let justice roll down like water, and let right living flow like a stream that never dries up.

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

NoteIn this climate most watercourses ran only after rain and were dry beds the rest of the year. The contrast is with a stream that keeps flowing all year round, the image behind "mighty stream."

25Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings during those forty years in the desert, people of Israel?

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

NoteThe expected answer to this question is disputed and has been since antiquity: it may mean "no, and I did not require them," or it may be a challenge to hearers who assumed sacrifice had always been the heart of the matter.

26But you have carried along the shrine of your king-god Moloch and Chiun, your star god, the images you made for yourselves.

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

NoteThe Hebrew words are sikkuth and kiyyun, which the King James Version read as the god Moloch and a name "Chiun." They are widely taken to be Sakkut and Kaiwan, Assyrian names for the god linked with the planet Saturn, hence "your star god." "Tabernacle" here means a portable shrine or canopy carried in procession. The Hebrew verb can be past ("you have carried") or future ("you shall carry them off with you"), and translations divide.

27So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, says the LORD, whose name is the God of armies.

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

NoteDamascus, in Syria, was the northernmost great city in Israel's world. "Beyond Damascus" points along the road to Assyria, the direction deported populations were marched.