Amos 5:7

7 [Ah,] you who turn justice into wormwood and hurl righteousness to the ground!

Amos 5:7 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 5:7

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood
This seems to be spoken to kings and judges, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi observe; in whose hands is the administration of justice, and who often pervert it, as these did here addressed and complained of; that which was the most useful and salubrious, and so the most desirable to the commonwealth, namely, just judgment, was changed into the reverse, what was as bitter and as disagreeable as wormwood; or "hemlock", as it might be rendered, and as it is in ( Amos 6:12 ) ; even injustice: and leave off righteousness in the earth;
leave off doing it among men: or rather, "leave [it] on the earth" ^F3; who cast it down to the ground, trampled upon it, and there left it; which is expressive not only of their neglect, but of their contempt of it; see ( Daniel 8:12 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 (wxynh) "in terram prosterunt", Piscator; "justitiam in terram reliquerunt, i.e. humi prosternitis et deseritis", Mercerus; "collocantes humi", Junius & Tremellius.

Amos 5:7 In-Context

5 But do not seek Bethel or go [to] Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile and Bethel will come to disaster."

6 Seek Yahweh so that you may live, so that he will not break out like a fire [against] the house of Joseph! And it will devour, {with none to quench} [it] for Bethel.

7 [Ah,] you who turn justice into wormwood and hurl righteousness to the ground!

8 The one who made the Pleiades and Orion and who turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens day [into] night, the one who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh [is] his name!

9 The one who makes destruction flash upon [the] fierce, {so that} destruction comes upon [the] fortification.