Amos 5 Study Notes

5:13 Because the people with power were so hostile to anyone who told the truth in the courts of law (v. 10), honest and decent people were being silenced.

5:14-15 A repetition of the call to repent. Perhaps makes the point that even repentance does not obligate God to be gracious (cp. note at Jl 2:14).

5:16-17 The focus on the farmer and the vineyards in these verses suggests that the lamentation came about because of crop failure.

5:18-19 The Israelites assumed that because they were the chosen people, they would be exempt from judgment on the day of the Lord.

5:20-24 God speaks in vivid terms of his disregard for all the aspects of Israelite religion that presumably was directed toward him. All that would please God would be an abundance of justice.

5:25-26 This text is the source of great confusion because it appears to teach that the Israelites made no sacrifices during the wilderness period, contrary to what is recorded in the Pentateuch (Ex 24:5). Probably Am 5:25 should be joined to v. 26, as follows: “Did you offer sacrifices and grain offerings to me forty years in the wilderness, House of Israel, while you were taking up Sakkuth your king?” Read this way, Israel did make sacrifices to God while in the wilderness, but the people also carried images of the Sakkuth and other gods. During Amos’s time, however, they were more brazenly combining the worship of the Lord with the worship of these pagan gods. Sakkuth and Kaiwan were names of the sky deity of the planet Saturn.