Amos 5:6

6 Come to the Lord and live, or he will move like fire against the descendants of Joseph. The fire will burn Bethel, and there will be no one to put it out.

Amos 5:6 Meaning and Commentary

Amos 5:6

Seek the Lord, and ye shall live
This is, repeated to stir up unto it, because of their backwardness and slothfulness, and to show the importance and necessity of it. By the "Lord" may be meant the Messiah, Israel's God that was to come, and they were to prepare to meet, ( Amos 4:12 ) ; and the rather, since life spiritual and eternal is only to be had from him, and he is to be sought unto for it, and all the blessings of it, peace, pardon, righteousness, rest, and salvation as well as temporal deliverance, and all outward mercies: lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour [it];
that is, lest his wrath and fury break out like fire as the Targum, by sending an enemy to invade the land, destroy it, and carry the inhabitants of it captive; even all the ten tribes, who frequently go by the name of Ephraim the son of Joseph, that being the principal tribe, and the first king of them being of it: and [there be] none to quench [it] in Bethel;
the calf worshipped there, and the priests that officiated, would not be able to avert the stroke of divine vengeance, or turn back the enemy, and save the land from ruin. The Targum is,

``and there be none to quench it, because of your sins, who have been serving idols in Bethel.''

Amos 5:6 In-Context

4 This is what the Lord says to the nation of Israel: "Come to me and live.

5 But do not look in Bethel or go to Gilgal, and do not go down to Beersheba. The people of Gilgal will be taken away as captives, and Bethel will become nothing."

6 Come to the Lord and live, or he will move like fire against the descendants of Joseph. The fire will burn Bethel, and there will be no one to put it out.

7 You turn justice upside down, and you throw on the ground what is right.

8 God is the one who made the star groups Pleiades and Orion; he changes darkness into the morning light, and the day into dark night. He calls for the waters of the sea to pour out on the earth. The Lord is his name.