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5. A Lament and Call to Repentance

¹ Hear this word, Israel, this lament I take up concerning you:

    ² “Fallen is Virgin Israel,
   never to rise again,
deserted in her own land,
   with no one to lift her up.”

³ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Israel:

   “Your city that marches out a thousand strong
   will have only a hundred left;
your town that marches out a hundred strong
   will have only ten left.”

⁴ This is what the LORD says to Israel:

   “Seek me and live;
    ⁵ do not seek Bethel,
do not go to Gilgal,
   do not journey to Beersheba.
For Gilgal will surely go into exile,
   and Bethel will be reduced to nothing. Hebrew aven, a reference to Beth Aven (a derogatory name for Bethel); see Hosea 4:15.”
⁶ Seek the LORD and live,
   or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire;
it will devour them,
   and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

⁷ There are those who turn justice into bitterness
and cast righteousness to the ground.

    ⁸ He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
   who turns midnight into dawn
   and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
   and pours them out over the face of the land—
   the LORD is his name.
⁹ With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold
   and brings the fortified city to ruin.

¹⁰ There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court
and detest the one who tells the truth.

    ¹¹ You levy a straw tax on the poor
   and impose a tax on their grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
   you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
   you will not drink their wine.
¹² For I know how many are your offenses
   and how great your sins.

   There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes
   and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
¹³ Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times,
   for the times are evil.

    ¹⁴ Seek good, not evil,
   that you may live.
Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you,
   just as you say he is.
¹⁵ Hate evil, love good;
   maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy
   on the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says:

   “There will be wailing in all the streets
   and cries of anguish in every public square.
The farmers will be summoned to weep
   and the mourners to wail.
¹⁷ There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
   for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.

The Day of the LORD

    ¹⁸ Woe to you who long
   for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD?
   That day will be darkness, not light.
¹⁹ It will be as though a man fled from a lion
   only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
   and rested his hand on the wall
   only to have a snake bite him.
²⁰ Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
   pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

    ²¹ “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
   your assemblies are a stench to me.
²² Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
   I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
   I will have no regard for them.
²³ Away with the noise of your songs!
   I will not listen to the music of your harps.
²⁴ But let justice roll on like a river,
   righteousness like a never-failing stream!

    ²⁵ “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
   forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
²⁶ You have lifted up the shrine of your king,
   the pedestal of your idols,
   the star of your god Or lifted up Sakkuth your king / and Kaiwan your idols, / your star-gods; Septuagint lifted up the shrine of Molek / and the star of your god Rephan, / their idols—
   which you made for yourselves.
²⁷ Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”
   says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty.

Some render the verse thus, “Hear ye this word, because upon you, or for you, I raise a lamentation:” but we shall hereafter speak more at large as to the proper rendering. Let us see what the subject is. The Prophet here denounces on the Israelites the punishment they had deserved; and yet they did not think that it was nigh; and they ferociously despised, I have no doubt, the denunciation itself, because no chance had as yet taken place, which might have pointed out such a destruction. Hence the Prophet and his threatenings were both despised.

He however threatens them here in severe terms with the judgment of God, which they feared not: and this is the reason why he says, Hear ye. It was not, indeed, without reason that he thus began and intimated that they greatly flattered themselves, nay, that they stopped their ears against wholesome counsels: the admonition would have been otherwise superfluous. The Prophet then indirectly reproves that supine indifference in which the Israelites indulged themselves.

But with regard to the words, some, as I have before mentioned, refer this lamentation to Amos himself, as though he had said, that he lamented the state of the people, finding that they were so stupid, and did not perceive how dreadful the wrath of God is. Since, then, they thus flattered themselves in their sins, those interpreters think that the Prophet here assumes the character of a mourner for that irreclaimable people. Hear, he says, this word even because I lament over you. For the more refractory the people were, the more touched with grief the prophet no doubt was: for he saw how horrible the judgment of God was, which was nigh them, on account of their stubbornness. No wonder then that the Prophet says here, that he undertook or raised lamentation for the people; and this mode of speaking is common in Scripture.

But yet I rather think that another sense is more suitable to this place, which becomes evident by putting in an exegetic particle, Hear ye then this word which I raise upon you, even a lamentation, etc. The word משא, mesha, rendered burden, is derived from the verb נשא, nusha, which means to raise up: and there is a striking allusion to the subject treated of here. For the Prophet does not here simply teach the people, nor comfort them, nor does he only warn them, but he denounces on them the last punishment. We hence see the import of the expression, to raise up a word; it was the same as though he said, “I lay on you this prophecy:” for a burden is laid on the shoulders of men when God’s wrath is denounced.

It afterwards follows, Even a lamentation, O house of Israel; which means, “I raise upon you a word, which will constrain you to mourn and lament: though now ye are so refractory against God, that ye spurn all warnings, and reject all threatening; yet this word shall at last prove mournful to you.” This seems to be the genuine sense of the Prophet: in the first place, he reproves the stupidity of the people of Israel, by demanding a hearing; then he reproves their contempt of God in despising all threatenings; and he shows also that this prophecy would prove mournful to them for having so long trifled with God, “The lament of the house of Israel shall be this word, which I now raise up upon you.” it follows —