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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.

The Prophet here declares, that though the judges enriched themselves by plunder, yet God would not allow them to enjoy their booty, but that he would deprive them of the great wealth they had accumulated. This is the import of the whole. We hence see that the Prophet contends not here with the common people, but professedly attacks the chief men, inasmuch as from them did proceed all the prevailing evil.

The first thing is, they imposed burdens on the poor, and then, they took away corn from them He says first, “A burden have you laid”, or, “ye have trodden on the poor;” for the verb may be taken in either sense, and it matters not which as to the import of the passage. It is not indeed often that we meet with a verb of four letters; ³⁴³⁴     The verb is בושסכם, from בושם but in ten MSS. Of Kennicott, and in five of D’Rossi, the ו is left out: and then ש is supposed to be put for ס, as Amos in another place, Amos 7:14, puts ס for ש. The verb בס, and in its reduplicate form בסס, occurs in other places, and means to tread or trample under foot. The expression here literally is, “your trampling;” but such a form may often be expressed in our language, “ye trample.” The connection of the whole verse will be better seen by the following version: —
   Therefore, as ye trample on the poor,
And tribute of corn extort from him, —
Houses of hewn stone you may build,
But ye shall not dwell in them;
Vineyards of delight ye may plant,
But ye shall not drink their wine.
   — Ed. but interpreters explain this as meaning to tread under foot or to lay a burden. The Prophet, I doubt not, accuses here the judges of not sparing miserable men, but of burdening them with tributes and exactions; for this is to burden the poor. Then he adds, “Ye have taken a load of corn”. The Prophet had doubtless fixed here on a species of cruelty in robbing others, the most detestable. When judges take money, or any other gift, it is less odious than when the poor are compelled to carry corn to them on their shoulders. It was the same as though they surrendered their very life to their plunderers; for when judges constrained loads of corn to be brought to them, it was as though they strangled the poor, or drew blood from their veins, inasmuch as they robbed them of their food and support. We now perceive what the Prophet meant: You have, he says, oppressed the poor, and taken from them a load of corn. Some render בר, ber, chosen, but improperly.

Ye shall therefore build, etc. He declares here that they would not realize their hope, though they plundered on all sides to build palaces, and though they got great possessions to enrich themselves and their heirs: “This self-love,” he says, “will deceive you; defraud, rob, plunder; but the Lord will at length strip you of all your robberies: for after having been venal, and prostituted not only your souls but your shame for gain, and after having spent much labor and expense in building, ye shall not dwell in your palaces; and when ye shall have planted vineyards with great expense and care, ye shall not drink their wine.” Isaiah also speaks in the same strain,

‘O plunderer, thou shalt be exposed to plunders’
(Isaiah 33:1)

Experience also teaches the same thing; for we see how the Lord transfers from one to another the possessions of this world: he who seems to provide riches after his death for his heirs for ever, passes his whole life, as we see, without enjoying his own property; for he is hungry in the midst of the greatest abundance, and even famishes himself. This is very frequently the case. And then when his abundance comes to his heirs, it falls into the hands of prodigals, who soon dissipate the whole. And sometimes the Lord allows not that such vast wealth should have heirs, and it is scattered here and there, and the very name is extinguished, though the name to such haughty and wealthy men is a great object, as they commonly wish it to be eminent in the world for some hundred ages after their death.

This passage of the Prophet ought therefore to be especially noticed. He tells us that unjust gains were laid up by these robbers and wicked plunderers, in order to amass great riches; but he adds, “The Lord will spoil them, and will not suffer them to enjoy their abundance, however anxiously they had collected it from all quarters.” Let us now proceed —