Amos 5:21

I hate, I despise your feast days,.... Kimchi thinks this is said, and what follows, with respect to the kingdom of the house of Judah, which kept the feast the Lord commanded; but it is not

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. I hate, I despise. The two verbs joined without a conjunction express God's strong abhorrence.

I hate, I despise your feast days; impure and unholy they are, whatever they seem to be, and therefore the Lord hateth them, they are abomination to him, ,14. Worthless and contemptible they are, and as such God rejecteth them, , &c. There is no goodness that I should value in them, there is all that vileness in them which attends deep hypocrisy, for which I do hate them. The apostate Israelites imitated the Jews in many things, amongst which they retained their festivals, in which they multiplied their ceremonial sacrifices; and yet God owns them not as his; but brands them with this, They are yours, therefore unwarrantable, will-worship, and displeasing to God. I will not smell a savour of rest or delight, I will not accept and be pleased with, , your solemn assemblies; appointed, as you think, on very weighty reasons, and by sufficient authority, and celebrated with rich sacrifices, in mighty crowds, and in excellent order; all is yours, not mine.

Amos 5:21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.Ver. 21. I hate, I despise your feast days] Wherewith ye think to stop my mouth and to make me your debtor; saying, as that Roman emperor, when his enemy came against him, Non sic Deos coluimus ut ille nos vinceret, We have not so served the gods that they should serve us no better than to give the enemy the better of us. The feast days and solemn assemblies you so much build upon are yours, and not mine; "I never commanded them" (viz. as you may use them), "neither came they ever into my mind," Jeremiah 32:35. So far am I, therefore, from accepting your sacrifices, as that I hate, I despise, I will not smell: an elegant asyndeton, importing God’ s utter distaste of what they did ("The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more, when he bringeth it with a wicked mind!" Proverbs 21:27), and assuring a sudden vengeance, as in that quick and smart passage, Go, preach, baptize, "he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark 16:16. Will-worship and outsideness in religion is very odious to the Almighty; and stinks worse in his nostrils than any ill vapour from the vilest dunghill doth in ours: or as those poisonous smells that ascended up once from the five cities of the plain, and brought down from him a counter poison of fire and brimstone. Rome also (that spiritual Sodom) shall be destroyed in like sort, with a terrible fire, Revelation 17:16; Revelation 18:8-9, for her detestable will-worships, superstitions, and idolatries, which no other nitre can possibly purge. Revelation 13:18, the whole "number of the beast," whatsoever is numbered to belong unto him, is but the "number of a man," human inventions and will wisdom; men will have it so; and this is the sum of all Popish religion. When the wit of man will be overpleasing God, with better devices than his own, will needs despite him with seeming honours; it turns to madness, and ends in mischief.

(21, 22) These verses closely resemble the condemnation which Isaiah pronounces (Amos 1:10-15) upon mere ritual, however punctilious, mere profession of orthodoxy, however exacting, which was not accompanied by righteousness and mercy, and was not the expression of inward penitence and purity. Will not smell in your . . .—A strong expression for “I take no delight in them.” That Baal worship, as well as the worship of the true God, was characterised by similar offerings and sacrificial terms is indicated by a Phœnician tablet inscribed with a code of sacrificial dues, discovered at Marseilles. The word rendered peace offering should be translated as in the margin. The word for “meat offering” is better interpreted “meal offerings,” since it consisted of vegetable products used in food, meal, oil, cakes, &c.

Verse 21. I hate, I despise your feast days] I abominate those sacrificial festivals where there is no piety, and I despise them because they pretend to be what they are not. This may refer to the three annual festivals which were still observed in a certain way among the Israelites.

21–26. Do you think to win Jehovah’s favour by your religious services? On the contrary, He will have none of them: what He demands is not sacrifice, or even praise, but justice; in the wilderness your ancestors offered no sacrifices, without forfeiting Jehovah’s regard; your mistake is a fatal one, and its end will be exile.

I hate, I despise your feasts - Israel clave to its heart’s sin, the worship of the true God, under the idol-form of the calf; else, it would fain be conscientious and scrupulous.

21-25. The popular service is an abomination to Jehovah. The prophet represents Jehovah as out of sympathy with and even hostile to the popular worship. In what sense this is to be understood see on Hosea 6:6.