Amos 5

1 against you. Or, “over you,” as a funeral lamentation: see R.V.

2. The virgin. A mode of personifying a people, like “daughter.” Cp. Isa. xlvii. 1-5.

forsaken. Or, “cast down.” 3 that went out [by] a thousand. To war. shall leave an hundred. “Shall have an hundred left.”

5. Beer-sheba. A city of Judah (1 Kings xix. 3), on its southern frontier. Like Bethel and Gilgal, it appears to have been at this time a place of idolatrous resort, ch. viii. 14.

6 the house of Joseph. The kingdom of Ephraim, or the Ten Tribes.

7 and leave off righteousness in the earth. Rather, “And who cast righteousness down to the ground”: see R.V.

8 the seven stars. The Pleiades: see notes on Job ix. 9; xxxviii. 31.

9. That strengtheneth the spoiled, etc. Rather, as R.V., “That bringeth sudden destruction upon the strong; so that destruction cometh upon the fortress.”

10 him that rebuketh in the gate. This may mean the prophets who uttered their rebukes “in the gate,” the most frequented part of the city.

11 burdens. Or, “presents”; or “forced tributes.”

13 the prudent shall keep silence. In such a time, the wise and pious can only wait in silence for God’s interposition to check the overwhelming power of public and private wickedness.

16 skilful of lamentation. See Eccles. xii. 5; Jer. ix. 17, and notes.

18 the day of the Lord. “The day of the Eternal” may be either the day of His anger, which these men boldly despise, as if they said, “Let Him do His worst”; or, more probably, the day of His interposition; which they thought must be to them, as Israelites, a time of blessing; but which, because they were faithless to His covenant, would bring to them only darkness and misery.

21. I despise your feast days, etc. See Isa. i. 10-15, and notes.

23 viols. “Harps.”

25. Have ye offered unto Me, etc.? Rather, “Did ye offer unto Me, etc.? and (yet, i.e., at the same time) ye bore,” etc. Taken with the next verse the meaning is: “Were ye really offering sacrifices unto Me in the wilderness?” The Israelites are accused of having, from the earliest periods of their history, mixed idolatrous observances with a professed attention to the ritual observances of the Mosaic law.

26 ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch, etc. This is rendered by some, “Ye carried the tabernacle of your king (or, of Moloch), and the shrine of your images, the star of your gods”; see R.V. marg. But the word “Sakkut,” which is translated “tabernacle,” and occurs nowhere else, is thought by some to be, like “Chiun” or “Kairvan,” the name of an Assyrian god. Those who adopt the rendering of the text suppose “Chiun” to be the planet Saturn, of which they think Remphan to be the Egyptian name. The text is quoted in Acts vii. 43 nearly according to the Septuagint, which has “Raiphan.”

27 beyond Damascus. Even to Babylon: see Acts vii. 43.