In verses 1-3 God laments for Israel, “The virgin of Israel has fallen; She will rise no more. She lies forsaken on her land; There is no one to raise her up. For thus says the LORD GOD: “The city that goes out by a thousand Shall have a hundred left, And that which goes out by a hundred Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”
Israel is likened to a virgin who is vulnerable and forsaken. Even a city with a thousand soldiers shall only have a hundred, only a small handful will be left. Israel would be helpless before their captors.
In verses 4-15, The LORD calls them to repentance, “Seek me and live”. We can only do this by seeking The LORD and the following verses show that by not seeking the false places of worship, Bethel and Gilgal. He adds Beersheba to that list. Those places had been a rich part of their history but they were not true places of worship. Jacob wrestled with The LORD at Bethel, but it became an idolatrous place to them. The LORD makes it clear that Bethel and Gilgal would come to nothing. They would only find true life in The LORD. The LORD shows them his power in that He made and put the stars in place, makes the day and the night and in fact can make the day, night. God did just that at Calvary when Jesus hung on the cross, it was darkness for three hours in the middle of the day. He controls the seas and brings ruin on those who consider themselves strong. Their justice was virtually non-existent, it was perverted, there was bribery and corruption, and He wouldn’t put up with it.
The LORD says, ‘Seek me and live’, not other things however spiritual they may appear to be.
He accuses the people of injustice and ill-treating one another especially the poor. Imposing oppressive taxes, the rich building fancy houses and planting vineyards. The LORD says they wouldn’t live in them or drink wine from them. They were even afflicting those who were acting justly and those who were prudent just kept silent. The LORD implores them to seek good and not evil, if they do seek good then The LORD would be with them, to hate evil, love good and establish justice in the gate. The gate of the city was the court, business was conducted there and The LORD expected absolute justice righteousness.
God tells them that there will be wailing in the streets and the vineyards. The farmers will be in mourning (v16-20). Like The LORD Jesus, who spoke in parables which the people would be acquainted with, Amos, being a farmer, illustrated his prophecy with pictures of farming. God’s judgment would be so wide that there would be woe and such that there would be no professional mourners, (which was a common feature). They could long for the day of the LORD but it would be darkness not light. Their religious fervour would be useless because they were worshiping false gods. Just imagine running from a lion and meeting a bear and being bitten by a serpent, indicating danger.
Israel’s worship was cold and self-serving. Jeroboam had built temples in Bethel and Dan so that the people didn’t need to go south to Jerusalem to worship but God viewed it as idolatrous. God was offended and says (v21-27),
“I hate, I despise your feast days, And I do not savour your sacred assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream. Did you offer Me sacrifices and offerings In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? You also carried Sikkuth your king and Chiun, your idols, the star of your gods, Which you made for yourselves. Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,” Says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.”
God despised their feast days and He didn’t want to hear their songs. ‘Hate’ is a strong word but that’s what The LORD thought of their so-called worship. I wonder if that is what He thinks of some of the ’worship’ in our churches today. I’ve said it often, but thirty or forty years ago some of our present day ‘Christian Music’ would not have been recognised as such by us, so I wonder what God thinks about it? I know the Psalms tell us to use all kinds of musical instruments to praise God, but, are they glorifying to Him the way we play them and the sounds we produce? And what about the words? Many songs are to work up our emotions, not to uplift our souls and to glorify Him. A lot of our songs are simply to attract the world, in fact, they have become indistinguishable from the world’s songs. We are trying to be like them when we should be different. ‘Gospel music’ has become a multi-million pound industry today and many ‘Christian’ organisations owe their existence to it, when we should be concentrating on teaching and preaching The Word faithfully. Someone said, ‘a large audience is not an achievement but an opportunity’.
They could not presume on God’s grace, and neither can we. It is all to do with the heart and our worship should be our lives. The people were going through the motions but in their actions they were dealing unrighteously and without justice. “Let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.”
John Blanchard wrote, ‘Our services should be a worthy response to God and geared to the faithful declaration of his Word, not designed to massage the worshipers’ ego or emotions.’
I believe the references to Sikkuth can be translated Moloch, and Chiun as Rephun. Pagan deities brought with them from Egypt carried through their wilderness journey. They used to sacrifice their children in the fire to Moloch, certainly not what God wanted. It was abhorrent to God thus God’s judgment would be severe – exile and captivity. As God’s people they expected God to judge those who opposed them but were amazed that God was going to judge them because they had been disobedient to Him.
They had replaced what God had revealed to them with their own ideas and had substituted the worship of their idols for the worship of the true God (5:25-26). They had become self-sufficient and had become deaf to the prophets’ warnings.
