Amos 5:1-17, Seek Me and Live

What are your favorite songs to hear at a funeral? Of course, no one even wants to be having to hear funeral songs. We need them to help us mourn the one we have lost, and perhaps in another context we would call them favorite songs, but there are no favorites at a funeral.

5:1 Hear this song that I sing over you in mourning, O house of Israel:

2 “Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with no one to lift her up.”

3 For thus says the Sovereign Yahweh: “The city that sent out a thousand will have a hundred left, and the one that sent out a hundred will have ten remaining for the house of Israel.”

Amos’ funeral dirge is in anticipation of her destruction, since, as he has said, she is unrepentant despite all the chastening Yahweh has sent.

4 For thus says Yahweh to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; 5 but do not seek the altar at Bethel, and do not enter into the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba; for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.”

6 Seek Yahweh and live, or He will break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, with no one to quench it for Bethel, 7 you who make justice bitter and throw righteousness down to the ground!

Nevertheless, Yahweh holds out a hope that Israel might repent. He wants them to seek him, as they used to, and if they did so, the nation would not be destroyed. But they won’t find Him at the altar set up in Bethel, originally to worship Him, even if the image was a bull. They won’t find Him in Gilgal at the shrines made to false gods. They won’t even find Him in Beersheba, which was in Judah. These places would not have His protection, but would be destroyed.

8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name. 9 He makes destruction flash swiftly against the strong, destroying their fortress.

There is no chance of reprieve once Yahweh’s mighty strength attacks the nation.

10 My people hate the judge who reproves injustice in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. 11 Because you trample on the poor and exact taxes of grain from him, though you have built houses of hewn stone, you will not dwell in them; though you have planted pleasant vineyards, you will not drink their wine. 12 For I know how many your transgressions are and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate. 13 Those who are prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.

Yahweh rehearses once again the injustices of Israel, in addition to their false worship. The things they acquired by unjust gain would never be enjoyed, if they did not repent.

14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed. 15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate. It may be that Yahweh, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

With repentance there may be a reprieve for Joseph, the father of Ephraim, who fathered this major tribe in Israel that is the majority of the northern nation. Their obedience cannot be perfunctory. They must genuinely hate evil, the evil they have been committing, and love good, as Yahweh does.

16 Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, Yahweh: “In all the squares there will be wailing, and in all the streets they will say, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They will call the farmers to mourning and to wailing those who are professional mourners, 17 and in all vineyards, there will be wailing, for I will pass destructively through your midst,” says Yahweh.

Yahweh does not anticipate repentance, as much as He hopes for it. Israel can only expect to be mourning at every level.