Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 5

To impress Israel all the more, Amos begins this, his third appeal, with a “dirge” over its destruction, mourning for those who were full of joy and considered themselves safe and enviable. It is as if a living man, in the midst of his pride, luxury, and buoyant recklessness of heart, could see his own funeral procession and hear, as it were, spoken over himself, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This would provoke solemn thoughts, even if he were to impatiently dismiss them. So it must have been for Israel when, after the tide of Jeroboam II’s victories, Amos said, Hear this word which I am lifting up—as a heavy weight to be cast down “against” or “upon you”—a funeral “dirge,” O house of Israel.

Human greatness is so unstable, and human strength so fleeting, that the prophet of decay finds a response in one’s own conscience, however much one may silence or resent it. One would not resent it unless one felt its force.

Dionysius: “Amos, an Israelite, mourns over Israel, as Samuel did over Saul (1 Samuel 15:35), or as Isaiah says, I will weep bitterly; labor not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people (Isaiah 22:4); images of Him who wept over Jerusalem.” “So those are lamented who do not know why they are lamented, the more miserable because they do not know their own misery.”

She hath fallen, she shall rise no more, the virgin of Israel; she hath been dashed down upon her land, there is none to raise her up - Such is the dirge, a dirge like that of David over Saul and Jonathan, over what once was lovely and mighty, but which had perished.

He speaks of all as past, and that, irremediably. Israel is one of the things which had been, and which would never again be.

He calls her tenderly, "the virgin of Israel," not as having retained her purity or her faithfulness to God; still less, with human boastfulness, as though she had not yet been subdued by man. For she had been faithless to God, and had been many times conquered by man.

Nor does it even seem that God so calls her because He once espoused her to Himself, for Isaiah so calls Babylon.

But Scripture seems to speak of cities as women, because in women tenderness is most seen; they are most tenderly guarded; they, when pure, are most lovely; and they, when corrupted, are most debased.

Hence, God says on the one hand, I remember thee, the love of thine espousals (Jeremiah 2:2); on the other, Hear, thou harlot, the word of the Lord (Ezekiel 16:35). When He claims her faithfulness, He calls her "betrothed."

Again, when He wills to signify that a city or nation has been as tenderly loved and anxiously guarded, whether by Himself or by others, He calls it "virgin," or when He would indicate its beauty and lovely array.

Isaiah says, Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon (Isaiah 47:1), that is, you who lived before in all delicacies, like a virgin under the shelter of her home. For it follows, for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.

More pitiable, for their tenderness and delicacy, is the distress of women.

And so he pictures her as already fallen, "dashed" (the word imitates the sound) to the earth "upon her own ground."

An army may be lost, and the nation recover. She was "dashed down upon her own ground." In the abode of her strength, in the midst of her resources, in her innermost retreat, she would fall. In herself, she fell powerless.

And he adds, she has no one to raise her up; none to have compassion upon her—an image of the judgment on a lost soul, when the terrible sentence is spoken and none can intercede!

She shall not rise again. As she fell, she did not again rise.

The prophet sees beyond the eighty-five years which separated the prosperity under Jeroboam II from her captivity. As a people, he says, she would be restored no more; nor was she.

The city that went out by a thousand - (that is, probably one that sent out a thousand fighting men, as the phrase "went out" is often used to mean "went out to fight"), shall have, literally "shall retain," an hundred. She was to be decimated.

Only, the tenth alone was to be reserved alive; the nine-tenths were to be destroyed. And this, in large and small places alike. The city that went forth an hundred shall retain ten. Smaller places escape because of their obscurity, larger ones because of their strength and situation. One common doom was to befall all. Out of all that multitude, only one tithe was to be preserved, "dedicated to God," that remnant which God always promised to reserve.

Seek you Me, and you shall live - Literally, “seek Me; and live.” Wonderful conciseness of the word of God, which, in two words, comprises the whole of the creature’s duty and his hopes, his time and his eternity. The prophet uses the two imperatives, uniting both man’s duty and his reward. He does not speak of them as cause and effect, but as one. Where the one is, there is the other. To seek God is to live. For to seek God is to find Him, and God is Life and the Source of life.

Forgiveness, grace, and life enter the soul at once. But the seeking is diligent seeking: “It is not to seek God in just any way, but as it is right and fitting that He should be sought, longed for, prayed for, who is so great, a Good, constantly, fervently, indeed, to the best of our ability, the more constantly and fervently, as an Infinite Good is more to be longed for, more loved than all created good.” The object of the search is God Himself. Seek Me, that is, seek God for Himself, not for anything apart from Him, not for His gifts, not for anything to be loved along with Him. This is not to seek Him purely.

All is found in Him, but by seeking Him first, and then loving Him in all things, and all things in Him. And you shall live, first by the life of the body, escaping the enemy; then by the life of grace now, and the life of glory hereafter, as in the words of the Psalmist: your heart shall live who seek God (Psalms 69:32).

But (and) seek not Bethel - Israel pretended to seek God in Bethel. Amos sets the two seeking, as incompatible. The god, worshiped at Bethel, was not the One God. To seek God there was to lose Him. “Seek not God,” he would say, “and a phantom, which will lead from God.”

And pass not to Beersheba - Jeroboam I pretended that it was too much for Israel to go up to Jerusalem. And Yet Israel thought it not too much to go to the extremest point of Judah toward Idumaea, perhaps, four times as far south of Jerusalem, as Jerusalem lay from Bethel. For Beersheba is thought to have lain some thirty miles south of Hebron, which is twenty-two miles south of Jerusalem ; while Bethel is but twelve to the north. So much pains will people take in self-willed service, and yet not see that it takes away the excuse for neglecting the true. At Beersheba, Abraham “called upon the name of the Lord, the everlasting God” [Genesis 21:33]. There God revealed Himself to Isaac and Jacob [Genesis 26:23–24]; [Genesis 46:1].

There, because He had so revealed Himself, Judah made a place of idolatry, which Israel, seeking nought besides from Judah, sought. Beersheba was still a town or large village in the time of Jerome. Now all is swept away, except “some foundations of ruins,” spread over 34 of a mile, “with scarcely one stone upon another” . The wells alone remain, with the ancient names.

Gilgal shall surely go into captivity - The verbal allusions in the prophets are sometimes artificial; sometimes, they develop the meaning of the word itself, as when Zephaniah says, “Ekron (probably the “firm-rooting”) “shall be uprooted” [Zephaniah 2:4]; sometimes, as here, the words are connected, although not the same. In all cases, the likeness of sound was calculated to fix them in men’s memories. It would be so, if one with authority could say, “Paris perira”, “Paris shall perish” or “London is undone.” Still more would the words, Hag-gilgal galo yigleh, because the name Gilgal still retained its first meaning, “the great rolling, and the word joined with it had a kindred meaning.

Originally it probably means, “swept clear away.” God first “rolled away the reproaeh of Egypt” [Joshua 5:9] from His people there. Then, when it made itself like the pagan, it should itself be rolled clear away [Jeremiah 51:25]. Gilgal was originally in Benjamin, but Israel had probably annexed it to itself, as it had Bethel and Jericho [1 Kings 16:34], both of which had been assigned by Joshua to Benjamin [Joshua 18:21–22].

And Bethel shall come to nought - Hosea had called “Bethel, God’s house,” by the name of “Bethaven [Hosea 4:15]; [Hosea 10:5], Vanity-house.” Amos, in allusion to this probably, drops the first half of the name, and says that it shall not merely be “house of vanity,” but “Aven, vanity” itself. “By sin the soul, which was the house or temple of God, becomes the temple of vanity and of devils.”