Albert Barnes Commentary Amos 5:21

"I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies." — Amos 5:21 (ASV)

I hate, I despise your feasts - Israel clung to its heart’s sin, the worship of the true God under the idol-form of the calf; otherwise, it would gladly be conscientious and scrupulous. It had its “feasts” of solemn “joy” and the “restraint” of its “solemn assemblies,” which all were required to keep, abstaining from all servile work. They offered “whole burnt offerings,” the token of self-sacrifice, in which the sacrificer retained nothing to himself, but gave the whole freely to God. They also offered “peace offerings,” as tokens of the willing thankfulness of souls at peace with God. What they offered was the best of its kind, “fatted beasts.” Hymns of praise, full-toned chorus, instrumental music! What was missing, Israel thought, to secure them the favor of God?

Love and obedience. If you love Me, keep My commandments. And so those things by which they hoped to propitiate God were the object of His displeasure. I hate, I despise, I will not accept with good pleasure; I will not regard, look toward, I will not hear, will not smell. The words, I will not smell, reminded them of that threat in the law (Leviticus 26:31), I will make your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. In so many ways God declares that He would not accept or endure what they all the while were building upon, as grounds of their acceptance.

And yet so secure were they, that the only sacrifice which they did not offer, was the sin or trespass offering. Worshiping “nature,” not a holy, Personal, God, they had no sense of unholiness for which to plead the Atoning Sacrifice to come. Truly each Day of Judgment unveils much self-deceit. How much more the Last!