Amos 5 Seek God and Live
Funeral Procession of the People of God
1 Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel:
· Helpless 2 "Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up." Princes who could help are disabled
· Hopeless 3 For thus says the Lord GOD: "The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel." The people who could help are diminished.
They are left for dead deserted and devastated. The virgin daughter is a young woman who ought to have her entire life ahead of her – marriage and children – but instead is alone, deserted, and fallen. Her future is in ruins. Rayburn The idea of the virgin is the one who is under the protection of her father and then when married under the protection of her husband, but here she is left exposed in her own land without anyone to come to her aid (Joseph LoSardo). Notice the terms used in the text, “Fallen, forsaken”, “with none to raise her up”, none that can do it, not that cares to lend her a hand (Henry) It is as if it has already happened. She is hopeless and helpless, she is figuratively dead. Thus, they should lament because the death sentence has been issued and their only hope of retrieve is to turn from their sin to God in repentance and faith, in hopes that he will show mercy (14,15). Some suggest that Amos was even dressed in mourner’s attire (torn garments and ashes on his head) to deliver this oracle (Yates)
Fervent Plea from God
4 For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: "Seek me and live; Those that seek perishing gods shall perish with them v.5, but those that seek the living God shall live with him (Henry). The people had developed cheap substitutes for a true relationship with the living God (Yates). They were to seek the person of the Lord not the places of the Lord. A place has not power. It can’t make or fulfill promises. It can and will be destroyed, whereas the Lord will prevail and is faithful and has the power to fulfill his promises. That is why they must seek the person and not the place. He alone can give life and prevail against all who come against him. They must detach themselves from substitutes and seek the Lord.
Relationship over Ritual 5 but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing." Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba were important sites in Israel’s history and of the covenant. There were shrines to the Israelites who made faithful pilgrimages, even to Beersheba, which was at the southernmost end of the southern kingdom of Judah. But these were not Jerusalem where the temple was and where the true worship of Yahweh alone could be offered. It shows the futility of Israel’s religious life and zeal. They make pilgrimage but to the wrong place; they offer worship but worship that offends the Lord rather than pleases him. Everything they are doing is making matters worse not better (Rayburn).
Idolatry is the desire of man to see God with his eyes, to have outward representation of Him who cannot be represented. Man is so unspiritual that he will not worship this Invisible One in spirit and in truth, but craves after outward similitudes, symbols and
signs. They can only worship their god by objects which appeal to the senses. An outward altar, an outward priest, an outward ritual, outward rites—all these are nothing but another form of the old idolatry of Bethel (Spurgeon) Gigal is the place that represented freedom, yet it’s freedom would be taken away as it is taken into exile. Bethel was a great and splendid city and it would come to nothing. Beersheba was the symbol of overzealous pride in religion. They had to pass Jerusalem to get to it. They would proclaim. “You went to Jerusalem, well I went all the way to Beersheba (LoSardo).
Repentance over Ruin 6 Seek the LORD and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel, 7 O you who turn justice to wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth! - You turn judgment to wormwood, that is, you make your administrations of justice bitter and nauseous, and highly displeasing both to God and man.’’ (Henry). The administration of Biblical justice should have involved hope for the downtrodden and the afflicted, but the whole process of the law had been reversed. Instead of being the hope to the hopeless, judgement had been turned to bitter wormwood ( a plant which represented that which was bitter, repugnant and hateful) (Yates).
“Seek the Lord and live.” Make the Lord himself the destination of your pilgrimage. Israel was like a bride on her honeymoon, enjoying all the sights, eating marvelous food, sunning herself on a pristine beach, all the while ignoring the groom she came with. She is all about marriage but she is not about her husband. Israel was assuming that if she felt right about God, she must be right with God, and it was not so. (Rayburn) Men can only find life when he seeks God with all his being and finds him as the meaning of his life (Yates). Where else should they go but to their protector? They must seek the Lord. In order to do this they must abandon their idolatries. God is not sought truly if he be not sought exclusively, for he will endure no rivals (Henry).
Frightful Power of God
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, the LORD is his name; 9 who makes destruction flash forth against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress. -.Seek him that makes the seven stars and Orion..…the Lord of Hosts is his name; that strengthened the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress:” that is, Seek Him, who, being the Creator and Governor of all things, possesses all power to avenge himself upon you for your neglect of him, or to give success to your feeble endeavors (Simeon). He is a God of almighty power himself. The idols were impotent things, could do neither good nor evil, and therefore it was folly either to fear or trust them; but the God of Israel does everything, and can do anything, and therefore we ought to seek him; he challenges our homage who has all power in his hand, and it is our interest to have him on our side (Henry) He gives three examples of his power over Nature: v. 8 that every Israelite could relate to: 1) Constellations (the two mention commonly marked the seasons), 2) Cycle of Night and Day, 3) Cycle of Water. He gives an example of His power over the Nations v. 9: destruction of the military and the fortress. The order, the regularity, the manifest calculation and design which appear in every one of the constellations, in every single planet, in every fixed star and in every part of the great multitude of worlds which God has created are such decisive evidences that if men do not see something of God in them, they must be weak in their minds or wicked in their hearts! (Spurgeon)
Frequent Perversions against God
10 They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. 11 Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. 12 For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins--The judges aimed at nothing but to enrich themselves; and therefore they took from the poor burdens of wheat, took it by extortion, either by way of bribe or by usury. The poor had no other way to save themselves from being trodden upon, and trodden to dirt, by them, than by presenting to them horse-loads of that corn which they and their families should have had to subsist upon (Henry). . . . Their sins are very numerous; they are our manifold transgressions, sins of various kinds and often repeated. Oh what a multitude of vain and vile thoughts lodge within us! What a multitude of idle, foolish, wicked words have been spoken by us! In what a multitude of instances have we gratified and indulged our corrupt appetites and passions! God knows how many, just how many, our transgressions are; none of them pass him unobserved; we know that they are to us innumerable . . . and we have reason to see what danger we have brought ourselves into, and what abundance of work we have made for repentance, by our manifold transgressions, by the numberless number of our sins of daily incursion (Henry) What they have got by oppression and extortion shall be taken from them (v. 11): "You have built houses of hewn stone, which you thought would be lasting; but you shall not dwell in them, for your enemies shall burn them down, or possess them for themselves, or take you into captivity. You have planted pleasant vineyards, have contrived how to make them every way agreeable, and have promised yourselves many a pleasant walk in them; but you shall be forced to walk off, and shall never drink wine of them.’’ (Henry)
The text has a word for the stubborn and unawakened. There is no mention of those who thirst for Him, who are humbled and confess their faults! This exhortation is given to those who have no good points about them, but many of the most pernicious traits of character! Those who turn judgment into wormwood and leave off righteousness in the earth—even they are bid to seek God! Marvelous mercy! Who after this shall dare despair? Strangers to God, are not exclude him from seeking God, but, told to “Seek Him.” If sin has perverted your judgments, yet seek the great Creator and Preserver! Seek Him, for you shall find Him! You are not bid to seek His face in vain—the command to seek Him implies the certainty of His being found of you! (Spurgeon)
Fixed Path toward God
13 Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. 14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. 15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.- The Israelites imagined that God would graciously overlook their sin as long as they carried out their religious responsibilities in the “house of God” (Yates). Things are not so bad but that they may be amended if the right course be taken (Henry). There is no seeking after God that is not at the same time seeking after good and shunning evil, as well as seeking after justice for the oppressed. (Boice)
Here is a call to true faith and repentance: a living conviction that your life is in God’s hands, that he and he alone can deal with your sins, that he and he alone can give you what you need, can protect you from the consequences of your life, sinful life as it is, and that he will save those who turn to in him. True faith is the conviction that the first and last thing in a human beings existence is peace with God, the favor of God, and the presence of God. The meaning of life is this: we were made to live with God but our sins have driven us away from God, and the only way back to God is by God’s mercy which he extends to those who look to him. That is why Christ came into the world “to save his people from their sins” and why he says that he is the way, the truth, and the life and that no one comes to the father but by him. We’ve got to get to the Father, this is man’s problem, and the only way to the Father is the way the Father himself provided in Jesus. Israel like so many other generations of religious people, and all people are religious in one way or another, was seeking some other way than the way of living faith in the living God; . . . Amos was calling her back to Yahweh himself. “Seek the Lord not Bethel!”
The second part true faith and repentance involves living according to God’s law. If you really are reckoning with the Living God, if you are really counting on Yahweh himself to show you his mercy, to forgive your sins and grant you peace with him, if you really expect to receive favor from the hand of the Lord himself, if you have been wonderfully impressed by the greatness of God and believe that he will be merciful to you a sinner, then you will not only “seek good and not evil” but you will “hate evil and love good.” Anyone who reckons with the Lord and is looking directly at him as the living God, the holy judge, who is also the savior of his people, anyone who confesses that the Lord is known by his people and is merciful to them who call upon him, will accept his will, that his law is right and good and will want to keep that law. Such people always have these two interests: to know God’s will and to do it.
The problem with Israel was not that she did not feel well-disposed toward God, she did, and she thought God was blessing her. She was happy with Yahweh, she liked Yahweh. The problem was that she was not counting directly on Yahweh for her salvation and the proof of that was she was not willing to do his will as he had revealed that will in his covenant and law. True conversion to God, true faith and true repentance always has these effects: it makes a person conscious of the Lord himself as the object of his hope, his trust, his confidence, his love, and his loyalty and it makes a person eager to do God’s will and live as the Lord would have him live. (Rayburn)
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