Passage

Amos 5.21-24

Book: Amos · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

19. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20. Shall not the day of Jehovah be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21. I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22. Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings and meal-offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. 23. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. 24. But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? 26. Yea, ye have borne the tabernacle of your king and the shrine of your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. (Amos 5:19-26, ASV)

WEB

19. As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; Or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him. 20. Won’t the day of Yahweh be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21. I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies. 22. Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals. 23. Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24. But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Israel? 26. You also carried the tent of your king and the shrine of your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves. (Amos 5:19-26, WEB)

KJV

19. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21. I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. ^{in: or, your holy days} 22. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. ^{peace: or, thank offerings} 23. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. 24. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. ^{run: Heb. roll}

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? 26. But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. ^{the tabernacle: or, Siccuth your king} (Amos 5:19-26, KJV)

YLT

19. As [when] one fleeth from the face of the lion, And the bear hath met him, And he hath come in to the house, And hath leant his hand on the wall, And the serpent hath bitten him. 20. Is not the day of Jehovah darkness and not light, Even thick darkness that hath no brightness?

21. I have hated, I have loathed your festivals, And I am not refreshed by your restraints. 22. For though ye cause burnt-offerings and your presents to ascend to Me, I am not pleased, And the peace-offering of your fatlings I behold not. 23. Turn aside from Me the noise of thy songs, Yea, the praise of thy psaltery I hear not. 24. And roll on as waters doth judgment, And righteousness as a perennial stream.

Sacrifices and offering did ye bring nigh to Me, In a wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? 26. And ye bare Succoth your king, and Chiun your images, The star of your god, that ye made for yourselves. (Amos 5:19-26, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Amos of Tekoa, a herdsman (noqed, sheep breeder) and tender of sycamore figs from Judah, speaking the word of the LORD.
Audience: The northern kingdom of Israel, addressed at the height of its prosperity under Jeroboam II.
Location: Delivered in the northern kingdom, principally at Bethel, the royal sanctuary and state temple (Amos 7:13).
Time period: c. 760-750 BC, in the reigns of Uzziah of Judah and Jeroboam II of Israel, "two years before the earthquake" (Amos 1:1). Amos is generally reckoned the earliest of the writing prophets.

Theological reading

The best-known passage in the book, and the one most often quoted out of its own argument.

It is not an attack on worship as such. Amos names the festivals, assemblies, burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, and music, that is, the entire authorized cult of the Torah, and God says He hates them. Read alone, the passage sounds like a prophetic rejection of sacrifice in favor of ethics, and it has often been read that way since Wellhausen. Read in context it is something more specific: the same book assumes the sanctuaries are functioning and busy (Amos 4:4-5), and the complaint is not that Israel worships too much but that the worship is offered by the same hands described four verses earlier as taking bribes and pushing aside the needy in the gate (Amos 5:12).

The two nouns in verse 24 are the book's spine. Mishpat (justice, the right verdict actually rendered) and tzedaqah (righteousness, right relation actively maintained) appear together at 5:7, 5:24, and 6:12, each time as the thing Israel has inverted. Verse 24 asks for them as a nachal ethan, a perennial wadi: not the seasonal torrent that runs after rain and vanishes, but the stream that is there in the dry season. The image is of justice as a constant, not an occasional exertion.

Canonical company. The same argument, worship without obedience rejected, runs through 1 Samuel 15:22, Isaiah 1:11-17, Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6-8, and Jeremiah 7:21-23, and Jesus twice cites the Hosea form of it (Matthew 9:13; Matthew 12:7). The prophets are not proposing an alternative to the cult; they are denying that the cult can be used as a substitute for the covenant it belongs to.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

H6666 - tzedakah, tzedakah, Strong's H6666
H4941 - mishpat, mishpat, Strong's H4941
H8085 - shama, shama, Strong's H8085

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Lexicon:

Passages:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.