Passage

Amos 5.7

Book: Amos · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

5. but seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought. 6. Seek Jehovah, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el.

7. Ye who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth,

seek him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth (Jehovah is his name); 9. that bringeth sudden destruction upon the strong, so that destruction cometh upon the fortress. (Amos 5:5-9, ASV)

WEB

5. but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing. 6. Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.

7. You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth:

seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name, 9. who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress. (Amos 5:5-9, WEB)

KJV

5. But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought. 6. Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

7. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name: 9. That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. ^{spoiled: Heb. spoil} (Amos 5:5-9, KJV)

YLT

5. And seek not Beth-El, and Gilgal enter not, And Beer-Sheba pass not through, For Gilgal doth utterly remove, And Beth-El doth become vanity. 6. Seek ye Jehovah, and live, Lest He prosper as fire [against] the house of Joseph, And it hath consumed, And there is no quencher for Beth-El.

7. Ye who are turning to wormwood judgment, And righteousness to the earth have put down,

The maker of Kimah and Kesil, And the turner to morning of death-shade, And day [as] night He hath made dark, Who is calling to the waters of the sea, And poureth them on the face of the earth, Jehovah [is] His name; 9. Who is brightening up the spoiled against the strong, And the spoiled against a fortress cometh. (Amos 5:5-9, 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

One of three verses where Amos pairs mishpat (justice) with tzedaqah (righteousness), the other two being 5:24 and 6:12. In each the pair is not merely absent but inverted.

Wormwood (la'anah) is a bitter desert shrub, used across the Hebrew Bible as the taste of poisoned outcomes (Deuteronomy 29:18; Jeremiah 9:15; Lamentations 3:19; Proverbs 5:4). The charge is not that the courts had stopped functioning; it is that they were functioning and producing bitterness, which is worse. A verdict is being rendered in every case, and the verdict is the injury.

"Cast righteousness to the earth" completes the picture. What should stand upright and public, the thing established in the gate (Amos 5:15), is thrown down and walked on.

The parallel at Amos 6:12 makes the absurdity explicit with two rhetorical questions, do horses run on rock, does one plow the sea with oxen, before landing on the same inversion. Amos treats corrupted justice as a violation of the created order, not merely of a statute.

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

Quoted in

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.