The Lord now returned to explain further what He did not want ( Amos 5:21-23). With another rhetorical question (cf. Amos 5:20) the Lord asked if His people really worshipped Him with their animal sacrifices and grain offerings when they were in the wilderness for40 years. Animal sacrifices and grain offerings represent the totality of Israel"s Levitical offerings. As He clarified in the next verse, they had not. Their hypocritical worship was not something new; it had marked them from the beginning of their nation (e.g, the golden calf incident, Exodus 32). [source][source][source]
"Today, there are those who are more in love with the church than with Christ, people who are more preoccupied with choir robes and candle holders [1] than with an encounter with the living God. Can we imagine that the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever will wink at this misdirected love?" [2][source]
Context Summary
Amos 5:16-27 - A Dark Day For Hypocrites
Mighty sins had been committed, and mighty judgments were at hand. The oppression of the poor, Amos 5:11; the erection of elegant dwellings from unrighteous exactions, Amos 5:11; the acceptance of bribes to betray the needy, Amos 5:12 all these must be reckoned with. But if the guilty nation would not seek God and establish judgment in the gate, where magistrates sat to dispense justice, the streets would be filled with wailing, and the husbandmen and vine-dressers would be equally affected by the widespread desolation as the dwellers in the cities.
Moreover, bad as Israel's present condition was, it would become infinitely worse, as though a man fleeing from a lion rushed into the arms of a bear, or, taking refuge in a house, was stung by a serpent that lay hid in a cranny of the wall. Of what avail are religious rites, when the heart is alienated from God, Amos 5:21, etc.? Let us heed well the exhortation of Amos 5:23-24. The martyr Stephen quoted Amos 5:25-27, which accuse the people of carrying about little shrines and pocket-idols, to serve as amulets averting disaster, Acts 7:43. But they might as well have built a bank of sand to arrest an overflowing flood! The one thing which is going to help us is repentance toward God and faith in our Savior Jesus Christ. [source]
Chapter Summary: Amos 5
1A lamentation for Israel 4An exhortation to repentance 21God rejects their hypocritical service
What do the individual words in Amos 5:25 mean?
Sacrificesand offeringsdid you offerMein the wildernessfortyyearshouseof Israel
Parse: Proper Noun, masculine singular
Root: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Sense: the second name for Jacob given to him by God after his wrestling with the angel at Peniel.