Amos 2:4

Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Amos 2:4-5. For three transgressions of Judah, &c. — Having denounced judgments against the heathen nations, he now proceeds to denounce them against God’s professing people, who were more guilty and inexcusable, as sinning against greater light, and abusing greater advantages than those with which the heathen were favoured. Because they have despised the law of the Lord — The law which was holy, just, and good, and which raised them in dignity above every other nation. In despising this law they despised the wisdom, justice, and goodness of the Law-maker; and this they did, in effect, when they observed not the commandments of it, and made no conscience of keeping them, or acquainting themselves therewith. And their lies — Vulgate, Idola sua, their idols, or fictitious deities, have caused them to err — Their idolatry blinded them, partly from the natural tendency of this sin, and partly from the just judgment of God. After the which — Idols; their fathers have walked — Successively, one generation after another, notwithstanding all the warnings I have given them by my prophets. But I will send a fire upon Judah, &c. — Nebuchadnezzar’s army was this fire, that burned many cities of Judah, and at last Jerusalem itself.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-8 The evil passions of the heart break out in various forms; but the Lord looks to our motives, as well as our conduct. Those that deal cruelly, shall be cruelly dealt with. Other nations were reckoned with for injuries done to men; Judah is reckoned with for dishonour done to God. Judah despised the law of the Lord; and he justly gave them up to strong delusion; nor was it any excuse for their sin, that they were the lies, the idols, after which their fathers walked. The worst abominations and most grievous oppressions have been committed by some of the professed worshippers of the Lord. Such conduct leads many to unbelief and vile idolatry.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For three transgressions of Judah etc. - Rup.: "Here too there is no difference of Jew and Gentile. The word of God, a just judge, spareth no man's person. whom sin joins in one, the sentence of the Judge disjoins not in punishment" Romans 2:12. "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law, and as many as have signed in the law, shall be judged by the law." Jerome: "Those other nations, Damascus and the rest, he upbraids not for having cast away the law of God, and despised His commandments, for they had not the written law, but that of nature only. So then of them he says, that "they corrupted all their compassions" - and the like. But Judah, who, at that time, had the worship of God and the temple and its rites, and had received the law and commandments and judgments and precepts and testimonies, is rebuked and convicted by the Lord, for that it had "cast aside His law and not kept His commandments;" wherefore it should be punished as it deserved.

And since they rejected and despised these, then, in course, "their lies deceived them," that is, their idols; "lies" on their part who made them and worshiped them for the true God, and "lies" and lying to them, as deceiving their hopes. "For an idol is nothing in the world" 1 Corinthians 8:4, as neither are all the vanities in the world whereof people make idols, but they deceive by a vain show, as though they were something. Jerome: "They would not have been deceived by their idols, unless they had first rejected the law of the Lord and not done His commandments." They had sinned with a high hand: "despising" and so rejecting the law of God; and so He despised and rejected them, leaving them to be deceived by the lies which they themselves had chosen. So it ever is with man. Man must either "love God's law and hate and abhor lies" Psalm 119:163, or he will despise God's law and cleave to lies.

He first in act "despises" God's law, (and whoso does not keep it, despises it,) and then he must needs be deceived by some idol of his own, which becomes his God. He first chooses willfully his own "lie," that is, whatever he chooses out of God, and then his own "lie" deceives him. So, morally, liars at last believe themselves. So, whatever false maxim anyone has adopted against his conscience, whether in belief or practice, to justify what he wills against the will of God, or to explain away what God reveals and he mislikes, stifling and lying to his conscience, in the end deceives his conscience, and at the last, a man believes that to be true, which, before he had lied to his conscience, he knew to be false. The prophet uses a bold word in speaking of man's dealings with his God, "despises." Man carries on the serpent's first fraud, "Hath God indeed said?" Man would not willingly own, that he is directly at variance with the Mind of God. Man, in his powerlessness, at war with Omnipotence, and, in his limited knowledge, with Omniscience! It were too silly, as well as too terrible.

So he smoothes it over to himself, "lying" to himself. "God's word must not be taken so precisely;" "God cannot have meant;" "the Author of nature would not have created us so, if He had meant;" and all the other excuses, by which he would evade owning to himself that he is directly rejecting the Mind of God and trampling it under foot. Scripture draws off the veil. Judah had the law of God, and did not keep it; then, he "despised" it. On the one side was God's will, His Eternal Wisdom, His counsel for man for good; on the other, what debasements! On the one side were God's awful threats, on the other, His exceeding promises. Yet man chose whatever he willed, lying to himself, and acting as though God had never threatened or promised or spoken. This ignoring of God's known Will and law and revelation is to despise them, "as effectually as to curse God to His face" Job 2:5. This rejection of God was hereeditary.

Their lies were those "after which their fathers walked," in Egypt and from Egypt onward, in the wilderness (see the note at Amos 5:25-26) , "making the image of the calf of Egypt and worshiping Baalpeor and Ashtoreth and Baalim." Evil acquires a sort of authority by time. People become inured to evils, to which they have been used. False maxims, undisputed, are thought indisputable. They are in possession; and "possession" is held a good title. The popular error of one generation becomes the axiom of the next. The descent "of the image of the great goddess Diana from Jupiter" or of the Coran, becomes a "thing" which cannot be spoken against" Acts 19:35-36. The "lies after which the fathers walked" deceive the children. The children canonize the errors of their fathers." Human opinon is as dogmatic as revelation. The second generation of error demands as implicit submission as God's truth.

The transmission of error against himself, God says, aggravates its evil, does not excuse it Nehemiah 5:5. "Judah is the Church. In her the prophet reproves whosoever, worshiping his own vices and sins, cometh to have that as a god by which he is overcome; as Peter saith, "Whereby a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage" 2 Peter 2:19. The covetous worshipeth mammon; the glutton, his belly Philippians 3:19; the impure, Baalpeor; she who, "living in pleasure, is dead while she liveth" 1 Timothy 5:6, the pleasure in which she liveth." Of such idols the world is full. Every fair form, every idle imagination, everything which gratifies self-love, passion, pride, vanity, intellect, sense, each the most refined or the most debased, is such a "lie," so soon as man loves and regards it more than his God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. From foreign kingdoms he passes to Judah and Israel, lest it should be said, he was strenuous in denouncing sins abroad, but connived at those of his own nation. Judah's guilt differs from that of all the others, in that it was directly against God, not merely against man. Also because Judah's sin was wilful and wittingly against light and knowledge.

law—the Mosaic code in general.

commandments—or statutes, the ceremonies and civil laws.

their lies—their lying idols (Ps 40:4; Jer 16:19), from which they drew false hopes. The order is to be observed. The Jews first cast off the divine law, then fall into lying errors; God thus visiting them with a righteous retribution (Ro 1:25, 26, 28; 2Th 2:11, 12). The pretext of a good intention is hereby refuted: the "lies" that mislead them are "their (own) lies" [Calvin].

after … which their fathers … walked—We are not to follow the fathers in error, but must follow the word of God alone. It was an aggravation of the Jews' sin that it was not confined to preceding generations; the sins of the sons rivalled those of their fathers (Mt 23:32; Ac 7:51) [Calvin].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

God hath in the former verses threatened the enemies of his people for their outrages against his people; now he does threaten his people for their obstinacy in reiterated sins: see Amos 4:3.

Despised; first slighted it, as if no excellency were in it, and next rejected it, as if it were not worthy of their observance; thus they refused with an abhorrence and detestation

the law of the Lord, the whole law, partly by their immoralities and transgressions against the just commands of it, and partly by their false worship and idolatry: that law which was given with so much majesty and terror. on Mount Sinai; from which they should not have departed either to the right hand or to the left; that law which was perfect, holy, and useful, with which no fault could be justly found. So much the greater were their sins, because committed against so clear, full, and pure a law. Have not kept his commandments, i.e. they have greatly violated, as the Hebrew phrase importeth, Nehemiah 9:34 Daniel 9:5,10,11.

Their lies; idols, which are a lie, whether commended to them by their false prophets, or chosen according to their own humour and fancy; all their false, superstitious, and idolatrous worship. Caused them to err; their idolatry was first their error, and this blinded them, made them more sottish and brutish, which was partly from the natural tendency of this sin, and partly from the just judgment of God, Romans 1:24 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12.

After the which, idols or lies,

their fathers, first in Ur of the Chaldees, before Abraham was called, afterwards in Egypt, the wilderness, and in the land of Canaan itself, have walked, successively, one generation after another; idolatry, and superstition, and will-worship have been old hereditary sins, and now shall be punished.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thus saith the Lord, for three transgressions of Judah,.... With whom Benjamin must be joined; for the two tribes are meant as distinct from the ten tribes, under the name of Israel, following. The prophet proceeds from the Heathens round about to the people of God themselves, for the ill usage of whom chiefly the above nations are threatened with ruin, lest they should promise themselves impunity in sin; though, if they rightly considered things, they could not expect it; since, if the Heathens, ignorant of the will of God, and his law, were punished for their sins, then much more those who knew it, and did it not, Luke 12:47; and he begins with Judah, partly because he was of that tribe, lest he should be charged with flattery and partiality, and partly because of the order of his prophecy, which being chiefly concerned with Israel, it was proper that what he had to say to Judah should be delivered first:

and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; the prophet retains the same form as in his prophecies against the Heathen nations; his own people, and God's professing people, being guilty of numerous transgressions, as well as they, and more aggravated than theirs; See Gill on Amos 1:3;

because they have despised the law of the Lord; a law so holy, just, and good, and so righteous, as no other nation had; and yet was not only not observed, but contemned: other nations sinned against the light of nature, and are not charged with breaches of the law of God, which was not given them; but these people had it, yet lightly esteemed it; counted it as a strange thing; walked not according to it, but cast it away from them; which was a great affront to the sovereignty of God, and a trampling upon his legislative power and authority:

and have not kept his commandments; or "statutes" (p); the ordinances of the ceremonial law, which he appointed them to observe for the honour of his name, as parts of his worship; and to lead them into the designs of his grace and salvation by the Messiah:

and their lies caused them to err; either, their idols, as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; which are lying vanities, and deceive, and by which they were made to err from the pure worship of the living and true God to superstition and idolatry; or the words of the false prophets, as Kimchi; the false doctrines their taught, contrary to the word of God, directing them to seek for life by their own works; and promising them peace, when destruction was at hand; and daubing with untempered mortar; and as no lie is of the truth, but against it, so one untruth leads on to another:

after the which their fathers have walked; after which lies, idols, and errors, as in Ur of the Chaldees, in Egypt, in the wilderness, and even in later times: this was no excuse to them that they followed the way of their ancestors, but rather an aggravation of their guilt, that they imitated them, took no warning by them; but filled up the measure of their iniquities, and showed themselves to be a seed of evildoers, a generation of wicked men, the sons of rebellious parents.

(p) "statuta ejus", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, &c.

Geneva Study Bible

Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, {b} I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:

(b) Seeing that the Gentiles who did have as much knowledge were punished in this way, Judah which was so fully instructed by the Lord's will, should not think that they would escape.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. despised] R.V. rejected,—as 1 Samuel 15:23; 1 Samuel 15:26, Isaiah 7:15-16 shew, the better rendering of the Hebrew word used (mâ’as): comp. Isaiah 5:24; Jeremiah 6:19.

the law of the Lord] the direction of Jehovah. See further, on this expression, the Additional Note, p. 230. The reference, as is there shewn, is probably not to ceremonial ordinances, but to spiritual and moral teaching, uttered, as the case might be, by priests or prophets in Jehovah’s name.

not kept his commandments] better, with R.V., his statutes (as ḥoḳ—properly something engraven, viz. on a public tablet, hence fig. decree, statute—is rendered in Deut., and elsewhere): cf. (also with keep) Exodus 15:26; Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 7:11 &c.

their lies] i.e. their unreal gods, whose existence, power, ability to help, &c., are all falsely imagined.

caused them to err] or led them astray: the false gods, set up by the fathers as objects to be revered, beguiled and misled their children. To walk after (sometimes rendered follow) is an expression used often of devotion to idolatry: see Deuteronomy 4:3; Deuteronomy 8:19; Deuteronomy 11:28; Deuteronomy 13:2; Jeremiah 2:5; Jeremiah 2:8; Jeremiah 2:23 &c. (also of devotion to Jehovah, Deuteronomy 13:4 al.).

Additional Note on Chap. Amos 2:4 (‘tôrâh,’ law)

The general sense of ‘law’ (Heb. tôrâh) in the O.T. is authoritative direction (from hôrâh, to point out, Genesis 46:28, or direct, Jdg 13:8)[219], but the kind of ‘direction’ denoted by it varies with the context. Its principal and probably primary application is to oral direction given by the priests in Jehovah’s name, on matters of ceremonial observance, e.g. on distinctions between clean and unclean, on the different species of sacrifice, and the cases in which they were respectively to be offered, on the criteria of leprosy &c.: Leviticus 6:8; Leviticus 6:14; Leviticus 11:46; Leviticus 14:57; Leviticus 15:32; Numbers 5:29 &c.; Jeremiah 18:18 (“direction will never perish from the priest,” i.e. the priest and his functions will never come to an end,—said by those who disbelieved Jeremiah’s predictions of national ruin), Ezekiel 7:26; Haggai 2:11 (‘Ask now direction of the priests,’ after which an example follows); Malachi 2:7 (‘They seek direction at his mouth’): the cognate verb [A.V., R.V. teach] is used similarly, Deuteronomy 24:8 (with reference to leprosy), Deuteronomy 33:10 (“They direct Jacob with thy judgements (Exodus 21:1), and Israel with thy direction”); Micah 3:11 (“Her priests give direction for a price”); Ezekiel 44:23; and elsewhere,—passages which shew that it is the word employed technically to denote this aspect of the priests’ duties. Both the verb and the subst. would be most exactly represented in English by direct and direction, respectively: teach, teaching, and law, when they stand for either, must be understood to possess the same force. The term is however also employed, more generally, both of decisions on points of secular, or civil law (Exodus 18:16; Exodus 18:20), and of the authoritative teaching given in Jehovah’s name, either by priests or prophets, on questions of moral or religious duty. Thus Hosea (Hosea 4:6-8) speaks of Jehovah’s Tôrâh as a moral agency, and attributes the crimes prevalent in Israel (Hosea 4:1 b, Hosea 4:2) to the priests’ forgetfulness of its true character (Amos 4:6 b), and to their worldly unconcern for the “knowledge” of God, which its possession implies (Amos 4:6 a; comp. Jeremiah 2:8): see also Amos 8:1; Amos 8:12. In Isaiah 1:10 the ‘Tôrâh of our God’ is the exposition which follows (Amos 2:11-16) respecting the true character of religious service; Isaiah 5:24 the Tôrâh, which Judah has “rejected” (same word as in Amos 2:4) consists of the precepts of civil righteousness and morality, the disregard of which the prophet has been just denouncing, Amos 2:8-16; Isaiah 8:16; Isaiah 8:20 it denotes the half-political, half-religious advice just given by the prophet (Amos 2:12-15); Isaiah 30:9 it is used similarly of the partly political, partly religious, warnings of the prophets (see Amos 2:10-15); Isaiah 30:20 the prophets are called by the corresponding subst., the ‘directers’ (teachers) of the people of Jerusalem. In Deuteronomy the exposition of moral and religious duty, which occupies the greater part of the book, is repeatedly described as “this Tôrâh” (Deuteronomy 1:5, Deuteronomy 4:8; Deuteronomy 4:44, Deuteronomy 17:18 &c.). Jeremiah uses the word in a similar sense: e.g. Jeremiah 6:19 (as in Isaiah 1:10, of the spirit in which religious duties should be performed, see Isaiah 1:20); Amos 9:13 f. (of exhortations against idolatry—probably those contained in Deuteronomy), Jeremiah 16:11 (similarly), Jeremiah 26:4 (of the preaching of the prophets, see Amos 2:5). It is also used of the authoritative religious and moral teaching, which the prophets picture as being given in the future to the world, either by God Himself, or by His representative: Isaiah 2:3 (= Micah 4:2); Jeremiah 31:33; Isaiah 42:4 (of the preaching of Jehovah’s ideal “Servant”), Isaiah 51:4. Here the context (comp. the note on lies, in the same verse), and the importance which Amos uniformly attaches to moral duties, make it probable that, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, he means by the term spiritual and moral teaching, uttered, whether by priests or prophets, in Jehovah’s name.

[219] The root yârâh signifies, however, properly to throw or cast (Exodus 15:4); and hence it is quite possible that the primitive meaning of hôrâh, in this connexion, was to cast the sacred lot at a sanctuary, for the purpose of ascertaining the will of the deity on behalf of those who came to consult it. Comp. the use made by the priest of the “Ephod,” and “Urim and Thummim” (1 Samuel 14:3; 1 Samuel 14:18 (LXX.), 41 [note esp. LXX.], 42, 1 Samuel 23:9-12, 1 Samuel 28:6, 1 Samuel 30:7-8). Tôrâh, if this view be correct, will have denoted originally the ‘direction’ obtained by means of the sacred lot. It remained a principal duty of the Israelitish priest to teach Jehovah’s Tôrâh, though this particular method of ascertaining it fell no doubt early into abeyance, and the term acquired a more general sense. Comp. Nowack, Hebr. Arch. ii. 97f. In Arabic, it may be observed, kâhin (which corresponds to the Heb. kôhçn, priest) means a diviner, who speaks as the organ of a god or jinn; and a comparison of the Hebrew and Arabic terms makes it probable that the common and primitive meaning of both was one who gave answers, in the name of his god, at a sanctuary: in Arabia, the kâhin was gradually dissociated from the sanctuary and became a mere diviner; in Canaan, his connexion with the sanctuary was preserved, and he acquired important sacrificial functions in addition.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 4, 5. - § 2. Judah is summoned to judgment, the prophet thus passing from alien nations, through the most favoured people, to Israel, the subject of his prophecy. Verse 4. - They have despised the Law of the Lord. The other nations are denounced for their offences against God's people; Judah is sentenced for her offences against God himself. The former likewise had offended against the law of conscience, natural religion; the latter against the written Law, revealed religion. By thus denouncing Judah, Amos shows his perfect impartiality. The Law, Torah, is the general name for the whole body of precepts and commandments, chuqqim, moral and ceremonial. Their lies; Vulgate, idola sua, which is the sense, though not the translation, of the word. Idols are so called as being nonentities in themselves, and deceiving those who trust in them. "We know," says St. Paul (1 Corinthians 8:4). "that an idol is nothing in the world." The Septuagint gives, τὰ μάταια αὐτῶν α} ἐποίησαν, "their vain things which they made." Their fathers have walked. This is the usual expression for attachment to idolatrous practices. From this error the Israelites were never weaned till their return from the penal Captivity. Amos 2:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Judah. - Amos 2:4. "Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept His ordinances, and their lies led them astray, after which their fathers walked, Amos 2:5. I send fire into Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem." With the announcement that the storm of the wrath of God will also burst upon Judah, Amos prepares the way for passing on to Israel, the principal object of his prophecies. In the case of Judah, he condemns its contempt of the law of its God, and also its idolatry. Toorh is the sum and substance of all the instructions and all the commandments which Jehovah had given to His people as the rule of life. Chuqqı̄m are the separate precepts contained in the thōrâh, including not only the ceremonial commands, but the moral commandments also; for the two clauses are not only parallel, but synonymous. כּזביהם, their lies, are their idols, as we may see from the relative clause, since "walking after" (bâlakh 'achărē) is the standing expression for idolatry. Amos calls the idols lies, not only as res quae fallunt (Ges.), but as fabrications and nonentities ('ĕlı̄hı̄m and hăbhâlı̄m), having no reality in themselves, and therefore quite unable to perform what was expected of them. The "fathers" who walked after these lies were their forefathers generally, since the nation of Israel practised idolatry even in the desert (cf. Amos 5:26), and was more or less addicted to it ever afterwards, with the sole exception of the times of Joshua, Samuel, David, and part of the reign of Solomon, so that even the most godly kings of Judah were unable to eradicate the worship upon the high places. The punishment threatened in consequence, namely, that Jerusalem should be reduced to ashes, was carried out by Nebuchadnezzar.