Amos 5:26

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? HAVE YE OFFERED UNTO ME SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS IN THE WILDERNESS FORTY YEARS, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL? BUT YE HAVE BORNE THE TABERNACLE OF YOUR MOLOCH. Yes; ye have offered unto me sacrifices, etc. "But (all the time with strange inconsistency) ye have borne (aloft in solemn pomp) the tabernacle (i:e., the portable shrine, or model tabernacle: small enough not to be detected by Moses) of your Moloch" (that idol is 'your' god; I am not, though ye go through the form of presenting offerings to me). Similarly Acts 19:24 mentions "silver shrines for Diana made by Demetrius, a silversmith, for her worshippers. The question, "Have ye," better, 'Did ye offer unto me sacrifices?' is not denial (for they did offer in the wilderness to Yahweh sacrifices of th...

It now follows, _And ye have carried Sicuth your king. _This place, we know, is quoted by Stephen Acts 7:42 : but he followed the Greek version; and the Greek translator, whoever he was, was mistaken as to the word, Sicuth, and read, Sucoth, and thought the name an appellative of the plural number, and supposed it to be derived from סוך _suk, _which means a tabernacle; for he translated it σκήνην as if it was said, “Ye bore the tabernacle of your king instead of the ark.” But it was a manifest mistake; for the probability is, that Sicuth was the proper name of an idol. _Ye bore _then _Sicuth your king. _He called it their king by way of reproach; for they had violated that priestly kingdom, which God had instituted; for he, as a king, exercised dominion over them. Since then God would be deemed the king of Israel, as he had ascribed to

18-27 Woe unto those that desire the day of the Lord's judgments, that wish for times of war and confusion; as some who long for changes, hoping to rise upon the ruins of their country! but this should be so great a desolation, that nobody could gain by it. The day of the Lord will be a dark, dismal, gloomy day to all impenitent sinners. When God makes a day dark, all the world cannot make it light. Those who are not reformed by the judgments of God, will be pursued by them; if they escape one, another stands ready to seize them. A pretence of piety is double iniquity, and so it will be found. The people of Israel copied the crimes of their forefathers. The law of worshipping the Lord our God, is, Him only we must serve. Professors thrive so little, because they have little or no communion with God in their duties. They were led captive by Satan into idolatry, therefore God caused them t...

Verse Amos 5:26. _BUT YE HAVE BORNE_] The preceding verse spoke of their _fathers_; the present verse speaks of the _Israelites then_ _existing_, who were so grievously addicted to idolatry, that they not only worshipped at stated public places the _idols_ set up by _public authority_, but they _carried their gods about with them_ everywhere. _THE TABERNACLE OF YOUR MOLOCH_] Probably a small portable shrine, with an image of their god in it, such as _Moloch_; and the _star_ or _representative_ of their god _Chiun_. For an ample exposition of this verse, Acts 7:42; to which let me add, that from _Picart's_ Religious Ceremonies, vol. iii. p. 199, we find that there was an idol named Choun worshipped among the _Peruvians_ from the

BUT YE HAVE BORNE - Literally, “And ye bare the tabernacle of your Moloch” (literally, “your king,” from where the idol Moloch had its name.) He assigns the reason, why he had denied that they sacririced to God in the wilderness. “Did ye offer sacrifices unto Me, and ye bare?” that is, seeing that ye bare. The two were incompatible. Since they did “carry about the tabernacle of their king,” they did not really worship God. He whom they chose as “their king,” was their god. The “tabernacle” or “tent” was probably a little portable shrine, such as Demetrius the silversmith and those of his craft made for the little statues of their goddess Diana Acts 19:24. Such are mentioned in Egyptian idolatry. “They carry forth” we are told , “the image in a small shrine of gilt wood.” OF YOUR MOLOCH AND CHIUN - The two clauses must be r

EXPOSITION VERSE 1-CH. 6:14 § 8. _Third address_:_ the prophet utters a lamentation over the fall of Israel_. (Amos 6:1.) He calls her to repentance, while he shows wherein she has declined from the right way. To make this plain, he contrasts God's power and majesty with the people's iniquity, instances of which he gives (Amos 6:4). The only condition of safety is amendment (Amo 6:13 -15); and as they refuse to reform, they shall have cause to lament (verses 16, 17). This threat is enforced by the two emphatic "woes" that follow, the first of which demonstrates the baselessness of their trust in their covenant relation to God (verses 18-27); the second denounces the careless lives of the chiefs, who, revelling in luxury, believed not in the coming judgment ...

BUT YE HAVE BORNE THE TABERNACLE OF YOUR MOLOCH,.... The god of the Ammonites; Amos 1:13; and Jeremiah 7:31; called theirs, because they also worshipped it, and caused their seed to pass through the fire to it; and which was carried by them in a shrine, or portable tent or chapel. Or it may be rendered, "but ye have borne Siccuth your king" p; and so Siccuth may be taken for the name of an idol, as it is by Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, to whom they gave the title of king, as another idol went by the name of the queen of heaven; perhaps by one was meant the sun, and by the other the moon; AND CHIUN, YOUR IMAGES; Moloch or Siccuth was one, and Chiun another image, or rather the same; and this the same with Chevan, which in the Arabic and Persic languages is the name of Saturn, as

Amos 5:4. _For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:_ And that it just the message of God to professing Christians now: «Seek ye me.» Get away from your mere ceremonies, from trusting in your outward performances, and get to God himself. Get beyond your fellow-worshippers and your ministers, beyond your sanctuaries and your supposed holy places, and get in spirit and in truth to God himself: «Seek ye me, and ye shall live.» Amos 5:5. _But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal and pass not to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought._ These were the places where the calves and other idols were set up for the worship of God by means of visible symbols. That was the Romanism of that day. Pure spiritual

CHAPTER 5 The Third Discourse _ 1. The lamentation (Amos 5:1) _ 2. Seek the Lord and ye shall live (Amos 5:4) 3. The wailing (Amos 5:16) 4. The captivity announced (Amos 5:21) Amos 5:1. This chapter begins with a lamentation over the fallen daughter of Israel. “She shall no more rise” has been used as an argument against the future and literal restoration of Israel. The prophet has only the present government of God over that generation in view and does not deny at all a future rising as so abundantly predicted in the prophetic Word. “The

ISRAEL'S DELUSIONS. The prophet resumes the subject of Israel's delusions, how she disregards the essential conditions of real welfare. In Amos 5:18 he deals with a peculiar example of this, the conception or rather misconception of the day of Yahweh. The current belief was that when the day of Yahweh dawned, He would surely vindicate His people and punish their foes. Amos urges that this belief is a serious and unfortunate mistake, and conceives the day of Yahweh as a day of reckoning for His own people. What good will it do you? Yahweh's day is a day of darkness and not light (Harper). The prudent course would be at once to seek God and live. Simply to long and pray for the day of Yahweh is to flee from one danger and fall into another which may be more deadly (Amos 5:19). After disposing of this peculiar delusion,