What is the meaning of Amos 5:16?

Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says

• Threefold title piles up authority and certainty—Yahweh speaks as Commander of angel armies (Isaiah 1:24; Amos 3:13).

• “Therefore” links the announcement to Israel’s unrepentant injustice (Amos 5:10-15). Nothing remains but judgment.

• The verse unfolds as a courtroom sentence that will surely be carried out (Deuteronomy 32:39-41).

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There will be wailing in all the public squares

• “Wailing” pictures audible grief filling marketplaces where life once bustled (Amos 8:3).

• Public life will be turned inside-out: instead of trade and celebration, only mourning (Jeremiah 9:10).

• Literal siege and slaughter by Assyria lie ahead, but the principle applies wherever a society rejects God’s righteousness (Proverbs 14:34).

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and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets.

• Repeated “Alas!” (cf. Ezekiel 21:12) conveys helpless shock; streets that echoed with children’s laughter will echo with despair.

• Every neighborhood, rich and poor alike, will share the same anguish (Zephaniah 1:11).

• God’s warnings are public so that none can claim ignorance (Amos 3:6-8).

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The farmer will be summoned to mourn,

• Even those working distant fields will be called in; calamity reaches countryside as well as city (Joel 1:11-12).

• Ordinary people, not only officials, must join the lament—sin’s fallout is universal (Romans 3:23).

• Summoning farmers indicates extended, organized mourning, not a momentary outcry (Jeremiah 8:20-22).

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and the mourners to wail.

• Professional mourners (2 Chronicles 35:25; Matthew 9:23) signal funeral-level catastrophe multiplied across the land.

• Their skill cannot soften God’s verdict; ritual grief cannot replace repentance (Amos 5:21-24).

• The escalating verbs—mourn, wail—underscore the irreversible nature of the coming disaster (Isaiah 22:12-14).

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summary

Amos 5:16 declares that because Israel spurned God’s call to justice and righteousness, the Lord Himself pronounces a nationwide sentence of grief. Every place—squares, streets, fields—will resound with mourning led by both common folk and professionals. The verse vividly pictures the totality of divine judgment, urging all generations to heed God’s warnings, turn from sin, and walk in obedience before calamity falls.