What is the meaning of Amos 5:7? Those who Amos opens with a simple yet sobering observation: “There are those who…” (Amos 5:7a). The phrase signals that God is not speaking in vague generalities; He sees specific people among His covenant nation who are abandoning His ways. • Amos has already identified them in 2:6–8—wealthy elites “who sell the righteous for silver” and trample the poor. • 4:1 calls them “cows of Bashan… who oppress the poor, crush the needy.” • Like the self-secure in Zephaniah 1:12, they presume God will not act, but Amos exposes their complacency. By naming “those who,” God reminds every listener that He distinguishes between the faithful remnant (Amos 5:15) and the corrupt majority. Turn justice into wormwood Justice—mishpat—is meant to reflect God’s character (Psalm 89:14), yet these leaders have corrupted it “into wormwood” (a bitter, poisonous herb). • Isaiah 5:20 echoes the same inversion: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” • Deuteronomy 29:18 warns of “a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit,” the very image Amos uses. • Proverbs 17:23 shows how bribes “twist the ways of justice.” • Jeremiah 9:15 depicts God giving wormwood as judgment, but in Amos the people have cooked up the bitterness themselves. The picture is of courts and marketplaces where verdicts should be sweet with fairness but instead leave a toxic aftertaste, poisoning society and provoking divine wrath. Cast righteousness to the ground Not content with corrupting justice, the offenders “cast righteousness to the ground” (Amos 5:7b)—treating God’s standard as disposable. • Isaiah 59:14 laments, “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far off… truth has stumbled in the street.” • Daniel 8:12 visualizes truth being “thrown to the ground,” a cosmic rebellion mirrored here in civic life. • Romans 1:18 describes those who “suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” showing the timeless pattern of rejecting God’s moral order. The imagery suggests violence: righteousness is not merely neglected but trampled, like Psalm 12:8 where “the wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.” summary Amos 5:7 exposes a community that has flipped God’s design upside down. Specific individuals within Israel have poisoned justice until it tastes like wormwood and have stomped righteousness into the dirt. The verse warns that when God’s moral standards are despised, society rots from within and invites judgment. For the believer, the call is clear: guard justice, prize righteousness, and live out Micah 6:8 so that the sweetness of God’s character is tasted in every sphere of life. |
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