Amos 5:18

5:18-27 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 to go into captivity among idolaters.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord,.... Either the day of Christ's coming in the flesh, as Cocceius interprets it; and which was desired by the people of Israel, not on account of spiritual and eternal salvation, but that they might be delivered by him from outward troubles and enemies, and enjoy temporal felicity; they had a notion of him as a temporal Saviour and Redeemer, in whose days they should possess much outward happiness, and therefore desired his coming; see Malachi 3:1 ; or else the day of the Lord's judgments upon them, spoken of by the prophet, and which they were threatened with, but did not believe it would ever come; and therefore in a scoffing jeering manner, expressed their desire of it, to show their disbelief of it, and that they were in no pain or fear about it, like those in Isaiah 5:19 ; to what end is it for you? why do you desire it? what benefit do you expect to get by it?

Amos 5:18-20 . Wo unto you that desire the day of the Lord — Scoffingly, not believing any such day will come: for this seems to be spoken of some among them, who, in mockery, expressed a desire of seeing those things which the prophet predicted brought to pass. Or, it may respect those who, notwithstanding all the prophet had said, still expected God would appear in their favour, not to their destruction: see Isaiah 5:19 . To what end is it for you? — To what purpose should you desire to see the day of the Lord? The day of the Lord is darkness — Adversity, black and doleful, and not light — No joy or comfort in it. It will certainly be a very dismal time to you, and indeed to all in the country, when evils shall succeed one another so fast, that he who seeks to escape one, shall fall into a greater. As if a man did flee from a lion — A creature that has something of generosity in his nature; and a bear met him — Which never spares any thing that comes in its way. Or went into the house — Namely, for fear of being devoured by beasts, or to avoid some other danger which threatened him without; and a serpent bit him — And a viper, whose sting is incurable, should creep out of the wall and bite him. Serpents sometimes concealed themselves in the holes and chinks of the walls of the eastern houses.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness — It might indeed well be described as darkness; even very dark, without any brightness in it — Since it was to be no less than the destruction of the towns and cities, the desolation of the country, the slaughtering of the people, or the carrying of them into captivity, and even the overturning of the whole kingdom.

Woe unto you that {k} desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. (k) He speaks in this way because the wicked and hypocrites said they were content to endure God's judgments, whereas the godly tremble and fear; Jer 30:7, Joe 2:2,11, Zep 1:15.

That desire, scoffingly, or not believing any such day would come: the prophets had long threatened such a day, but these scoffers thought no such thing could overtake them, and if it did they would know the worst of it; alter their course they will not, whatever comes on it, and they are confident the prophets fright them with bugbears: but woe to such scoffers! The day of the Lord: see Joel 1:15 2:1 Zephaniah 1:14 . To what end is it for you? what do you think to get by it? what good can you expect when darkest calamities overwhelm you? The day of the Lord is darkness; all adversity, most black and doleful, therefore called in the abstract darkness. And not light; no joy, hope, or comfort in it.

18. Woe unto you who do not scruple to say in irony, "We desire that the day of the Lord would come," that is, "Woe to you who treat it as if it were a mere dream of the prophets" (Isa 5:19; Jer 17:15; Eze 12:22). to what end is it for you!—Amos taking their ironical words in earnest: for God often takes the blasphemer at his own word, in righteous retribution making the scoffer's jest a terrible reality against himself. Ye have but little reason to desire the day of the Lord; for it will be to you calamity, and not joy.

Verses 18-27. - The prophet enforces the threat by denouncing woe on those that trust to their covenant relation to God, expecting the day when he would punish the heathen for their sakes, and thinking that external, heartless worship was acceptable to him. Verse 18. - The day of the Lord. Anycrisis in the nation's history is so called, when God interposes to punish and correct. To our minds it looks forward to the final judgment. It is often mentioned by the prophets ( e.g. Isaiah 2:12 ; Isaiah 13:6, 9 ; Joel 2:1, 11 ; Joel 3:18 ; Zephaniah 1:7, 14 ) as a time when the heathen should be judged, all the enemies of Israel defeated, and when Israel herself was exalted to the highest pitch of prosperity and dominion. Without any regard to the moral condition affixed to the realization of these expectations (see Joel 2:32 ), the people "desired" the appearance of this day, thus foolishly confirming themselves in their sinful life and false security. Some think scoffers are intended, but the context shows that the persons signified are sincere but mistaken believers in the safety of Israel's covenant position. To what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness; Why would ye have the day of the Lord? It is darkness. Why do ye, such as ye are, want this day to come? Ye know not what ye ask. It will be the very contrary to your expectations; it will be darkness, and not light, tribulation and miser y, not joy and triumph for you (comp. Micah 7:8 ). Amos 5:18

18 . Woe unto you that ] Ah! they that. … The interjection Hôy (the same as that used in 1 Kings 13:30 &c. quoted on Amos 5:16 ) implies commiseration rather than denunciation. It is used frequently, as here, to introduce an announcement of judgement: Isaiah 1:4 ; Isaiah 1:24 ; Isaiah 5:8 ; Isaiah 5:11 ; Isaiah 5:18 ; Isaiah 5:20-22 ; Isaiah 29:1 ; Isaiah 29:15 &c. ( Woe … Isaiah 3:9 ; Isaiah 3:11 ; Isaiah 6:5 ; Isaiah 24:16 &c., is a different word, and is followed by the prep. to ). the day of Jehovah ] i.e. the day in which Jehovah manifests Himself in triumph over His foes. The expression is based probably upon the Hebrew use of day as equivalent to day of battle or victory ( Ezekiel 13:5 ; cf. Isaiah 9:4 , the ‘day’ of Midian, i.e. the day of victory over Midian).

From the present passage it appears to have been a current popular idea that Jehovah would one day manifest Himself, and confer some crowning victory upon His people: Amos points out that whether that will be so or not, depends upon Israel’s moral condition; the ‘day of Jehovah,’ such as the people imagine, would not be necessarily a day of victory to Israel over foreign powers, but a day in which Jehovah’s righteousness would be vindicated against sin , whether among foreign nations or His own people: so long therefore as Israel neglects to amend its ways, and continues to treat ritual as a substitute for morality, it will find Jehovah’s day to be the reverse of what it anticipates, a day not of triumph but of disaster. The ‘day of Jehovah,’ as thus understood by Amos, becomes a figure which is afterwards often employed by the prophets in their pictures of impending judgement. The conception places out of sight the human agents, by whom actually the judgement, as a rule, is effected, and regards the decisive movements of history as the exclusive manifestation of Jehovah’s purpose and power. The prophets, in adopting the figure, develope it under varying imagery, suggested partly by the occasion, partly by their own imagination.