Amos 5:7 - Exposition

The prophet brings out the con-trust between Israel's moral corruption and God's omnipotence. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood. As Jerome puts it," Converterunt dulcedinem judicii in absinthii amaritudinem," "They turned the sweetness of judgment into the bitterness of absinth" (comp. Amos 6:12 ). Who make judgment the occasion of the bitterest injustice. There is no syntactical connection between this verse and the last, but virtually we may append it to "seek the Lord." It would sound in people's ears as a reminiscence of Deuteronomy 29:18 , Deuteronomy 29:20 . The LXX . reads, ὁ ποιῶν εἰς ὕψος κρίμα . "that executeth judgment in the height," referring the sentence to the Lord, or else taking laanah , "wormwood," in a metaphorical sense, as elsewhere they translate it by ἀνάγκη πικρία , ὀδύνη ( Deuteronomy 29:18 ; Proverbs 5:4 ; Jeremiah 9:15 ; Jeremiah 23:15 ). The name "wormwood" is applied to all the plants of the genus that grow in Palestine the taste of which was proverbially bitter. And leave off righteousness in the earth; rather, cast down righteousness to the earth (as Isaiah 28:2 ), despise it and trample it underfoot (comp. Daniel 8:12 ). This is Israel's practice; and yet God, as the next verse shows, is almighty, and has power to punish. Righteousness includes all transactions between man and man. The LXX . (still referring the subject to the Lord), καὶ δικαιοσύνην εἰς γῆν ἔθηκεν , "and he established righteousness on earth."