Amos was a rebel with a cause that would echo for centuries. He had the courage to look with disgust at the religious hypocrisy of his day and proclaim the falsehood - none of the rituals matter if there is no justice in the land. He gave the people of Israel the choice - find the faith within, beyond the bureaucratic system of sacrifices and temples to take care of those in need - or watch it all evaporate away.
Tragically, they chose the latter.
This fifth chapter of Amos would become quite known because another prophet chose to quote it over and over again. In his famous last ‘mountaintop’ speech, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. referenced Amos as he has done many times:
“Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tells it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
King’s words mattered then as they matter now, continuing the charge that Amos left us with. It’s important to see the context of his words to fully understand how his criticism of religious fraud was connected to the rage against the rich society that shirks responsibility for social justice:
הָסֵ֥ר מֵעָלַ֖י הֲמ֣וֹן שִׁרֶ֑יךָ וְזִמְרַ֥ת נְבָלֶ֖יךָ לֹ֥א אֶשְׁמָֽע׃ וְיִגַּ֥ל כַּמַּ֖יִם מִשְׁפָּ֑ט וּצְדָקָ֖ה כְּנַ֥חַל אֵיתָֽן׃ הַזְּבָחִ֨ים וּמִנְחָ֜ה הִֽגַּשְׁתֶּם־לִ֧י בַמִּדְבָּ֛ר אַרְבָּעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
“Spare Me the sound of your hymns,
And let Me not hear the music of your lutes.
But let justice well up like water,
Righteousness like an unfailing stream.
Did you offer sacrifice and oblation to Me
Those forty years in the wilderness,
O House of Israel?”
Amos 5:22-24
Amos speaks for a god that wants no mumbled prayers and the music of lies. The music that is longed for is the murmuring of water, justice like the sea, peace like a river. Why bother with sacrificial offerings and systemic ritual when none of that defined the early years of Israel, the desert wandering as a nation of fugitives seeking a home?
It’s interesting that Amos assumes no sacrifices during the Sinai wandering years. The Torah clearly offers an alternative version in which the tabernacle was built and the priestly process of daily offerings began mid-way their wanderings. But most scholars agree that this is a latter insertion, written by post-exile priestly authors who wanted to advocate for the centrality of temple worship even when so many questioned its importance for the people.
Amos would go on and on to denounce the pious temple gatherings, hated by YHWH for prioritizing the wrong values, missing the point of communal care and social morality. He did not reject religion, but only the hollow holy gestures, empty of ethical meaning or actual attention to what the purpose of the spiritual life is all about.
Amos’ words would echo, and keep echoing. MLK studied them carefully, and left notes in his notations, preserved in a small book published after he was assassinated, Notecards on Books of the Old Testament. In this section King is reading Amos’ chapter 5:
“This passage might be called the key passage of the entire book. It reveals the deep ethical nature of God. God is a God that demands justice rather than sacrifice; righteousness rather than ritual. The most elaborate worship is but an insult to God when offered by those who have no mind to conform to his ethical demands. Certainly this is one of the most noble ideas ever uttered by the human mind...One may raise the question as to whether Amos was against all ritual and sacrifice, i.e. worship. I think not. It seems to me that Amos’ concern is the ever-present tendency to make ritual and sacrifice a substitute for ethical living. Unless a man’s heart is right, Amos seems to be saying, the external forms of worship mean nothing. God is a God that demands justice and sacrifice can never be a substitute for it. Who can disagree with such a notion?”
Well, turns out many disagree with Amos, King, and many other prophets who keep speaking up with inconvenient truths to those who cling to old forms of familiar pomp and power. But the prophetic protest? It lives on - through preachers and poets, protesters and prophetic voices that don’t give up the fight.
Image: Betsy Porter, The Prophet Amos, 2005, photo by Richard Anderson
Go Below the Bible Belt. Link in bio. subscribe.Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.
Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.
#Amos #Amos5 #ProphetAmos #הנביאעמוס# עמוס #BookofAmos #תריעשר #treiasar #minorprophets #Prophets #Neviim #Hebrewbible #Tanach #929 #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929 #truthtopower #MLKjr #justicelikeariver #Rev.Dr.KingJr. #prophecyagainstreligion #religiousabuse #kingdomofIsrael #losingmyreligion #stoptheviolence #peace #prayforpeace #nomorewar #hope