Amos 2:4-5

4, 5. The sin and punishment of Judah.

Judah The southern kingdom, the home of Amos, in distinction from the northern kingdom, against which Amos prophesied. The other nations had sinned against Jehovah without external law (Romans 2:12); Judah had received a law, therefore its guilt was greater.

Law of Jehovah See on Hosea 4:6. Despised [“rejected”] As authoritative (Hosea 8:12); they refused to obey it and to be guided by it. Commandments [“statutes”] Literally, the things engraven, that is, on public tablets. The word is found frequently in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:5; Deuteronomy 4:8; Deuteronomy 4:14; Deuteronomy 5:1; Deuteronomy 5:31, etc.) and designates enactments of a moral, religious, or civil character. As the next clause indicates, here it refers primarily to statutes enjoining loyalty to Jehovah.

Lies The worthless idols that have no existence, and whose imagined power and ability to help are not real (Isaiah 66:3; Jeremiah 5:7; Leviticus 19:4, etc.). The fathers put their trust in these; the children followed in the footsteps of their ancestors. The history of Judah presents numerous illustrations of this apostasy. True, there were some kings who remained more or less loyal to Jehovah (1 Kings 15:11; 1Ki 22:43 ; 2 Kings 12:2-3; 2 Kings 14:3), but there were others who looked with favor upon idolatry (1 Kings 15:3; 2Ki 8:18 ; 2 Kings 8:27; 2 Kings 11:1). Amos himself says little concerning religious conditions in Judah, but there can be no doubt that even in his day idolatry was prevalent there (compare Isaiah 2:8). Utter destruction of the state and of Jerusalem, the political and religious center, will be the punishment.

A partial fulfillment of Amos’s threat took place when Sennacherib overran Judah and besieged Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:3 ff.; Isaiah 36:1 ff.). At that time Jerusalem escaped, but fire did “devour the palaces of Jerusalem” when in 586 B.C. the city was taken and destroyed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. After the restoration it was rebuilt, and the city has had a continuous history since. Its present population is said to be about fifty thousand.