4:4 “Go to Bethel 1 and rebel! 2
At Gilgal 3 rebel some more!
Bring your sacrifices in 4 the morning,
your tithes on 5 the third day!
5:25 You did not bring me 6 sacrifices and grain offerings during the forty years you spent in the wilderness, family 7 of Israel.
1 sn Bethel and Gilgal were important formal worship centers because of their importance in Israel’s history. Here the Lord ironically urges the people to visit these places so they can increase their sin against him. Their formal worship, because it was not accompanied by social justice, only made them more guilty in God’s sight by adding hypocrisy to their list of sins. Obviously, theirs was a twisted view of the Lord. They worshiped a god of their own creation in order to satisfy their religious impulses (see 4:5: “For you love to do this”). Note that none of the rituals listed in 4:4-5 have to do with sin.
map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.
2 tn The Hebrew word translated “rebel” (also in the following line) could very well refer here to Israel’s violations of their covenant with God (see also the term “crimes” in 1:3 [with note] and the phrase “covenant transgressions” in 2:4 [with note]; 3:14).
3 sn See the note on Bethel earlier in this verse.
4 tn Or “for.”
5 tn Or “for.”
6 tn Heb “Did you bring me…?” This rhetorical question expects a negative answer. The point seems to be this: Since sacrifices did not characterize God’s relationship with Israel during the nation’s formative years, the people should not consider them to be so fundamental. The
sn Like Jer 7:22-23, this passage seems to contradict the Pentateuchal accounts that indicate Israel did offer sacrifices during the wilderness period. It is likely that both Amos and Jeremiah overstate the case to emphasize the relative insignificance of sacrifices in comparison to weightier matters of the covenant. See R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 428.
7 tn Heb “house.”