Who Is Amos 5-23?

Amos 5:23 focuses on the musical aspects of worship. The Lord commands the Israelites remove the noise of their songs. The music of the assembly is a clanging noise in the ears which parallels Paul’s illustration of one without love (1 Corinthians 13:1). God will not listen (Amos 5:23). It is only a few years later when Isaiah will indict the Southern Kingdom on similar grounds (Isaiah 1:10-17).
Amos 5:24 possesses a different cadence than Amos 1:1 and 3:3. One can recognize that this verse is special with a heightened sound of poetry. In biblical poetry the rhythm comes forth from the structure of the words and lines in addition to the flow of the accented syllables. Biblical poetry is more succinct than lines of prose. Robert Alter asserts

. . is a particular way of imagining the world – particular in its own ways of making connections and engendering implications . . . .” The dominant principle of biblical poetry, whether in prophecy, psalm, eulogy, or elsewhere, is parallelism. Parallelism is the repetition of two related semantic or syntactic elements of a line or lines. The relationship between the two parts is one of equivalence. Parallelism takes many forms. Amos 5:24 is an example of a parallel line with two parts, “but let justice roll up like the waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Justice in the first half of the line is equivalent to the second half about righteousness as a mighty stream. The rhythm of the Hebrew parallel line comes from the accents in the two component halves with three in each half allowing the feeling of the three accented syllables, a pause for a breath, and three more accented syllables. In Hebrew, a rhyming sound exists in

In 5:21-23 Amos is chastising the Israelites for their behavior. Speaking on behalf of the Lord, Amos specifies examples of unacceptable actions. These examples lead the reader to hear the contrasting “but” that begins verse 24, to expect a list of positive actions for the Israelites. Such a list might comprise behaviors opposite the ones mentioned in 5:21- 23 and of other behaviors mentioned earlier in Amos’ prophecy. For example, the new actions may be to abide by the laws of the Torah (Amos 2:4), live peacefully with your brother (Amos 1:11), provide sandals for the needy (Amos 2:6), honor the bones of the dead (Amos 2:1), allow the prophets to prophesy (Amos 2:13), honor the Nazirites’ pledge of abstinence from alcohol (Amos 2:12), treat the poor honestly (Amos 4:1), and give provisions to the needy (Amos 2:1). The expectation following the sharp contrasting “but” is to hear positive guidance to the people. The expectation is that one will receive an opposition paralleling the sins against the Lord. However, Amos 5:24 surprises by not fulfilling this expectation. Instead, justice and righteousness are wrapped in a metaphor that stems from Amos’ experience in the fields close to water. It offers the power, fullness, and potential of rolling water, and of a mighty, ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:24 speaks of justice and righteousness while providing a quality of chastisement as Amos points out what the people should