Amos 5:25
in Amos 5Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
KJV
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
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This verse in Amos 5
Commentary
9 notes on this verse(Verse 25 and following) Did you offer to Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel? You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images which you made for yourselves. Therefore I will exile you beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
This site's exposition
in the wilderness forty years
on Amos 5:25-27
The question of verse 25, have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, is answered in the negative the bench reads throughout, since the wilderness generation carried alongside its tabernacle worship the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, idolatry mixed with true worship from the very start. Stephen quotes this passage nearly word for word at Acts 7:42-43, citing it from the book of the prophets against the same charge of idol worship, with the Greek text naming Babylon where the Hebrew names Damascus, a difference the bench assigns to the Septuagint's own rendering rather than any contradiction. The chapter that opened as a funeral dirge closes on the sentence of exile itself, beyond Damascus, saith the Lord.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening5 voices
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings,.... No; they were not offered to God, but to devils, to the golden calf, and to the host of heaven: so their fathers did in the wilderness forty years; where sacrifices were omitted during that time, a round number for a broken one, it being about thirty eight years; and these their children were imitators of them, and offered sacrifice to idols too, and therefore deserved punishment as they: even ye, O house of Israel? the ten tribes, who are here particularly charged and threatened; See Gill on Act 7:42.
Stephen quotes this passage ( Acts vii. 42 ), to show the Jews that they ought not to think it strange that ceremonial law was repealed when from the beginning it was comparatively made light of. What little reason they had to expect that their sacrifices should be acceptable to God, when they and their fathers had been all along addicted to the worship of other gods.
, " Did you offer to me sacrifices, that is, to me only? No, and therefore not at all to me acceptably;" for the law of worshipping the Lord our God is, Him only we must serve. " But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens+odd-straight-quotes
Have ye - Their fathers and they, tho' at so great a distance of time, are one people, and so the prophet considers them. Unto me - Was it to me, or to your idols, that you offered, even in the wilderness?
It is the word which I take up --not the prophet only, but the God that sent him. It is the word that the Lord has spoken, ch. iii. The word to be heard is a lamentation, a lamentable account of the present calamitous state of the kingdom of Israel, and a lamentable prediction of its utter destruction.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Have ye offered - (better, “Did ye offer”) unto Me sacrifices and offerings? Israel justified himself to himself by his half-service. This had been his way from the first. “Their heart was not whole with God, neither abode they in His covenant” Psa 78:37. He thought to be accepted by God, because he did a certain homage to Him. He acknowledged God in his own way. God sets before him another instance of this half-service and what it issued in; the service of that generation which He brought out of Egypt, and which left their bones in the wilderness.
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices - Some have been led to think that “during the forty years which the Israelites spent in the wilderness, between Egypt and the promised land, they did not offer any sacrifices, as in their circumstances it was impossible; they offered none because they had none.” But such people must have forgotten that when the covenant was made at Sinai, there were burnt-offerings and peace-offerings of oxen sacrificed to the Lord, Exo 24:5; and at the setting up of the tabernacle the twelve princes of the twelve tribes offered each a young bullock, a ram, and a lamb, for a burnt-offering; a kid for a sin-offering; two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five lambs, for a peace-offering, Num 7:12, etc.; which amounted to an immense number of victims offered in the course of the twelve days during which this feast of the dedication lasted. At the consecration of priests, bullocks and rams to a considerable number were offered, see Lev 8:1, etc.; but they were not offered so regularly, nor in such abundance, as they were after the settlement in the promised land. Learned men, therefore, have considered this verse as speaking thus: Did ye offer to me, during forty years in the wilderness, sacrifices in such a way as was pleasing to me? Ye did not; for your hearts were divided, and ye were generally in a spirit of insurrection or murmuring.
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| הַזְּבָחִ֨ים | hazevachim | ¿ sacrifices | H2077 → | |
| וּמִנְחָ֜ה | uminchah | and grain offering[s] | H4503 → | |
| הִֽגַּשְׁתֶּם־ | higashtem- | did you bring near | H5066 → | 125 times |
| לִ֧י | li | to me | ||
| בַמִּדְבָּ֛ר | vamidbar | in the wilderness | H4057 → | |
| אַרְבָּעִ֥ים | ʾarbaim | forty | H705 → | |
| שָׁנָ֖ה | shanah | year[s] | H8141 → | 877 times |
| בֵּ֥ית | beit | O house of | H1004 → | 2046 times |
| יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ | yisrael | Israel | H3478 → | 2507 times |
הַזְּבָחִ֨ים¿ sacrifices
hazevachimH2077 →
וּמִנְחָ֜הand grain offering[s]
uminchahH4503 →
הִֽגַּשְׁתֶּם־did you bring near
higashtem-H5066 →125 times
לִ֧יto me
li
בַמִּדְבָּ֛רin the wilderness
vamidbarH4057 →
אַרְבָּעִ֥יםforty
ʾarbaimH705 →
שָׁנָ֖הyear[s]
shanahH8141 →877 times
בֵּ֥יתO house of
beitH1004 →2046 times
יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃Israel
yisraelH3478 →2507 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Joshua 24:14Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
it leads to
- 1 Samuel 12:24
Above all, fear the LORD and serve Him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things He has done for you.
- Deuteronomy 10:12
And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your…
- Genesis 35:2
So Jacob told his household and all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and change your garments.
- Joshua 24:23
“Now, therefore,” he said, “get rid of the foreign gods among you and incline your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.”
- Psalms 119:1
Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the Law of the LORD.
- 1 Samuel 12:24
Through
Nehemiah 9:21For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 2:7
Indeed, the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you these…
- Deuteronomy 8:4
Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.
- Deuteronomy 29:5
For forty years I led you in the wilderness, yet your clothes and sandals did not wear out.
- Deuteronomy 2:7
Where this verse is studied
About Amos
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Jerome, Commentary on Amos; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.