Amos 2:4

Thus says the LORD:

"For three transgressions of Judah,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they have rejected the law of the LORD,
and have not kept his statutes,
but their lies have led them astray,
those after which their fathers walked.


Judah’s sins are not those of brutality or bloodshed. Her guilt lies in her rejection of God’s law and her preference for worshipping pagan gods. For this she will be conquered by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 bc, and led captive to Babylon.


The Gentile nations had rebelled against the “everlasting covenant” God made with them at the time of Noah (Gen. 9:5-17). But Judah’s sins (peša‘) were against the Mosaic Covenant. They had rejected the Law of the Lord. They had not observed the decrees, or stipulations, of His unique agreement with them. Instead of holding to His objective truth, they let themselves be led astray by the same false gods which had deceived many of their ancestors. The word for false god is kāzāḇ, “a lie or something deceptive.” The idols were deceptive for they were unable to help the people. In Deuteronomy God constantly warned the Israelites not to follow false gods (Deut. 6:14; 7:16; 8:19; 11:16, 28; etc.).

Judah’s sins (2:4–5). Judah’s sins are identified in a general way only: the people of the South have rejected God’s laws and followed false gods. Amos will be much more specific in naming the sins of the Israelites. How eager we are to learn the details of others’ faults and failures! But the only sins whose specifics we need to know are our own.

Judah.—V. 4. “Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept His ordinances, and their lies led them astray, after which their fathers walked, V. 5. I send fire into Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.” With the announcement that the storm of the wrath of God will also burst upon Judah, Amos prepares the way for passing on to Israel, the principal object of his prophecies. In the case of Judah, he condemns its contempt of the law of its God, and also its idolatry. Tōrâh is the sum and substance of all the instructions and all the commandments which Jehovah had given to His people as the rule of life. Chuqqīm are the separate precepts contained in the thōrâh, including not only the ceremonial commands, but the moral commandments also; for the two clauses are not only parallel, but synonymous. כִּזְבֵיהֶם, their lies, are their idols, as we may see from the relative clause, since “walking after” (hâlakh ‘achărē ) is the standing expression for idolatry. Amos calls the idols lies, not only as res quae fallunt (Ges.), but as fabrications and nonentities (’ĕlīlīm and hăbhâlīm ), having no reality in themselves, and therefore quite unable to perform what was expected of them. The “fathers” who walked after these lies were their forefathers generally, since the nation of Israel practised idolatry even in the desert (cf. Amos 5:26), and was more or less addicted to it ever afterwards, with the sole exception of the times of Joshua, Samuel, David, and part of the reign of Solomon, so that even the most godly kings of Judah were unable to eradicate the worship upon the high places. The punishment threatened in consequence, namely, that Jerusalem should be reduced to ashes, was carried out by Nebuchadnezzar.

From foreign kingdoms he passes to Judah and Israel, lest it should be said, he was strenuous in denouncing sins abroad, but connived at those of his own nation. Judah’s guilt differs from that of all the others, in that it was directly against God, not merely against man. Also because Judah’s sin was wilful and wittingly against light and knowledge.
law—the Mosaic code in general.
commandments—or statutes, the ceremonies and civil laws.
their lies—their lying idols (Ps 40:4; Je 16:19), from which they drew false hopes. The order is to be observed. The Jews first cast off the divine law, then fall into lying errors; God thus visiting them with a righteous retribution (Ro 1:25, 26, 28; Ro 1:25, 26, 28, 2Th 2:11, 12). The pretext of a good intention is hereby refuted: the “lies” that mislead them are “their (own) lies” [Calvin].
after … which their fathers … walked—We are not to follow the fathers in error, but must follow the word of God alone. It was an aggravation of the Jews’ sin that it was not confined to preceding generations; the sins of the sons rivalled those of their fathers (Mt 23:32; Ac 7:51) [Calvin].

Judah also is a near neighbour to Israel, and therefore, now that justice is riding the circuit, that shall not be passed by; that nation has made itself like the heathen and mingled with them, and therefore the indictment here runs against them in the same form in which it had run against all the rest: For these transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; their sins are as many as the sins of other nations, and we find them huddled up with them in the same character, Jer. 9:26, "As for Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, jumble them together; they are all alike;’’ the sentence here also is the same (v. 5): "I will send a fire upon Judah, though it is the land where God is known, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, though it is the holy city, and God has formerly been known in its palaces for a refuge,’’ Ps. 48:3. But the sin here charged upon Judah is different from all the rest. The other nations were reckoned with for injuries done to men, but Judah is reckoned with for indignities done to God, v. 4. 1. They put contempt upon his statutes and persisted in disobedience to them: They have despised the law of the Lord, as if it were not worth taking notice of, nor had any thing in it valuable; and herein they despised the wisdom, justice, and goodness, as well as the authority and sovereignty, of the Lawmaker; this they did, in effect, when they kept not his commandments, made no conscience of them, took no care about them. 2. They put honour upon his rivals, their idols, here called their lies which caused them to err; for an image is a teacher of lies, Hab. 2:18. And those that are led away into the error of idolatry are by that led into a multitude of other errors, Uno dato absurdo mille sequuntur—One absurdity draws after it a thousand. God is an infinite eternal Spirit; but, when the truth of God is by idolatry changed into a lie, all his other truths are in danger of being so changed likewise; thus their idols caused them to err, and God justly gave them up to strong delusions; nor was it any excuse for their sin that they were lies after which their father walked, for they should rather have taken warning than taken pattern by those that perished with these lies in their right hand.

For Judah to reject the Lord’s instruction was comparable to the atrocities committed by foreign nations (cf. Ezek 5:6).

The warning roar of divine judgment has been hurled at six foreign nations. Syria, Philistia and Tyre belonged to Israel’s political environment. Edom, Ammon and Moab were Israel’s “cousins.” The “noose of judgment” 3 was tightening around the neck of the covenant people. Now the focus is on the people of God. They had misunderstood the doctrine of election to be a declaration of favoritism. Amos first addressed Judah (2:4–5) and then the northern kingdom of Israel (2:6–16).
Judah falls under condemnation for despising then dismissing divine truth. “They have rejected the law of Yahweh and did not keep his statutes.” The term “statutes” comes from a verb meaning to carve out or engrave. The term points to the imperishable and unchangeable nature of God’s truth. The “statutes” were the separate precepts contained in the Torah or Law. Whereas the Gentiles had sinned against natural law, Judah had sinned against written law. This oracle demonstrates Amos’ impartiality (2:4a).
Amos also charged Judah with falling into idolatry. “Their lies,” i.e., idols, had caused them “to err.” The idols made false claims and false promises and consequently are called “lies.” Yet the citizens embraced those idols as their fathers before them had done. Like their fathers, they “walked after” those idols, i.e., allowed those false religions to guide their daily lives. “The popular error of one generation becomes the axiom of the next. The children canonize the errors of their fathers.” 4 While Judah possessed God’s Law, they preferred the traditions of men (2:4b).