18 Sorrow to you who are looking for the day of the Lord! what is the day of the Lord to you? it is dark and not light. 19 As if a man, running away from a lion, came face to face with a bear; or went into the house and put his hand on the wall and got a bite from a snake. 20 Will not the day of the Lord be dark and not light? even very dark, with no light shining in it?
21 Your feasts are disgusting to me, I will have nothing to do with them; I will take no delight in your holy meetings. 22 Even if you give me your burned offerings and your meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: I will have nothing to do with the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; my ears are shut to the melody of your instruments. 24 But let the right go rolling on like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 25 Did you come to me with offerings of beasts and meal offerings in the waste land for forty years, O Israel? 26 Truly, you will take up Saccuth your king and Kaiwan your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves. 27 And I will send you away as prisoners farther than Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of armies.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Amos 5:18-27
Commentary on Amos 5:18-27
(Read Amos 5:18-27)
Woe unto those that desire the day of the Lord's judgments, that wish for times of war and confusion; as some who long for changes, hoping to rise upon the ruins of their country! but this should be so great a desolation, that nobody could gain by it. The day of the Lord will be a dark, dismal, gloomy day to all impenitent sinners. When God makes a day dark, all the world cannot make it light. Those who are not reformed by the judgments of God, will be pursued by them; if they escape one, another stands ready to seize them. A pretence of piety is double iniquity, and so it will be found. The people of Israel copied the crimes of their forefathers. The law of worshipping the Lord our God, is, Him only we must serve. Professors thrive so little, because they have little or no communion with God in their duties. They were led captive by Satan into idolatry, therefore God caused them to go into captivity among idolaters.