Amos 6:13

"Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness,"

Key Reflection

Amos challenges the complacency and injustice of his audience by asking absurd questions—how can horses run on rocky crags or oxen plow there? To highlight that turning justice into oppression is similarly futile, suggesting such actions will ultimately bring nothing but harm, even as bitter fruit results from righteousness perverted.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

Who rejoice -(Literally, “the rejoicers!” Amos, as is his wont, speaks of them with contempt and wonder at their folly, “the rejoicers!” much as we say, the cowards! the renegades!) “in a thing of nought,” literally, “a non-thing,” (“no-whit, nought”) not merely in a thing valueless, but in a “non-thing,” that has no existence at all, as nothing has any substantial existence out of God. This “non-thing” was their power, strength, empire, which they thought they had, but which was soon to shrivel away as a scroll.

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