I hate, I despise
your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye
offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them:
neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away
from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
(Amos 5:21-23)
Commenting on this pericope, which has
been interpreted as a blanket condemnation of all sacrifices, Göran
Eidevall noted the exegetical weakness of this naïve view:
Scholars who defend
the theology that Amos was an anti-cultic prophet have claimed that this
prophecy rejects sacrifices as such. These interpreters, however, neglect the
fact that relational language is used throughout vv. 21-23. Moreover, they fail
to account for the observation that v. 23 condemns musical performances with
formulations as harsh as those employed in the denunciation of sacrificial offerings
(in vv. 21-23).
5:23. Having already
been informed that YHWH refuses to look at their offerings (v. 22), the
addresses are now told that the deity refuses to listen to “the noise of your
songs” and “the music of your harps” (v. 23). To the best of my knowledge, no
commentator has ever maintained that Amos 5:21-24 renounces all kinds of music
in the name of YHWH.
On a closer examination,
the language used in vv. 21-23 is consistently relational. According to this
prophecy, YHWH dislikes “your festivals (ḥaggêkem)” (21a), “your
grain offerings (or, your gifts, minḥōtêkem)” (22a), and “your
songs (šîrêkā)” (23a). Clearly, these formulations indicate that the
words of rejection are directed against a specific group of addressees in a specific
historical situation. In view of the context, it is probably the sacrificial
cult in the kingdom of Israel that is condemned. (Göran Eidevall, Amos: A
New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 24G; New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2017], 168)
