Sunday, June 20, 2021

Does Amos 5:21-23 Condemn All Sacrifices?

  

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)