Bible Strands
Amos 5:25
Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Amos addresses the house of Israel, questioning their religious practices during the forty years in the wilderness. He speaks to a community performing rituals while neglecting justice and adopting idolatry.
The words — הִגַּשְׁתֶּם (hi.gash.tem) translates literally as "did you bring near," paired with זְבָחִים (ze.vachim) for "sacrifices" and מִנְחָה (min.chah) for "grain offering." The phrasing isolates the physical act of presentation rather than evaluating its spiritual merit.
The thread — This rhetorical question aligns with the wilderness rebellion patterns recorded in Acts 7:42, Nehemiah 9:18, and Ezekiel 20:8. These references trace Israel's recurring substitution of ritual observance with idol worship.
Why it lands — The text states that God questions whether He actually received sacrifices and offerings during the wilderness period. It requires the reader to recognize that ritual performance cannot substitute for covenantal obedience and justice.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
Cross-references
- Acts 7:42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
- Nehemiah 9:18 Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,
- Ezekiel 20:8 But they rebelled against Me and refused to listen. None of them cast away the abominations before their eyes, and they did not forsake the idols of Egypt. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the land of Egypt.
- Leviticus 17:7 They must no longer offer their sacrifices to the goat demons to which they have prostituted themselves. This will be a permanent statute for them for the generations to come.’
- Joshua 24:14 Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
- Nehemiah 9:21 For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
- Ezekiel 20:16 because they kept rejecting My ordinances, refusing to walk in My statutes, and profaning My Sabbaths; for their hearts continually went after their idols.
- Deuteronomy 32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.
- Ezekiel 20:24 For they did not practice My ordinances, but they rejected My statutes and profaned My Sabbaths, fixing their eyes on the idols of their fathers.
- Hosea 9:9 They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah; He will remember their guilt; He will punish their sins.