Seek the LORD and live, or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph; it will devour everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
He then adds, Seek Jehovah, and ye shall live This repetition is not superfluous: the Prophet confirms what I have already stated, that such was the opposition between the true and legitimate worship of God, and idolatry and superstition, that the people of Israel, as long as they retained their corruptions, proved that they had nothing to do with God, whatever they may have pretended...
This is a message from God to the house of Israel, in which, I. They are told of their faults, that they might see what occasion there was for them to repent and reform, and that, when they were called to return, they might not need to ask, Wherein shall we return? 1.
Commenting on Amos 5:4-15
Seek the Lord, and ye shall live,.... This is, repeated to stir up unto it, because of their backwardness and slothfulness, and to show the importance and necessity of it. By the "Lord" may be meant the Messiah, Israel's God that was to come, and they were to prepare to meet, Amo 4:12; and the rather, since life spiritual and eternal is only to be...