“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
The Prophet shows in this place, that he not only reproved hypocrisy in the Israelites in obtruding on God only external display of ceremonies without any true religion in the heart; but that he also condemned them for having departed from the rule of the law.
The scope of these verses is to show how little God valued their shows of devotion, nay, how much he detested them, while they went on in their sins. Observe, I. How unpleasing, nay, how displeasing, their hypocritical services were to God. They had their feast-days at Bethel, in imitation of those at Jerusalem, in which they pretended to rejoice before God.
Commenting on Amos 5:21-27
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings,.... No; they were not offered to God, but to devils, to the golden calf, and to the host of heaven: so their fathers did in the wilderness forty years; where sacrifices were omitted during that time, a round number for a broken one, it being about thirty eight years; and these their children were imitators of them...