What Does Amos 5:15 Mean?
Hate the evil and love the good, and raise up judgment in the gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of hosts, will show favor to the remnant of Joseph.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.THE KEY
The verse makes justice public and concrete, then leaves God’s favor as a possibility rather than a wage.
THE MEANING
Hating evil and loving good take shape as justice set in the gate, where decisions touch shared life. The LORD of hosts may show favor to what remains of Joseph; the verse leaves that opening uncertain rather than promised.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that private love of good is enough: here, love takes form as justice where people meet.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-t
To judge, decide, or govern.
“judgment” in this verse is mishpat. Mishpat shares its root with the verb for judging and the word for a judge. Justice here is not only an idea; it is something enacted through decisions and set where people bring their claims.
ALSO GROWS
lishpot: To judge or decide.
לִשְׁפֹּט
The shared root makes justice an act carried out, not merely a principle admired.
shofet: A judge, one who decides.
שֹׁפֵט
The same root connects the judgment in the gate to the person responsible for deciding there.
יְחָנַּן
yechanan
GROWS FROM
חנן
To show favor.
“show favor” in this verse is yechanan. The verb for being gracious belongs to the same root as the noun for favor. The verse holds this favor open toward the remnant, while “it may be” keeps it a possibility rather than an automatic result.
ALSO GROWS
chen: Favor.
חֵן
The noun names the favor that the verb yechanan describes as being shown.
chanun: Gracious, showing favor.
חַנּוּן
This related form keeps the focus on favor as an act or quality, not a payment owed.
שְׁאֵרִית
she'erit
GROWS FROM
שאר
To remain or be left over.
“remnant” in this verse is she'erit. She’erit names what is left, not a whole already restored. Joseph, יוֹסֵף (Yosef, “he adds”), is associated with יסף (yasaf, “to add or increase”), a separate root; the phrase holds the name of increase beside the people who remain.
ALSO GROWS
yisha'er: Will remain or be left.
יִשָּׁאֵר
This verbal form makes the root’s sense of remaining active: something survives or is left behind.
she'ar: Remainder, what is left.
שְׁאָר
This noun shares the root with she’erit and shows the remnant as what remains.
THE PATTERN
Love for the good takes public shape as justice, not private approval alone.
He has shown you, O human, what is good. And what does the LORD seek from you, but to do justice, and to hold fast to faithful love, and to walk low with your God?But woe to you, separated ones! For you give a tenth of the mint and the rue and every green herb, and you go past the judgment and the faithful love of God. These things you ought to have done, and not leave the other undone.THE THREAD
But let judgment roll down like waters, and alignment like a stream that never runs dry.The same Hebrew word, מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, “judgment”), appears in both verses. Here Amos gives the justice set in the gate an image of movement: it has to flow through the life it orders.
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