What Does Amos 5:10 Mean in the King James?
They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
When correction is hated, the hatred may reveal what the correction has brought into the open.
THE MEANING
This verse names a present pattern: a person who brings correction into the open may be hated for speaking, even when the speech is upright. The rejection targets the speaker, while the words remain described as whole and straight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being hated for speaking plainly proves the speech is wrong.
THE ROOT
מוֹכִיחַ
mokhiach
GROWS FROM
יכח
To decide or judge a matter; by extension, to reason with, correct, or reprove.
The word translated “rebuketh” carries the sense of bringing a matter to judgment, not merely scolding. At the gate, that correction is made where others can hear and weigh it.
ALSO GROWS
hokhiach: To reprove, reason with, or show what is right.
הוֹכִיחַ
It shares the root’s movement from weighing a matter to correcting it.
tokhechah: Reproof or correction.
תּוֹכֵחָה
The same root names both the act of confronting a matter and the correction that follows.
תָּמִים
tamim
GROWS FROM
תמם
To be complete or whole.
The speech called “uprightly” is described with a word of wholeness: it is sound and integral. The verse sets that whole speech beside the hatred it draws, showing that hostility does not make the words crooked.
ALSO GROWS
tam: Whole, sound, or blameless.
תָּם
It carries the same sense of completeness into a description of a person or thing.
tom: Integrity or completeness.
תֹּם
It shows how the root’s idea of wholeness can describe moral integrity.
THE PATTERN
When correction brings wrongdoing into public view, those who reject it may turn against the truth-teller.
That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.THE THREAD
That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root, יכח (y-kh-ch), for the person who reproves at the gate. The shared root links Amos’s hated correction to a wider pattern: judgment itself is turned against the one who names what is wrong.
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