| Geneva Study Bible I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Wesley's Notes 5:21 I hate - Impure and unholy as they are. Will not smell - A savour, of rest or delight, I will not accept and be pleased with. King James Translators' Notes in...: or, your holy days Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 21. I hate, I despise-The two verbs joined without a conjunction express God's strong abhorrence. your feast days-yours; not Mine; I do not acknowledge them: unlike those in Judah, yours are of human, not divine institution. I will not smell-that is, I will take no delight in the sacrifices offered (Ge 8:21; Le 26:31). in your solemn assemblies-literally, "days of restraint." Isa 1:10-15 is parallel. Isaiah is fuller; Amos, more condensed. Amos condemns Israel not only on the ground of their thinking to satisfy God by sacrifices without obedience (the charge brought by Isaiah against the Jews), but also because even their external ritual was a mere corruption, and unsanctioned by God. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 5:18-27 Woe unto those that desire the day of the Lord's judgments, that wish for times of war and confusion; as some who long for changes, hoping to rise upon the ruins of their country! but this should be so great a desolation, that nobody could gain by it. The day of the Lord will be a dark, dismal, gloomy day to all impenitent sinners. When God makes a day dark, all the world cannot make it light. Those who are not reformed by the judgments of God, will be pursued by them; if they escape one, another stands ready to seize them. A pretence of piety is double iniquity, and so it will be found. The people of Israel copied the crimes of their forefathers. The law of worshipping the Lord our God, is, Him only we must serve. Professors thrive so little, because they have little or no communion with God in their duties. They were led captive by Satan into idolatry, therefore God caused them to go into captivity among idolaters. | 
