This message consists of seven prophetic announcements each of which concludes, "declares the LORD"(vv. 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11). Verse 12 is a final conclusion and verse 13 a doxology.
4:1 Amos opened this second message as he did the first (ch. 3), with the cry, "Hear this word."He addressed the wealthy women of Samaria, calling them "cows of Bashan."Bashan was a very luxuriant region of Transjordan east and northeast of the Sea of Chinnereth (Galilee) where cattle had plenty to eat and grew fat (cf. Ps. 22:12; Jer. 50:19; Ezek. 39:18; Mic. 7:14). These women, along with their men, were oppressing (threatening) the poor and crushing (harassing) the needy. They were even ordering their husbands to wait on them and bring them drinks. The Hebrew word adonim, translated "husbands,"means "lords"or "masters."By using it Amos was stressing the role reversal that existed. The picture is of spoiled, lazy women ordering their husbands to provide them with luxuries that the men had to oppress the poor to obtain.
4:2-3 Sovereign Yahweh had not just said what He would do, but He had sworn that He would do it. When God swore He provided an external guarantee, in addition to His word, that He would indeed do something (cf. Isa. 62:8; Jer. 44:26; Heb. 6:16). He made this solemn declaration in harmony with His holiness. As surely as God is separate from humankind and cannot tolerate sin, these women would surely suffer His judgment one day.
An enemy would cart them off as butchers carry beef with large meat hooks and as fishermen carry fish with hooks. This description may imply that the enemy would tie them in lines with ropes and lead them away since this is how fishermen strung their fish on lines. Carved reliefs that archaeologists have found show Assyrians leading people by a rope attached to a ring in the jaw or lip of their captives. Alternatively it may mean that their dead bodies would be disposed of as so much meat.42The enemy would carry the bodies of these women (living or dead) off through breaches in Samaria's walls. The women would be carried off without any complications; each one would go straight ahead to captivity or to burial through any one of the many passageways made through the broken walls.
The enemy would take them to Harmon, perhaps an alternative spelling of Mt. Hermon.43Mt. Hermon was to the north of Bashan, so these cows of Bashan would end up near Bashan. This is, in fact, the direction the Assyrians took the Israelite captives as they deported them to Assyria.
"Those who oppress the poor and crush the needy in order to support an extravagant lifestyle can expect God's harsh judgment to fall upon them."44
4:4 Ironically the Lord told these sinful Israelites to go to Bethel but to transgress, not to worship. Such a call parodied the summons of Israel's priests to come to the sanctuary to worship (cf. Ps. 95:6; 96:8-9; 100:2-4). Bethel was the most popular religious site in Israel, but the Lord looked at what the people did there as transgressing His law rather than worshipping Him. Gilgal, another worship center, was evidently the Gilgal where the Israelites had entered the Promised Land and had erected memorial stones (Josh. 4:20-24). Other references to it indicate that it was a place pilgrims visited and where they sacrificed in Amos' day (cf. 5:5; Hos. 4:15; 9:15; 12:11). At Gilgal (from Heb. galal, to roll) God had rolled away the reproach of Egypt from His people (cf. Josh. 5:9), but now they were bringing reproach on themselves again by their behavior at Gilgal.
God hyperbolically urged the people to bring their sacrifices every morning and their tithes every three days (rather than every three years as the Law required, cf. Deut. 14:28-29). Even if they sacrificed every morning and tithed every three days they would only be rebelling against God. The people were careful to worship regularly, but it was a ritual contrary to God's will.
4:5 Thank offerings expressed gratitude for blessings and answers to prayer (Lev. 7:11-15). The Israelites made freewill offerings spontaneously out of gratitude to God (Lev. 7:16; 22:17-19). God permitted the people to present leavened bread in these offerings. The people loved to practice these acts of worship, but they did not love to obey sovereign Yahweh. The Lord wanted their loving obedience, not their acts of worship. Loving religious activities is not the same as loving God.
4:6 The Lord had brought famine throughout the land to warn His people about their disobedience and His displeasure, but this judgment did not move them to repent (cf. 1 Kings 8:37). Famine was one of the curses that God said He might bring if His people proved unfaithful to His covenant (Lev. 26:26, 29; Deut. 28:17, 48).
4:7-8 He had also sent drought when the people needed rain the most, three months before their harvest. He had let rain fall on one town but not another resulting in only spotty productivity (cf. 1 Kings 8:35). This too should have moved them to repent. Drought was also a punishment for covenant unfaithfulness (Lev. 26:19; Deut. 28:22-24, 48).
4:9 The Lord sent plant diseases and insects to blight their gardens, vineyards, and fruit trees, yet they did not return to Him (cf. 1 Kings 8:37). These were also threatened judgments in the Mosaic Covenant (Lev. 26:20; Deut. 28:18, 22, 30, 38-40, 42).
4:10 Wars had brought various plagues on the Israelites, and many of their soldiers had died (cf. 1 Kings 8:33, 37). The plagues on the Israelites should have made them conclude that God was now judging them. God had plagued His people as He formerly had plagued the Egyptians. The stench of dead bodies should have led the people to repent, but it did not (cf. Lev. 26:16-17, 25, 31-39; Deut. 28:21-22, 25-27, 35, 49-52, 59-61; 29:23-28).
4:11 Even the overthrow of some Israelite cities did not move the Israelites to repent (cf. Deut. 28:62). Comparing these overthrown cities to Sodom and Gomorrah indicates their proverbial complete destruction (cf. Isa. 1:9; 13:19; Jer. 50:40; Zeph. 2:9), not necessarily the method of their destruction. God had rescued His people like burning sticks from a conflagration, as He had formerly extracted Lot and his daughters from Sodom (Gen. 19).
In all, Amos mentioned seven disciplinary judgments that God had brought on the Israelites: famine (v. 6), drought, (vv. 7-8), plant diseases (v. 9), insects (v. 9), plague (v. 10), warfare (v. 10), and military defeat (v. 11). God sometimes permits His people to suffer so they will turn back to Him (cf. Heb. 12:6), but the Israelites had not done this.
4:12 The Israelites should prepare to meet their God because they had failed to repent (cf. Exod. 19:10-19; 2 Cor. 5:10). He would confront them with even greater punishments (cf. 3:11-15). They should prepare to meet Him, not in a face-to-face sense, as they would encounter a powerful enemy in battle. The prophet's call was a summons to judgment, not a call to repentance or an invitation to covenant renewal.45
4:13 Their enemy was the most formidable one imaginable. It was not another nation or army but sovereign Yahweh of armies. It was He who forms mountains, creates the wind, knows people's thoughts, turns dawn into darkness, and steps on the hills of Israel like a giant approaching Samaria. They could not escape His judgment, so they better prepare for it (cf. Mic. 1:3-4).
"In one bold sweep, this hymn shows the sovereignty of God--from his creation of the world to his daily summoning of the dawn, from his intervention in history to his revelation of mankind's thoughts. Every believer can take comfort in the fact that, while sometimes it seems that God does not interfere in human affairs, the world is never out of his control. His sovereignty extends to every aspect of human experience."46
