Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Amos 4:1

Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that [are] in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

1. Hear this word ] Amo 4:1, Amo 5:1.

ye kine of Bashan ] Bashan was the fertile region on the E. of Jordan, bounded on the S. by the Jarmuk, and a line passing through Edrei to Salecah, on the W. by Geshur and Maacah, on the N. extending towards Hermon (cf. Jos 12:1; Jos 12:5), and on the E. as far as the Jebel Hauran, some 40 miles E.S.E. of the Sea of Galilee. The soil of Bashan consists in many parts of a rich disintegrated lava, and is extremely fertile. The name (which here, as usually in Heb., has the article) means probably a stoneless and fertile plain (see Wetzstein in Delitzsch’s Job, ed. 2, pp. 557 f.). Its pasture-grounds are alluded to in Mic 7:14, and its oak-forests (Isa 2:13; Zec 11:2) in Golan on the W., and on the slopes of the Jebel Hauran on the E., are still often mentioned by travellers: its strong and well-nourished herds (Deu 32:14; Eze 39:18) are in Psa 22:12 symbols of the Psalmist’s wild and fierce assailants. The wealthy ladies of Samaria are here called kine of Bashan, because they live a life of purely animal existence, proudly and contentedly going their own way, resenting interference, and intent solely upon their own food and enjoyment.

which oppress the poor, which crush the needy ] The same two words in parallelism, 1Sa 12:3-4, Deu 28:33: cf. the corresponding substantives, Jer 22:17. The word rendered oppress has often the force of defraud, Lev 19:13, Deu 24:14 (note the context), 1Sa 12:3-4 (where it is so rendered); cf. oppression, Jer 22:17. The wages, or other dues, unjustly withheld from the poor, enabled the ladies of Samaria the more readily to indulge their own luxurious and expensive tastes.

masters ] R.V. lords, i.e. husbands (Gen 18:12; Psa 45:11 &c.). They press their husbands to supply them with the means for enjoying a joint carouse.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1 3. The women of Samaria.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Hear ye this, ye kine of Bashan – The pastures of Bashan were very rich, and it had its name probably from its richness of soil . The Batanea of later times was a province only of the kingdom of Bashan, which, with half of Gilead, was given to the half tribe of Manasseh. For the Bashan of Og included Golan Deu 4:43, (the capital of the subsequent Gaulonitis, now Jaulan) Beeshterah Jos 21:27, (or Ashtaroth) 1Ch 6:71, very probably Bostra (see ab. on 1Ch 1:12), and Elrei Deu 1:4, in Hauran or Auranitis; the one on its southern border, the other perhaps on its northern boundary toward Trachonitis . Its eastern extremity at Salkah Deu 3:10; Jos 13:11, (Sulkhad) is the southern point of Batanea (now Bathaniyyeh); Argob, or Trachonitis , (the Lejah) was its north eastern fence.

Westward it reached to Mount Hermon Deu 3:8; Jos 12:5; Jos 13:11; 1Ch 5:23. It included the subsequent divisions, Gaulonitis, Auranitis, Batanea, and Trachonitis. Of these the mountain range on the northwest of Jaulan is still everywhere clothed with oak-forests. The Ard-el-Bathanyeh , the country of Batanea or Bashan, is not surpassed in that land for beauty of its scenery, the richness of its pastures, and the extent of its oak forests. The Arabs of the desert still pasture their flocks on the luxuriant herbage of the Jaulan . Its pastures are spoken of by Micah Mic 7:14 and Jeremiah Jer 50:19. The animals fed there were among the strongest and fattest Deu 32:14. Hence, the male animals became a proverb for the mighty on the earth Exo 39:18, the bulls furnished a type for fierce, unfeeling, enemies Psa 22:12. Amos however, speaks of kine; not, as David, of bulls. He upbraids them not for fierceness, but for a more delicate and wanton unfeelingness, the fruit of luxury, fullness of bread, a life of sense, which destroy all tenderness, dull the mind, banker out the wits, deaden the spiritual sense.

The female name, kine, may equally brand the luxury and effeminacy of the rich men, or the cruelty of the rich women, of Samaria. He addresses these kine in both sexes, both male and female . The reproachful name was then probably intended to shame both; men, who laid aside their manliness in the delicacy of luxury; or ladies, who put off the tenderness of womanhood by oppression. The character of the oppression was the same in both cases. It was done, not directly by those who revelled in its fruits, but through the seduction of one who had authority over them. To the ladies of Samaria, their lord was their husband, as the husband is so called; to the nobles of Samaria, he was their king, who supplied their extravagances and debaucheries by grants, extorted from the poor.

Which oppress – Literally, the oppressing! The word expresses that they habitually oppressed and crushed the poor. They did it not directly; perhaps they did not know that it was done; they sought only, that their own thirst for luxury and self-indulgence should be gratified, and knew not, (as those at ease often know not now,) that their luxuries are continually watered by the tears of the poor, tears shed, almost unknown except by the Maker of both. But He counts willful ignorance no excuse. He who doth through another, doth it himself, said the pagan proverb. God says, they did oppress, were continually oppressing, those in low estate, and crushing the poor (a word is used expressing the vehemence with which they crushed them.) They crushed them, only through the continual demand of pleasures of sense, reckless how they were procured; bring and let us drink. They invite their husband or lord to joint self-indulgence.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Amo 4:1-3

Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria.

God the champion of the oppressed

I. The character of these men. Ye kine of Bashan, etc. The feminine, kine, marks their effeminacy; the reference to Bashan, where the richest pasture-land of Israel lay, shows that they had grown fat with luxurious living. It is not rare to find such men the most unscrupulous and cruel Here they are seen in characteristic fashion oppressing the poor, crushing the needy (Amo 2:6-7), and crying out for new gratification of the!r lusts. Bring, and let us drink.

II. Their punishment.

1. The Certainty of this is assured by an oath. The Lord hath sworn by His holiness. Such men were a fester in the creation of God, an offence to His love for purity. God had espoused the cause of the poor and taken them under His wing. His holiness forbade Him to keep any truce with such men.

2. The punishment is both complete and ignominious. Every one should seek to escape by the nearest breach in the walls, and as God threatened to do with Sennacherib (2Ki 19:28), these luxurious nobles should be taken away with hooks, and their posterity with fish-hooks. The oppressor must reckon with the great Champion of the oppressed. (J. Telford, B. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER IV

Israel reproved for their oppression, 1-3;

idolatry, 4, 5;

and for their impenitence under the chastising hand of God,

6-11.

The omniscience and uncontrollable power of God, 12, 13.

NOTES ON CHAP. IV

Verse 1. Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan] Such an address was quite natural from the herdsman of Tekoa. Bashan was famous for the fertility of its soil, and its flocks and herds; and the prophet here represents the iniquitous, opulent, idle, lazy drones, whether men or women, under the idea of fatted bullocks, which were shortly to be led out to the slaughter.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This verse is an introduction to all that follows in this chapter.

Hear attentively, and consider the consequences of it; weigh both what and whose it is that is spoken. This word; prophecy, or sermon of reproof and threatening: see Amo 3:1.

Ye kine of Bashan: so Amos, bred among cattle, compares the mighty, proud, wanton, and oppressive riflers of Israel to those full-fed, strong, and wanton beasts, which in the herds did push at, hurt, and disturb the weaker cattle. Some will by this understand the court ladies of Israel in those times; but this perhaps is too nice: though, as in Ahabs time Jezebel was at court, and a promoter of oppression and violence, so there might be in aftertimes some like her, and perhaps these may be intended secondarily; yet surely Amos intends the great men and governors, whom he calls kine of Bashan, a fruitful country, of which see Eze 39:18; Nah 1:4.

In the mountain of Samaria: in a decorum to his first allusion he calls their places of power, authority, and office in the kingdom of Israel, mountains; for as those beasts grazing on mountains grew fat, so these men by their fees, perquisites, and bribes grew insolent and mischievous: see Amo 3:9.

Which oppress the poor; the meaner sort of the people, the commonalty, under their jurisdiction, by colour of law.

Which crush the needy; by force and open violence break in pieces the afflicted, who have neither power nor friend to relieve them.

Which say to their masters; husbands, say some, so the Hebrew will bear; or it may refer to some of the greatest officers in Israel, who had inferior officers under them, or the masters of the poor.

Bring; get us commission, or bring them into our court and office.

Let us drink; we will get by them to feast on and revel in drink.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. kine of Bashanfat andwanton cattle such as the rich pasture of Bashan (east of Jordan,between Hermon and Gilead) was famed for (Deu 32:14;Psa 22:12; Eze 39:18).Figurative for those luxurious nobles mentioned, Amo 3:9;Amo 3:10; Amo 3:12;Amo 3:15. The feminine, kine,or cows, not bulls, expresses their effeminacy. Thisaccounts for masculine forms in the Hebrew being intermixedwith feminine; the latter being figurative, the former the realpersons meant.

say to their mastersthatis, to their king, with whom the princes indulged in potations(Ho 7:5), and whom here theyimportune for more wine. “Bring” is singular, in theHebrew implying that one “master” alone ismeant.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan,…. Or “cows of Bashan” n; a country beyond Jordan, inhabited by the tribes of Gad and Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh, very fruitful of pasturage, and where abundance of fat cattle were brought up; to whom persons of distinction, and of the first rank, are here compared. Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret them of the wives of the king, princes, ministers of state, and great men; and so it may be thought that Amos, a herdsman, in his rustic manner, compliments the court ladies with this epithet, for their plumpness, wantonness, and petulancy. Though it may be the princes and great men themselves may be rather intended, and be so called for their effeminacy, and perhaps with some regard to the calves they worshipped; and chiefly because being fat and flourishing, and abounding with wealth and riches, they became wanton and mischievous; like fat cattle, broke down their fences, and would be under no restraint of the laws of God and man; entered into their neighbours’ fields, seized on their property, and spoiled them of it. So the Targum paraphrases it,

“ye rich of substance.”

In like manner the principal men among the Jews, in the times of Christ, are called bulls of Bashan, Ps 22:12;

that [are] in the mountains of Samaria; like cattle grazing on a mountain; the metaphor is still continued: Samaria was the principal city of Ephraim, the metropolis of the ten tribes, Isa 7:9; situated on a mountain; Mr. Maundrell o says, upon a long mount, of an oval figure, having first a fruitful valley, and then a ring of hills running about it. Here the kings of Israel had their palace, and kept their court, and where their princes and nobles resided. Ahab is said to be king of Samaria, 1Ki 21:1;

which oppress the poor, which crush the needy; by laying heavy taxes upon them; exacting more of them than they are able to pay; lessening their wages for work done, or withholding it from them; or by taking from them that little they have, and so reducing them to the utmost extremity, and refusing to do them justice in courts of judicature:

which say to their masters, bring, and let us drink; Kimchi, who interprets these words of the wives of great men, supposes their husbands are here addressed, who are, and acknowledged to be, their masters or lords; see 1Pe 3:6; whom they call upon to bring them money taken from the poor, or for which they have sold them, that they may have wherewith to eat and drink, fare sumptuously, and live in a grand manner, feasting themselves and their visitors: or these are the words of inferior officers to superior ones, desiring they might have leave to pillage the poor, that so they might live in a more gay and splendid manner, and in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness. So the Targum,

“give us power, that we may spoil it.”

Or rather these words are directed to the masters of the poor, who had power over them, had them in their clutches, in whose debt they were; or they had something against them, and therefore these corrupt judges, and wicked magistrates, desire they might be brought before them; who for a bribe would give the cause against them, right or wrong, so long as they got something to feast themselves with; or they are spoken by the rich, to the masters of the poor, to whom they had sold them, to bring them the purchase money, that they might indulge and gratify their sensual appetites; see Am 2:6.

n “vaccae Basan”, Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Vatablus, Drusius, Mercerus, Grotius, Cocceius. o Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 59. Ed. 7.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

“Hear this word, ye cows of Bashan, that are upon the mountain of Samaria, that oppress there the humble and crush the poor, that say to their lords, Bring hither, that we may drink. Amo 4:2. The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by His holiness: behold, days come upon you, that they drag you away with hooks, and your last one with fish-hooks. Amo 4:3. And ye will go out through breaches in the wall, every one before him, and be cast away to Harmon, is the saying of Jehovah.” The commencement of this chapter is closely connected, so far as the contents are concerned, with the chapter immediately preceding. The prophet having there predicted, that when the kingdom was conquered by its enemies, the voluptuous grandees would perish, with the exception of a very few who would hardly succeed in saving their lives, turns now to the voluptuous women of Samaria, to predict in their case a shameful transportation into exile. The introduction, “Hear this word,” does not point therefore to a new prophecy, but simply to a fresh stage in the prophecy, so that we cannot even agree with Ewald in taking Amo 4:1-3 as the conclusion of the previous prophecy (Amo 3:1-15). The cows of Bashan are well-fed, fat cows, , vaccae pingues (Symm., Jer.), as Bashan had fat pastures, and for that reason the tribes that were richest in flocks and herds had asked for it as their inheritance (Numbers 32). The fuller definitions which follow show very clearly that by the cows of Bashan, Amos meant the rich, voluptuous, and violent inhabitants of Samaria. It is doubtful, however, whether he meant the rich and wanton wives of the great, as most of the modern commentators follow Theodor., Theodoret, and others, in assuming; or “the rulers of Israel, and all the leading men of the ten tribes, who spent their time in pleasure and robbery” (Jerome); or “those rich, luxurious, and lascivious inhabitants of the palace of whom he had spoken in Amo 3:9-10” (Maurer), as the Chald., Luther, Calvin, and others suppose, and whom he calls cows, not oxen, to denote their effeminacy and their unbridled licentiousness. In support of the latter opinion we might adduce not only Hos 10:11, where Ephraim is compared to a young heifer, but also the circumstance that from Amo 3:4 onwards the prophecy refers to the Israelites as a whole. But neither of these arguments proves very much. The simile in Hos 10:11 applies to Ephraim as a kingdom of people, and the natural personification as a woman prepares the way for the comparison to an eglah ; whereas voluptuous and tyrannical grandees would be more likely to be compared to the bulls of Bashan (Psa 22:13). And so, again, the transition in Hos 10:4 to the Israelites as a whole furnishes no help in determining more precisely who are addressed in Hos 10:1-3. By the cows of Bashan, therefore, we understand the voluptuous women of Samaria, after the analogy of Isa 3:16. and Isa 32:9-13, more especially because it is only by forcing the last clause of Isa 32:1 that it can be understood as referring to men. for , because the verb stands first (compare Isa 32:11). The mountain of Samaria is mentioned in the place of the city built upon the mountain (see at Amo 3:9). The sin of these women consisted in the tyrannical oppression of the poor, whilst they asked their lords, i.e., their husbands, to procure them the means of debauchery. For and , compare Deu 28:33 and 1Sa 12:3-4, where the two words are already connected. stands in the singular, because every wife speaks in this way to her husband.

The announcement of the punishment for such conduct is introduced with a solemn oath, to make an impression, if possible, upon the hardened hearts. Jehovah swears by His holiness, i.e., as the Holy One, who cannot tolerate unrighteousness. (for) before introduces the oath. Hitzig takes as a niphal , as in the similar formula in 2Ki 20:17; but he takes it as a passive used impersonally with an accusative, after Gen 35:26 and other passages (though not Exo 13:7). But as unquestionably occurs as a piel in 1Ki 9:11, it is more natural to take the same form as a piel in this instance also, and whilst interpreting it impersonally, to think of the enemy as understood. Tsinnoth = tsinnm , Pro 22:5; Job 5:5, = , thorns, hence hooks; so also sroth = srm , thorns, Isa 34:13; Hos 2:8. Dugah , fishery; hence sroth dugah , fish-hooks. ‘Acharth does not mean posterity, or the young brood that has grown up under the instruction and example of the parents (Hitzig), but simply “the end,” the opposite of re’shth , the beginning. It is “end,” however, in different senses. Here it signifies the remnant (Chaldee), i.e., those who remain and are not dragged away with tsinnoth ; so that the thought expressed is “all, even to the very last” (compare Hengstenberg, Christology, i. p. 368). has a feminine suffix, whereas masculine suffixes were used before ( , ); the universal gender, out of which the feminine was first formed. The figure is not taken from animals, into whose noses hooks and rings are inserted to tame them, or from large fishes that are let down into the water again by nose-hooks; for the technical terms applied to these hooks are , , and (cf. Eze 29:4; Job 41:1-2); but from the catching of fishes, that are drawn out of the fish-pond with hooks. Thus shall the voluptuous, wanton women be violently torn away or carried off from the midst of the superfluity and debauchery in which they lived as in their proper element. , to go out of rents in the wall, being construed, as it frequently is, with the accusative of the place; we should say, “though rents in the wall,” i.e., through breaches made in the wall at the taking of the city, not out at the gates, because they had been destroyed or choked up with rubbish at the storming of the city. “Every one before her,” i.e., without looking round to the right or to the left (cf. Jos 6:5, Jos 6:20). The words are difficult, on account of the . . , and have not yet been satisfactorily explained. The form for is probably chosen simply for the purpose of obtaining a resemblance in sound to , and is sustained by for in Gen 31:6 and Eze 13:11. is applied to thrusting into exile, as in Deu 29:27.

The . . with htiw loc. appears to indicate the place to which they were to be carried away or cast out. But the hiphil does not suit this, and consequently nearly all the earlier translators have rendered it as a passive, – (lxx), projiciemini (Jerome); so also the Syr. and Chald. , “men will carry them away captive.” One Hebrew codex actually gives the hophal. And to this reading we must adhere; for the hiphil furnishes no sense at all, since the intransitive or reflective meaning, to plunge, or cast one’s self, cannot be sustained, and is not supported at all by the passages quoted by Hitzig, viz., 2Ki 10:25 and Job 27:22; and still less does haharmonah denote the object cast away by the women when they go into captivity.

(Note: The Masoretic pointing probably originated in the idea that harmonah , corresponding to the talmudic harmana’ , signifies royal power or dominion, and so Rashi interprets it: “ye will cast away the authority, i.e., the almost regal authority, or that pride and arrogance with which you bear yourselves to-day” (Ros.). This explanation would be admissible, if it were not that the use of a word which never occurs again in the old Hebrew for a thing so frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, rendered it very improbable. At any rate, it is more admissible than the different conjectures of the most recent commentators. Thus Hitzig, for example ( Comm. ed. 3), would resolve haharmonah into hahar and monah = m e onah (“and ye will plunge headlong to the mountain as a place of refuge”). The objections to this are, (1) that hishlkh does not mean to plunge headlong; (2) the improbability of m e onah being contracted into monah , when Amos has m e onah in Amo 3:4; and lastly, the fact that m e onah means simply a dwelling, not a place of refuge. Ewald would read hahar rimmonah after the lxx, and renders it, “ye will cast Rimmonah to the mountain,” understanding by Rimmonah a female deity of the Syrians. But antiquity knows nothing of any such female deity; and from the reference to a deity called Rimmon in 2Ki 5:18, you cannot possibly infer the existence of a goddess Rimmonah. The explanation given by Schlottmann ( Hiob, p. 132) and Paul Btticher ( Rudimenta mythologiae semit. 1848, p. 10) – namely, that harmonah as the Phoenician goddess Chusarthis, called by the Greeks – is still more untenable, since is no more derived from the talmudic harman than this is from the Sanscrit pramana (Btticher, l.c. p. 40); on the contrary, harman signifies loftiness, from the Semitic root , to be high, and it cannot be shown that there was a goddess called Harman or Harmonia in the Phoenician worship. Lastly, the fanciful idea of Btticher, that harmonah is contracted from hahar rimmonah , and that the meaning is, “and then ye throw, i.e., remove, the mountain (your Samaria) to Rimmon, that ancient place of refuge for expelled tribes” (Jdg 20:45.), needs no refutation.)

The literal meaning of harmonah or harmon still remains uncertain. According to the etymology of , to be high, it apparently denotes a high land: at the same time, it can neither be taken as an appellative, as Hesselberg and Maurer suppose, “the high land;” nor in the sense of ‘armon , a citadel or palace, as Kimchi and Gesenius maintain. The former interpretation is open to the objection, that we cannot possibly imagine why Amos should have formed a word of his own, and one which never occurs again in the Hebrew language, to express the simple idea of a mountain or high land; and the second to this objection, that “the citadel” would require something to designate it as a citadel or fortress in the land of the enemy. The unusual word certainly points to the name of a land or district, though we have no means of determining it more precisely.

(Note: Even the early translators have simply rendered haharmonah according to the most uncertain conjectures. Thus lxx, ( al. ); Aq., mons Armona ; Theod., mons Mona ; the Quinta: excelsus mons (according to Jerome); and Theodoret attributes to Theodot. . The Chaldee paraphrases it thus: , “far beyond the mountains of Armenia.” Symmachus also had Armenia, according to the statement of Theodoret and Jerome. But this explanation is probably merely an inference drawn from 2Ki 17:23, and cannot be justified, as Bochart supposes, on the ground that monah or mon is identical with minn .)

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Threatenings against Oppressors; Punishment of Proud Oppressors.

B. C. 790.

      1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.   2 The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fish-hooks.   3 And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.   4 Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:   5 And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

      It is here foretold, in the name of God, that oppressors shall be humbled and idolaters shall be hardened.

      I. That proud oppressors shall be humbled for their oppressions: for he that does wrong shall receive according to the wrong that he has done. Now observe,

      1. How their sin is described, v. 1. They are compared to the kine of Bashan, which were a breed of cattle very large and strong, especially if, though bred there, they were fed upon the mountain of Samaria, where the pastures were extraordinarily fat. Amos had been a herdsman, and he speaks in a dialect of his calling, comparing the rich and great men, that lived in luxury and wantonness, to the kine of Bashan, which were wanton and unruly, would not be kept within the bounds of their own pasture, But broke through the hedges, broke down all the fences, and trespassed upon the neighboring grounds; and not only so, but pushed and gored the smaller cattle that were not a match for them. Those that had their summer-houses upon the mountains of Samaria when they went thither for fresh air were as mischievous as the kine upon the mountains of Bashan and as injurious to those about them. (1.) They oppress the poor and needy themselves; they crush them, to squeeze something to themselves out of them. They took advantage of their poverty, and necessity, and inability to help themselves, to make them poorer and more necessitous than they were. They made use of their power as judges and magistrates for the invading of men’s rights and properties, the poor not excepted; for they made no conscience of robbing even the hospital. (2.) They are in confederacy with those that do so. They say to their masters (to the masters of the poor, that abuse them and violently take from them what they have, when they ought to relieve them), “Bring, and let us drink; let us feast with you upon the gains of our oppression, and then we will protect you, and stand by you in it, and reject the appeals of the poor against you.” Note, What is got by extortion is commonly made use of as provisions for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof; and therefore men are tyrants to the poor because they are slaves to their appetites. Bring, and let us drink, is the language of those that crush the needy, as if the tears of the oppressed, mingled with their wine, made it drink the better. And by their associations for drinking and reveling, and an excess of riot, they strengthen their combinations for persecution and oppression, and harden the hearts of one another in it.

      2. How their punishment is described, Amo 4:2; Amo 4:3. God will take them away with hooks, and their posterity with fish-hooks; he will send the Assyrian army upon them, that shall make a prey of them, shall not only enclose the body of the nation in their net, but shall angle for particular persons, and take them prisoners and captives as with hooks and fish-hooks, shall draw them out of their own land as fish are drawn out of the water, which is their element, them and their children with them, or, They in their day shall be drawn out by one victorious enemy, and their posterity in their day by another, so that by a succession of destroying judgments they shall at length be wholly extirpated. These kine of Bashan thought they could no more be drawn out with a hook and a cord than the Leviathan can, Job 41:1; Job 41:2. But God will make them know that he has a hook for their nose and a bridle for their jaws, Isa. xxxvii. 29. The enemy shall take them away as easily as the fisherman takes away the little fish, and shall make it their sport and recreation. When the enemy has made himself master of Samaria, then, (1.) Some shall attempt to escape by flight: You shall go out at the breaches made in the wall of the city, every cow at that which is before her, to shift for her own safety, and make the best of her way; and now the unruly kine of Bashan are tamed, and are themselves crushed, as they crushed the poor and needy. Note, Those to whom God has given a good pasture, if they are wanton in it, will justly be turned out of it; and those who will not be kept within the hedge of God’s precept forfeit the benefit of the hedge of God’s protection, and will be forced in vain to flee through the breaches they have themselves fearfully made in that hedge. (2.) Others shall think to shelter themselves, or at least their best effects, in the palace, because it is a castle well fortified and a garrison well manned: You shall throw yourselves (so some read it), or throw them (that is, your posterity, your children, or whatever is dear to you), into the palace, where the enemy will find it ready to be seized. Note, What is got by oppression cannot long be enjoyed with satisfaction.

      3. How their sentence to this punishment is ratified: The Lord God has sworn it by his holiness. He had often said it, and they regarded it not; they thought God and his prophets did but jest with them; therefore he swears it in his wrath, and what he has sworn he will not revoke. He swears by his holiness, that attribute of his which is so much his glory, and which is so much glorified in the punishment of wicked people; for, as sure as God is a holy God, those that plough iniquity and sow wickedness shall reap the same.

      II. That obstinate idolaters shall be hardened in their idolatries (Amo 4:4; Amo 4:5): Come to Bethel, and transgress. It is spoken ironically: “Do so; take your course; multiply your transgressions by multiplying your sacrifices, for this liketh you; but what will you do in the end hereof?” Here we see, 1. How intent they were upon the service of their idols, and how willing they were to be at cost upon them; they brought their sacrifices, and their tithes, and their free-will offerings, hoping that therein they should be accepted of God, but it was all an abomination to him. The profuseness of idolaters in the service of their false gods may shame our strait-handedness in the service of the true and living God. 2. How they mimicked God’s institutions. They had their daily sacrifice at the altar of Bethel, as God had at his altar; they had their thank-offerings as God had, only they allowed leaven in them, which God had forbidden, because their priests did not like to have the bread to heavy and tasteless as it would be if it had not leaven in it, for something to ferment it. Holy bread would not serve them, unless it were pleasant bread. 3. How well pleased they were with these services themselves: This liketh you, O you children of Israel! So you love. What was their own invention they were fond of and wedded to, and thought it must be pleasing to God because it was agreeable to their own fancy. 4. How they upbraided with it: “Come to Bethel, to Gilgal; bring the sacrifices and tithes yourselves; proclaim and publish to the nation the free-offerings, pressing them to bring in abundance of such; go on in this way;” that is, (1.) “It is plain that you are resolved to do it, whatever God and conscience say to the contrary.” (2.) “Your prophets shall let you alone in it, and not admonish you as they have done, for it is to no purpose. Let no man strive nor rebuke his neighbour.” (3.) “Your foolish hearts shall be more and more darkened and besotted, and you shall be quite given up to these strong delusions, to believe a lie.” (4.) “What will you get by it? Come to Bethel and multiply your sacrifices, and see what the better you will be, what returns you will have to your sacrifices, what stead they will stand you in in the day of distress. You shall be ashamed of Bethel your confidence,” Jer. xlviii. 13. (5.) “Come, and transgress, come, and multiply your transgression, that you may fill up the measure of your iniquity and be ripened for ruin.” Thus Christ said to Judas, What thou doest do quickly; and to the Jews, Fill you up the measure of your fathers, Matt. xxiii. 32.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

AMOS – CHAPTER 4

SACRIFICES AT BETHEL

Verses 1-5:

An Abomination to Jehovah

Verse 1 appeals to the kine (cows and bulls) of Bashan, fat cattle between Mt Hermon and Gilead, east of the Jordan river, to give heed to the prophet of God. He denounces their mountain resorts in Samaria, their oppression of the poor, and their continual crushing of the needy. These fat cows and bulls of Bashan represent the luxurious living nobles, princes, and kings in Israel. These “fat-cat” princes appealed to their master (the king) to bring or appoint, make available to them wine, that they might make “slap-happy” merriment together, Psa 22:12; Eze 39:18. Their voluptuous wives were party to the tyrannical behavior and debauchery of their men who led in the oppression and robbery of the poor and needy, Isa 3:16; Isa 32:9-12.

Verse 2 threatens that the Lord (Jehovah) has sworn, based on His holiness of character and His covenant that He will take Israel away from her promised land with hooks, and her posterity with fishhooks, instruments of fishermen, symbolizing judgment by the invaders and spoilers who would come upon the land, Psa 89:35. As fish are taken from the water by hooks, literally thorns, so shall Israels enemies suddenly and violently take her people from their homes and cities, 2Ch 33:11; Jer 16:16: Eze 29:4 – Hab 1:15. Anciently, captives were led by their enemies with a hook made to pass through their nose.

Verse 3 prophesies that each of Israel’s princes, nobles, and rulers would go out of the cities through holes in the walls, not through the gates, like stampeding cattle, one after the other. Reckless and desperate they shall stampede to escape for their lives. Calves had been the object of their idolatrous worship; now they are compared with sensual animal life; Like cows and calves they fled through breaches in the walls, in disorder and panic. And they will cast their children into the palaces like bait for hungry lions, to slow down their enemy, as they selfishly fled for their lives, Jos 6:5; Jos 6:10; Jos 6:21. Sins overtake the swiftest person and nation, Num 32:23.

Verse 4 recounts how, with irony and sarcasm the prophet of God, Amos, called upon them to come to Bethel, meaning the “house of the one true God,” and to Gilgal, in both of which places they had erected idols for worship, Elijah, Micaiah, and Jesus used irony for similar purposes, 1Ki 18:27; 1Ki 22:15; Mat 6:2. There He said, try bringing your sacrifices and tithes that you dote on, Eze 20:39; Hos 4:15; Hos 9:15; Hos 12:11; Deu 14:28. See if God will accept them, He challenges their obstinate course of behavior, Isa 1:11-24.

Verse 5 challenges the Israelites to go on with their pious offering of thanksgiving with leaven and burnt incense for “this liketh you all” or this is what you like to do. The idea is that the whole ceremony was a sham, because of the way they were living, embracing the God-offending idol gods, Exo 20:1-5; Psa 115:4-9; Mar 7:1-12.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

He who divided the chapters seems not to have well considered the Prophet’s argument: for he pursues here his reproof of the rich, and he had been prophesying against the chief men in the kingdom of Israel. We indeed know how much ferocity there is in the rich, when they become formidable to others by their power. Hence the Prophet here laughs to scorn their arrogance: Hear, he says, this word; as though he said, “I see how it will be; for these great and pompous men will haughtily despise my threatening, they will not think themselves exposed to God’s judgment; and they will also think that wrong is done to them: they will inquire, ‘Who I am,’ and ask, ‘How dares a shepherd assail them with so much boldness?’ “ Hear then ye cows; as though he said, that he cared not for the greatness in which they prided themselves. “What then is your wealth? It is even fatness: then I make no more account of you than of cows; ye are become fat; but your power will not terrify me; your riches will not deprive me of the liberty of treating you as it becomes me and as God has commanded me.” We hence see that the Prophet here assails with scorn the chief men of the kingdom, who wished to be sacred and untouched. The Prophet asks by what privilege they meant to excuse themselves for not hearing the word of the Lord. If they pleaded their riches and their own authority; “These,” he says, “are fatness and grossness; ye are at the same time cows and I will regard you as cows; and I will not deal with you less freely than I do with my cattle.” We now then perceive the Prophet’s intention.

But he goes on with his similitude: for though he here accuses the chiefs of the kingdom of oppressing the innocent and of distressing the poor, he yet addresses them in the feminine gender, who dwell, he says, on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who consume the needy, who say, etc. He does not think them worthy of the name of men; and yet they wished to be viewed a class separate from the common people, as though they were some heroes or halfgods. The Prophet, by way of contempt, calls them here cows; and he also withholds from them the name of men. Bashan, we know, derived its name from fatness; it was a very rich mountain, and celebrated for its pastures: as the fertility of this mountain was well known among that people, the Prophet gave the name of the cows of Bashan to those fat and full men: and it was right that they should be thus roughly handled, because through fatness, as it is usually the case, they had contracted dullness; for when men abound in riches, when they become great in power, they forget themselves and despise God, for they think themselves beyond the reach of danger. As then this security makes the rich torpid and inattentive to any threatenings, and disobedient to God’s word, so that they regard all counsels superfluous, the Prophet here rebukes them with greater asperity, and addresses them, by way of reproach, under the name of cows. And when he says that they were on the mountain of Samaria, this is still ironical; for they might have made this objection, that they dwelt in the royal city, and were watchful over the state of the whole nation, and that the kingdom stood through their counsels and vigilance: “I see how it is,” he says; “Ye are not on mount Bashan, but on the mount of Samaria; what is the difference between Samaria and Bashan? For ye are there inebriated with your pleasures: as cows, when fattened, are burdened with their own weight, and can hardly draw along their own bodies; so it is with you, such is your slowness through your gluttony. Samaria then, though it may seem to be a watch-tower, is yet nothing different from mount Bashan: for ye are not there so very solicitous (as ye pretend) for the public safety; but, on the contrary, ye devour great riches; and as your cupidity is insatiable, the whole government is nothing else to you than fatness or a rich pasturage.”

But the Prophet chiefly reproves them, because they oppressed the poor and consumed the needy. Though the rich, no doubt, did other wrongs, yet as they especially exercised cruelty towards the miserable, and those who were destitute of every help, this is the reason why the Prophet here elates expressly that the poor and the needy were oppressed by the rich: and we also know, that God promises special aid to the miserable, when they find no help on earth; for it more excites the mercy of God, when all cruelly rage against the distressed, when no one extends to them a helping hand or deigns to aid them.

He adds, in the last place, what they say to their masters. I wonder why interpreters render this in the second person, who say to your masters; for the Prophet speaks here in the third person: they seem therefore designedly to misrepresent the real meaning of the Prophet; and by masters they understand the king and his counselors, as though the Prophet here addressed his words to these chief men of the kingdom. Their rendering then is unsuitable. But the Prophet calls those masters who were exactors, to whom the poor were debtors. The meaning is, that the king’s counselors and judges played into the hands of the rich, who plundered the poor; for when they brought a bribe, they immediately obtained from the judges what they required. They are indeed to be bought by a price who hunt for nothing else but a prey.

They said then to their masters, Bring and we shall drink; that is, “Only satiate my cupidity, and I will adjudge to thee what thou wouldest demand: provided then thou bringest me a bribe, care not, I will sell all the poor to thee.” We now comprehend the design of the Prophet: for he sets forth here what kind those oppressions were of which he had been complaining. “Ye then oppress the poor, — and how? Even by selling them to their creditors, and by selling them for a price. Hence, when a reward is offered to you, this satisfies you: Ye inquire nothing about the goodness of the cause, but instantly condemn the miserable and the innocent, because they have not the means of redeeming themselves: and the masters to whom they are debtor; who through your injustice hold them bound to themselves, pay the price: there is thus a mutual collusion between you.” It now follows —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

AMOSOR HEATHENISMANCIENT AND MODERN

Amo 1:1 to Amo 9:15

THE opening sentences of this Book give us briefly, and yet somewhat fully, the history of the Prophet whose name it wears. He belonged to the herdmen of Tekoa, and prophesied in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah, and Jeroboam, Son of Joash, sat upon the throne of Israel, and two years before the earthquake.

There are few Prophets the date of whose living is so definitely fixed. It is known that Uzziah and Jeroboam were contemporary kings in the period 809 to 784 B. C. It is certain, therefore, that sometime in these twenty-five seasons, Amos spoke. Some have thought to fix it accurately by referring to the history of this earthquake, which was one of the most terrible visitations the country had ever known of its kind. Josephus assigned, as the immediate occasion of this earthquake, the act of pride on the part of Uzziah in offering incense, for which God smote him with leprosy, and says, Meanwhile a great earthquake shook the ground and the Temple parting, a bright ray of the sun shone forth and fell upon the kings face, so that forthwith the leprosy came over him. And above the city, at the place called Eroge, the western half of a hill was broken off and rolled half a mile to the mountain Eastward, and there stayed, blocking up the ways, and the kings garden.

But it ought to be said, in all candor, that those people who swear by Josephus, but doubt the inspiration of the biblical writers, have poor occasion for their conduct. This ancient Jewish historian is so often writing down legend, tradition, and even his own imagination, for history, that one dare not receive his statement concerning this earthquake as authentic, and the very year of Amos writing remains undetermined.

The place of his residence is put past dispute, however. It was at Tekoa, a little village twelve to fourteen miles from Jerusalem, and six miles south of old Bethlehem, the very one whence Joab brought the wise woman to intercede for Absalom, and which the king Rehoboam made a fortified town.

His humble station was also affirmed; not even the owner of sheep, but a hireling, who as opportunity offered, followed the herds; and when there was no employment in that avocation, turned to the gathering and selling of sycamore fruit or figs.

The most of the Old Testament Prophets are the sons of honored fathers, descendants from famed families; but already God is beginning to manifest forth the fact, which finds so many illustrations in New Testament teachers, namely,

How that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

That no flesh should glory in His presence? (1Co 1:27-29).

But in keeping with the humble station of this man, and his equally humble estimate of self, he spent only a single verse upon his personal history,

as if the man were of little moment; while Gods message to the people was the subject of supreme concern.

With what a sentence did he smite the ears of his auditorsThe Lord will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.

It is not difficult to imagine him a successful street preacher, for these words were doubtless uttered in the alley-like avenues of Jerusalem. When he had finished that first sentence, every Jew within hearing of it would be riveted in attention, and ready to give eager ear to all that followed. It is interesting now to note, either the consummate genius of the speaker, or else Gods evident inspiration for both arrangement and expression of his thought.

It seems to me that this Book, upon close study, falls naturally into four parts and considered as a sermon or discourse, is ideal in its arrangement.

The first of these divisions has to do with

THE PROPHETS NEIGHBORS

Amo 1:3 to Amo 2:3

From Amo 1:3 to Amo 2:3 Amos speaks solely concerning the heathen round about. He denounces Damascus; he condemns Gaza; he excoriates Tyrus; he reproves Edom, he censures Ammon; and delivers sentence against Moab. What an introduction for a street discourse in Jerusalem! Every Jewish auditor would be delighted, for these were their hated enemies, and to have a man whose very mien and tongue told of his Divine appointment to the order of Prophet, utter such excoriations, would arouse the smouldering hatred which the Jews held against these into a flame of enthusiasm for the man speaking such words.

Now, before passing from this subject, let us see some essential truths suggested in these sentences.

First of all, The Prophets ministry is predetermined. His speech was no trick of the elocutionist to catch his auditors by condemning their enemies. Amos disclaims all originality and responsibility for these words, introducing his deliverance by the sentence, Thus saith the Lord. There are people who seem to entertain an impression that a prophet has no right to interfere in any affairs of another, and no occasion to condemn even the bad doings of his neighbors. It is not unusual to hear it said, You belong in the Church; and at the most your ministry should spend itself within the circle of her membership. You may have a right to instruct her youth, and even admonish her adults, but what have you to do with others? Those politicians who live and move in another realm; those science Professors who instruct Truth in skepticism, those liquor sellers who lure you to debauch, that realm of commerce, created for barter, not to speak of other confessedly unchristian circleswhat business have you with them?

They recognize no allegiance to your views, no obligation to your opinions; they regard your speech, concerning their conduct, a presumption. Why, therefore, persist in taking upon yourself a service which is despised by the very ones of whom you speak?

Amos answer to all of this is sufficient! Thus saith the Lord.

That is the answer of every true prophet. He is not spying out his neighbors sins, and speaking against them because the sermon brings him either pleasure or profit, but because God has said,

Preach the Word; he instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

* * But after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

And they shall turn away their ears from the Truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry? (2Ti 4:2-5).

Only a few years ago some nominal Christians all over this country were voicing a certain amount of sympathy with the Boxer movement; and taking their cue from the cry of these murderers Down with the foreign devils, asked, What right have we to force our views upon these people when they do not want them?a question which can be answered in two sentences. Christians never force their views upon any, only preach them; and their warrant for doing that is in His Word. He who created China and has never signed a quitclaim to His right in that land and that people, namely, Jesus Himself, says, Go ye therefore, and teach ail nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Gods Prophets who call the Chinese to repentance, are there, commissioned of God Himself. Who will object to His conduct? Shall the creature take issue with the Creator?

The Prophets message also is God-given. When Amos uttered these words concerning Damascus, and Gaza, and Tyrus, and Edom, and Ammon, and Moab, he was not speaking of himself, But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael and I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus and I will send a fire upon Teman, etc., etc. Such would have been utterly meaningless had it originated at the mouth of the Prophet.

There are many people who object to Gods fire, kindled against His enemies, consuming the wicked. But let us not quarrel with Gods Prophet. This blaze was not born of his breath. When the minister reads from Revelation, The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death, dont quarrel with John for the speech. Like Amos of old, his authority for the utterance is in the sentence Thus saith the Lord.

When Hugh Latimer, one New Years day, went along with the bishop and nobles, who were carrying their presents to the king, with a Bible in his hand, and presented that as His gift, and the king opening it read, Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge he was angry with Latimer; and, Herrick says, It is a wonder that bluff and fiery King Hall did not take off Hughs head.

Possibly the reason is found in the fact that even that fiery king knew that these were not Latimers words, and whatever quarrel he had was with God. The man who delivers Gods message is not to be blamed; and the man who does not present it is not Gods Prophet! How shall they preach except they be sent?

When Moses was called to be a Prophet for God he poorly apprehended the Prophets part. His answer was O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord answered him, Who hath made mans mouth * * Go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. The man, who, like Amos, gets his message from God is Gods minister.

This Prophets judgment represents Divine justice. When he says For three transgressions, and for four, of Damascus, Gaza, Tyrus, Edom, Ammon, Moab, I will send a fire, there is absolute justice in the sentence declared. Damascus must suffer because they have Threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; Gaza because they have carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom; Tyrus, for participating in the same, and forgetting the brotherly covenant; Edom because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever; Ammon because he ripped up the women with child * * that they might enlarge their border: and Moab because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Men did not object when houses, infected with the black plague, were burned. There are some infections that can only be consumed in the flame. And there are some sins which can never be removed away save by the fire of Divine judgment; and that judgment always represents Divine justice also.

Not a few people have spoken to me concerning a sermon once delivered by my colleague, Dr. Frost, expressing their gratitude in that he made it clear that the innocent were never punished on account of the guilty; and that the guilty never suffered above their deserts; and that judgment was always tempered with mercy.

I confess to surprise that these things should strike any as new truths; they are as old as Revelation itself. Aye, they are inseparable from the very character of God.

John Watson, in his Mind of the Master tells us that what has filled many honorable minds with resentment and rebellion is not the fact of separation, but the principle of execution; not the dislike of an assortment, but the fear that it will not be into good and bad. And he continues, But Jesus rested judgment on the firm foundation of what each man is in the sight of the Eternal. He anticipated no protest in His parables against the justice of this evidence; none has ever been made from any quarter. The wheat is gathered into the garner. What else could one do with wheat? The tares are burned in the fire. What else could one do with tares? When the net comes to the shore, the good fish are gathered into vessels; no one would throw them away. The bad are cast aside; no one would leave them to contaminate the good. The supercilious guests who did not value the great supper were left severely alone. If men do not care for Heaven, they will not be forced into it. The outcasts, who had never dared to dream of such a supper, were compelled to come. If men hunger for the best, the best shall be theirs.

That is the truth of Gods judgment everywhere. And when He consumed these nations with the besom of destruction it was only because to continue them would be to condone sin by reproducing sinners, and stain the earth, calling into question His own wisdom by letting iniquity go unpunished. Say what you will of these judgments, you must commend their justice. Who art thou that repliest against God?

But from the Prophets neighbors we turn to

THE PROPHETS NATIONS

Amo 2:4 to Amo 6:14

To be sure Amos belonged by birth to Judah, but both these nations were his, by kinship, and by Divine appointment of Prophet to them. He came out of Judah, but he spake to Judah and to Israel. What a change must have come over the audience when this man, with eloquent speech, flaming with the evident enthusiasm of a Divine commission, turned suddenly from his denouncement of neighbors, to a kindred condemnation of the favored nations.

For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the Law of the Lord, and have not kept His Commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:

But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes (Amo 2:4-6).

Heathenism is not all with the heathen. You read the words of this Prophet from Amo 2:4 to Amo 6:14 and you will find the elect backsliders, and indulging in the abominations of their neighbors. It is a phrase employed too often, I fear, by those unwilling to go, or through their gold and silver to send, Why be interested in the heathen or foreign lands when there are so many heathen at home?

Such speak better than they desire. The heathen are at home; aye, the heathen, here, were the very company who called themselves saints. And this Prophets descriptions are not ancient; they are up to date!

No single discourse upon which my hand has fallen has been comparable in clearness of expression, and vigor of thought, to one, once delivered by my late loved friend, Dr. John O. Rust, on The New Heathenism, and printed in the Presbyterian Quarterly, October, 1902, and reprinted in pamphlet form by Whittet and Shepperson, of Richmond, Va. Rusts opening sentence is, We are prone to think that we have left heathenism far behind us in the centuries of the past; or that it is banished from our shores to hide its shame in the remote and darkened corners of the earth; and one is almost stung into a feeling of resentment when the charge is made that there is a lively revival of heathenism at our very doors, here in enlightened America, in this blessed day of grace.

Then Rust continues to show that commercialism has carried many a so-called Christian into heathen practices. The poet has written:

It is success that colors all in life;Success makes fools admired, makes villains honest;All the proud virtues of this vaunting world Fawns on success and power, howeer acquired.

Rust thinks stheticism also has been chosen as a term with which to clothe our cultured heathenism. He says, When the people get rich suddenly they wish to acquire culture quickly. The consequence is that elegant ladies and gentlemen, strong in the languor of luxury, lounge in dainty drawing-rooms, and cultivate an Attic difference to virtue, and a Roman contempt for enthusiasm of robust manhood.

Occultism has, within the last ten years, enjoyed a ridiculous revival. Teachers whose chief qualifications are long hair and soiled linen, profess an acquaintance with the mysteries of philosophy which would appall the real learning of the world. Hypnotists reveal the deep secrets of psychology on a months tuition which has been hidden from the wisdom of the world for ages. And the amazing thing about it is that thousands of people listen to the babble of these fellows who will not heed the oracles of God. A certain statistician has computed that there has been an increase of 300 per cent in fools in this country in the last fifty years, and one is half inclined to believe the estimate.

Socialism represents an extreme reaction against the proud, arrogant and esoteric tendencies, and by its very consciousness of wrong, it is attempting to get its rights by an attack upon all society.

Now I confess it was most interesting to me to take that address of Rusts, and compare his words with those of the Prophet Amos. Commercialism cursed Gods people in the times of Amos also, and they were called to judgment because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes.

stheticism found then the same sensual expression which it is receiving today, They [stretched] themselves upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar. They [drank] the wine of the condemned in the house of their god. By their increased riches, through the oppression of the poor, they bought unto themselves beds of ivory, and stretched themselves upon their couches, and ate the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall, and chanted to the sound of the viol, and invented to themselves instruments of music, defaming David, by saying they were the same as his; and setting aside the little glasses, emptied great bowls of wine.

And, by anointing themselves with the chief ointment imagined that they were a sweet incense to God, forgetting to grieve for the affliction of Joseph, until the drunkards of Ephraim came to be a byword in the streets of Jerusalem.

As to Occultism, they turned from the worship of the True God to such false shrines and sorcerers that a temple to Asherah was restored in Samaria; the gold and silver images to Baal were set up; the smoke of sacrifice to idols could be seen upon their mountain tops, and incense smelt in the shade of every grove until the word was Gilead was given to idols. They transgressed at Bethel, and multiplied transgressions at Gilgal.

And then the socialism that always attends oppression! Selfish and sensual living stirred in the breasts of the unsuccessful, and made it easy to bring against their divided forces nations that should afflict them from the entering of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness.

Beloved, what greater danger to the land in which we live than these same, before which the ancient people of God sadly fell? Is not the Church itself threatened by commercialism in which, as Rust puts it, The evangelist has become the finangelist? The denominations which twenty-five years ago existed on a creedal basis, today continue on a commercial basis. Are not our missionary treasuries pauper-stricken too often because even the people who wear the Name of God, have learned to love palatial residences, and expend upon person and pleasure the whole of their income. And, are not many being brought to the bar of judgment and condemned with the charge having been substantiated against them, by the Lord God Himself, In tithes and offerings ye have robbed Me?

Let us see another thing to be inferred from the language of the Prophet Amos. Sonship does not insure against chastisement. The true father may witness the most evil deeds upon the part of his neighbors child without speaking a word of correction, or claiming the right of chastisement. But not so when his own children go into sin. His very love of them compels their correction; while his past favors give him that paternal prerogative, God makes that the basis of Israels chastisement. He reminds the Children of Israel that He alone had brought them up from Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

It is an Old Testament illustration of the New Testament assertion, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. For those who have been the recipients of Divine favor in our day, the poets sentences speak this same truth.

But if your ears refuse The language of His grace,Your hearts grow hard, like stubborn Jews,That unbelieving race.

The Lord with vengeance drest,Shall lift His hand and swear,You that despised My promised restShall have no portion there.

Beastly conduct necessitates bitter correction. Sometime when you have looked upon people whose moral filth and sensual living was such that your whole nature reacted from the sight, you have been tempted to adopt the language of the street and call them cattle. Perhaps you did not know that it was also the language of Scripture, and that it is possible for men to go so deeply into sin that God looks upon their condition as that of a beast in an unclean stall.

To these ancient Israelites He said,

Hear this Word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

The Lord God hath sworn by His holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that He will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the Lord (Amo 4:1-3).

These are rude words of the Prophet; but let us remember that they were not his words, but Gods instead. It is an awful thing for one to come to that moral condition where his conduct reminds God of the cattle of the field!

Such a condition cannot be covered over by feasts, offerings and ceremonies. It is in vain for such to come to Bethel, which means the House of God, and to Gilgal to bring sacrifice every morning, and tithes after three years, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish a free offering. As Joseph Parker says, There is one thing wanting in all that elegant program, and for want of that one thing the whole arrangement dies in the air like a gilded bubble. What is omitted from this rehearsal? The sin offering, the trespass offering. They will come with sacrifices every morning as donor to God; they will come with service and sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven; they will throw money into the treasury, and announce the sum in plain figures. But where is penitence? Where is contrition? Where is heart-wringing? Where is the tearing conscience, the presence of tormenting agony in the innermost life? Most worship is partial; many will have a little partial religion. Some attention has to be paid to custom, to the habit, wont, and use of life; some mean coin must at least be thrown into the treasury, and thrown in with some ostentation; hymns must be sung, and fault must be found with the music, and judgment must be pronounced upon the rabbi, the priest, the teacher for the time being, and for a certain period there must be an odor of sanctity about what we say and do. All this trickery is possible; but it never reaches the Heaven of God. And God only answers it all by saying,

Seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba * *.

Seek the Lord, and ye shall live * *.

Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His Name (Amo 5:5-6; Amo 5:8).

But to pass on in our study of this Book, we come upon

THE PROPHETS OPPONENTS

Amo 7:1 to Amo 9:10

It would be a marvel indeed if such a man as this went on without opposition. They beheaded Paul; they killed James, the Just; they crucified Jesus, and Amos reveals no spirit of compromise. How then can he hope to pass on in peace?

The Prophet cannot escape the opponent. There is an Amaziah for every Amos. He will send to Jeroboam, the king, saying,

Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the House of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land (Amo 7:10-11).

It is not pleasant to be pricked by the truth; to be irritated by an inspired word; to feel the lash upon the conscience, quickened by Sacred Scripture; and men always have opposed it, and they always will.

Perhaps in modern times we have had no more faithful minister of the Gospel than was Charles Spurgeon. But he had to learn how to be slandered, he says, in order that he might be made useful to God. His statement is, Down on my knees I have often fallen, with the hot sweat rising from my brow, under some fresh slander poured upon me; in an agony of grief my heart has been well-nigh broken; till at last I learned the art of bearing all and caring for none. * * If to be made as the mire of the streets again, if to be the laughing-stock of fools and the song of the drunkard once more will make me more serviceable to my Master, and more useful to His cause, I will prefer it to all this multitude, or to all the applause that man could give.

That was exactly Amos answer when told to prophesy no more at Beth-el, since it was the kings chapel, and the kings court. He replied, confessing his humble estimate of himself,

I was no Prophet, neither was I a Prophets son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit:

And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord send unto me, Go, prophesy unto My people Israel.

Now therefore hear thou the Word of the Lord.

It is the only answer one needs to make to his opponent; and it is the only answer one can make that carries with it any assurance of success. Do you remember that when David, the lad, after being scoffed by his elder brother, and scorned by Goliath, the giant, said to that Philistine, Thou contest to me with a sword, and with a spear and with a shield: but I come to thee in the Name of the Lord of Hosts. Oh, beloved, whoever our opponents are, and whatever our opposition, that is the only Name in which we can stand; and that Name is sufficient!

Speaking in that Name we cannot be silenced by secular powers. Amaziah, in his inability to meet Amos single-handed, tried the trick of the pious politician, namely, arraying the secular powers against this servant of the Lord. It is an old trick; it was done in the days of Elisha; and repeated in the days of the Son of Man. He was charged with opposition to Caesar; as were His Apostles with rebellion against the civil government. It is most amazing how patriotic some men become, once the preaching of the truth reveals their personal sins, and those which they have in common with so-called statesmen, at one and the same time.

They are not welcomed by the fallen, and sometimes are most bitterly opposed by men who have proclaimed themselves children of the King. Be it remembered, however, that the same Amaziahs who rise to charge Gods Prophets with treason will be compelled to listen, eventually, to the Divine sentence of the Lord,

Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the House of Isaac.

Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land (Amo 7:16-17).

And yetThe Christians courage will accord with the Divine commission. Amos only needs to answer, The Lord took me as I followed the flock, and * * said unto me, Go, prophesy unto My people Israel. When you have spoken in the language of Scripture, and are conscious that your purpose was to help and not hinder; to reform and not deform; to convert and not divert, then fear will flee away, and like Peter and the other Apostles of Jesus, you can answer the command of silence, We ought to obey God rather than man, and We are His witnesses of these things.

S. E. Herrick, speaking of Savonarola, in the times when all Florence was ablaze, having been basely betrayed by their ruler, says that Savonarola remained the one calm spirit, and assigns as the reason, He is the man who dwells unmoved in (The secret place of the Most High, and under the shadow of the Almighty

Every man ought to dwell there who is consciously seeking the glory of God, and faithfully presenting the Truth of God. Paul seems to have entertained that opinion of the whole Christian life, when he wrote the Ephesians,

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with Truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace;

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked (Eph 6:10-16).

This Book concludes with the

PROPHETS PREDICTION

Amo 9:11-15

I want to make that also the conclusion of this chapter. This prediction is brief, but how blessed!

In that day will I raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by My Name, saith the Lord that doeth this.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

And I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God (Amo 9:11-15).

Take the three points of this prediction and delight thyself in them.

The restitution of the House of David is pledged.

That day will I raise up the Tabernacle.

That promise is found in a hundred forms in this Old Testament, and was made the occasion of James appeal to missionary endeavor, when, at the council of Jerusalem, he stood before the people saying,

Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His Name.

And to this agree the Words of the Prophets; as it is written,

After this I will return, and will build again the Tabernacle of David, which is fallen dawn.

Simeon did not see that Tabernacle rebuilt; James was not privileged to witness it; nor have we; and yet the Word of the Lord will not fail. The House of David is yet to be exalted in the earth.

Dr. Gordon tells us, There is a fragment of Jewish legend that has floated down to us, which represents two venerable rabbis as musing among the ruins of Jerusalem after its destruction. One is giving way to unrestrained lamentation, saying, Alas! alas! this is the end of all. Our beautiful city is no more; our Temple is laid waste, our brethren are driven away into captivity. The other, with greater cheerfulness, replies: True; but let us learn from the verity of Gods judgments, which we behold about us, the certainty of His mercies. He hath said, I will destroy Jerusalem, and we see that He hath done it. But hath He not also said, I will rebuild Jerusalem, and shall we not believe Him? The latter rabbi was right! The same God who, by His might, said to His people, I will sift the House of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve; and speedily fulfilled the threat, also declared of one day in the future, In that day will I raise up the Tabernacle of David that is fallen. He will fulfil His promise. And I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by My Name, saith the Lord that doeth this (Amo 9:11-12).

There is your pledge of the gathering out of the Gentiles. The heathen which are called by Gods Name. Isaiah had long ago said, The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Jesus once reminded the multitudes of the promises of God concerning His SonIn His Name shall the Gentiles trust. But more explicit still is that other statement of His concerning the destiny of JerusalemJerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Beloved, this is your age and mine; the period in which we who were aliens, by nature, are being grafted into the True Vine. Arthur T. Pierson has at some time expressed the thought that he never succeeds in winning a soul to the Saviour without entertaining the hope that this may be the last man needful to the filling up of the time of the Gentiles. But, oh, how such a suggestion ought to stir apprehension in the breasts of all Gentile-unbelievers, lest we approach the day of the Lord, and the time of our opportunity will be past!

Finally:The Prophet also predicts the return of the Jews to their own land.

I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God (Amo 9:14-15).

My brethren sometimes ask whether I see what appears clear evidences of the signs of the times; and if I do, there is something marvelous in this Zionist movement. Only a short time ago a clipping from your own paper here says that in the city of Milwaukee alone thousands of Jews have given their most ardent support to this Zionist movement to buy back again their own land, and make it the place of refuge to their persecuted people. So the movement has enlisted the Jews of St. Paul and Minneapolis. They do not see the significance of such a barter, but who knows but God is already beginning to fulfil literally those promises of His Word,

Surely the isles shall wait for Me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far * *.

And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in My wrath I smote thee, but in My favour have I had mercy on thee (Isa 60:9-10).

And again,

I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion (Jer 3:14).

The first-fruits of that final restoration which is fully pledged, and made emphatic by a hundred repetitions, and when, according to Jeremiah, God will gather the remnant of His scattered flock out of all countries into which He has driven them, and bring them again into their fold. And they shall be fruitful and increase, for in those days He will raise up unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and justice in the earth (Jer 23:3; Jer 23:5).

O then that I

Might live, and see the olive bear

Her proper branches, which now lie

Scattered each where,

And without root and sap decay,

Cast by the husbandman away,

And sure it is not far!

For surely He

Who loved the world so as to give

His only Son to make us free,

Whose Spirit, too, doth mourn and grieve

To see man lost, will, for old love,

From your dark hearts this veil remove.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.] Kine] Fat and wanton, yet effeminate and luxuriant; reproved not for fierceness, but unfeeling insolence and oppression. Say]

(1) Wives here intended, voluptuous women after the analogy of Isa. 3:16; Isa. 32:9-13. The sin of these women consisted in the tyrannical oppression of the poor, whilst they asked their lords, i.e. their husbands, to procure them the means of debauchery [Keil].

(2) Others, princely oppressors, who say to their king, with whom they indulge in drink, and whom they ask to seal the bargain with wine. Oppress] Lit. continually oppress. Crush] Heb. expresses vehemence.

Amo. 4:2. Holiness] which binds him to punish (Psa. 89:35). Hooks] Invaders and spoilers compared to fishers (Jer. 16:16; Heb. 1:14).

Amo. 4:3. Breaches] of city walls broken by the enemy. Every] one before her, i.e. without looking to right or left (cf. Jos. 6:5; Jos. 6:20), as cows through a gap or fence. Cast] The word may describe the headlong motion of the animal, and the desperate gestures of the hopeless [pusey].

HOMILETICS

SAD PICTURES OF HUMAN LIFE.Amo. 4:1-3

Punishment is the leading thought in chap. 3, but in this sin is the prominent thought, and its consequences incidental to prove its exceeding sinfulness. Civil injustice and oppression were very common. The king and his ministers are spoken of in terms of contempt, for sharp rebuke often becomes an imperative duty.

I. Insolent abuse of prosperity. Bashan was a place of rich soil and pasturage (Mic. 7:14; Jer. 50:19). Animals fed there were among the strongest and fattest (Deu. 32:14). Bulls furnished a type of the mighty, fierce, and unfeeling men of earth; kine may indicate the luxury and effeminacy of men or womena life of wantonness and brutish feeling. Amos points out the princes and judges as ringleaders in provocation and insolence. They grew fat and prosperous, abused their place and power, and made themselves base and contemptible. In their pleasure and grandeur they despised the herdman and the poor. They thought more highly of themselves than they ought to do. Like beasts, they found their enjoyments in self-indulgence and luxury. Men who wallow in riches and surfeit themselves in pleasure fatten themselves for slaughter. Those who live a brutish life will die a brutish death. Men in worldly honour, without true wisdom, are worse than beasts that perish. Their eminence is their peril, and their fall is disgraceful. Man that is in honour and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.

II. Might ruling over right. Men in prosperity and high rank often become extravagant and tyrannical. They lose the tenderness of their own, and have no sympathy with the nature of others. Might overcomes right.

1. In oppressing the poor. The poor are always with us to kindle our sympathies, teach our dependence, and fulfil the purpose of God. In true philanthropy there is present blessedness and godlike action. Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The poor must be defended, provided for, and not oppressed. They are not of a lower grade than ourselves If we mock or oppress them we reproach God. He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker.

2. In crushing the needy. Society is a medium for illustrating the attributes of humanity, and building up the moral history of the world. It is composed of all classes, and bound together by all ties. He who is charitable to the needy exhibits moral likeness to God, and administers to the glory of Christ in heaven (Mat. 25:40). But when men gratify pride in selfishness, disregard the rights of the poor, and, like powerful cattle, trample the weak under-foot, it is a mark of an unfeeling heart and social corruptiona way to obliterate the moral character of society, and a prelude to Divine judgment. It is sad when men vent their wantonness where there is no power to resist. Not the wolf with the wolf, but the wolf with the defenceless lamb, devouring the poor and needy from off the earth. Yet they are found among the rulers of Gods own people, among the teachers of religion, and in the common ranks of life. Judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

III. Confederacy in wickedness. Bring, and let us drink. The wicked encourage and strengthen one another in sin. Come on, said Pharaoh, let us deal wisely with them. The king and his courtiers in Israel practised oppression themselves, abetted it and connived at it in others. A sinful course cannot long prosper. Articles of luxury are dearly bought by oppression. Proud combinations against the laws of humanity and the providence of God shall be broken as tow. The builders of Babel were confounded. The conspiracies of Voltaire and his infidel school have been overthrown. In our day all social compacts and private bargains in the cause of injustice will be crushed by the irresistible power of God. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.

IV. Debauchery in social conduct. Let us drink. Men reap a poor harvest from cruelty and oppression when they spend it to gratify their lusts. Making merry at the cost of extortion will only mingle bitterness with wine. Tyrants to the poor are often slaves to their own passions. Cruelty and sensuality are well matched. Inflamed passions crave for inflaming drink, and this again sets on fire the whole course of nature, and disposes to deeds of violence and shame. Nor must it be forgotten that men and women naturally mild and kind commit the most ferocious (otherwise unaccountable) acts under the influence of alcoholic drink, which exerts all the foreign tyranny of diabolical possession.

V. Life terminating in great calamities. Consider the end of these proud oppressors. So the days shall come upon you that he will take you away with hooks and your children with fish-hooks. Led as an ox to the slaughter, taken as fish out of the water, neither power nor number can keep them from sudden and violent destruction.

1. Calamities fixed in time. The days hold on their steady course and advance closer and closer to the sinner. They are determined in Gods purpose and will be fitted in Gods providence.

2. Calamities with great sacrifice. From security they shall violently be taken away to a land of oppression. Their stores of violence would be cast away from their palaces. When life is at stake, treasures of gold are of no worth. A thousand pounds for any one who will save my life, cried a young lady in the wreck of the London. It is too late often, and none can flee away.

3. Calamities from which none can escape. They shall rush from one palace to another. Some think to be the meaning, cast themselves into one place after another and find no shelter. In wild confusion, without help and hope, they will run through the breach of the city, like a herd of cows through a fence.

4. Calamities entailed upon posterity. Your children with fish-hooks. People may survive in their descendants sometimes, but reckless must be that life which sweeps away posterity. Sinners entangle themselves in their own devices, and bring the judgments of God upon their families. Riches are small, and strong palaces are defenceless in the hour of death. Those who boast of wealth, and act in cruelty towards others, will be carried away without ransom and without hope.

To the vile dust from whence they sprung,
Unwept, unhonourd, and unsung.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES

Amo. 4:1. Gods intimate acquaintance with men.

1. He discerns their character. Ye kine of Bashan. Pride, wantonness, and effeminacy.
2. He detects their sins. Specifies one by one.
3. He knows their residence. In the mountain of Samaria. God knows where men live. Let us seek to make our houses such as he will look on with pleasure [Hall in loco]. I know thy abode, and thy going out and thy coming in, and thy rage against me (Isa. 37:28).

Amo. 4:2; Amo. 3:1. Destruction inevitable. Saith the Lord.

2. Destruction by meanest instruments. Fish dragged by the hook, Herod destroyed by worms.
3. Destruction vindicated by Gods character. Holiness is offended by sin, and pledged to vindicate its own honour. God swears by that holiness which they had profaned in themselves, and which they had caused to be profaned in others. God sware by himself. For he is the supreme uncreated Justice and Holiness. This justice each, in his degree, should imitate and maintain on earth, and these they had sacrilegiously violated and overthrown [Pusey].

Amo. 4:1-3. From the whole learn

1. In proportion to the prosperity hero will be the misery of the wicked hereafter.
2. In proportion to their luxury here will be their poverty hereafter.
3. In proportion to their sins here, will be their punishment hereafter [Treasury of David].

O luxury!

Bane of elated life, of affluent states,
What dreary change, what ruin is not thine? [Dyer.]

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4

Amo. 4:1. There is not a word in our language which expresses more detestable wickedness than oppression [Butler]. Mr Cecil says that he often had a sleepless night from having seen an instance of cruelty in the day.

My ear is paind,

My heart is sick with every days report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

REASON CALLS FOR REPENTANCE GODS HOLINESS DEMANDS PUNISHMENT FOR EVIL

TEXT: Amo. 4:1-5

1

Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, that oppress the poor, that crush the needy, that say unto their lords, Bring, and let us drink.

2

The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that they shall take you away with hooks, and your residue with fish-hooks.

3

And ye shall go out at the breaches, every one straight before her; and ye shall cast yourselves into Harmon, saith Jehovah.

4

Come to Beth-el, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes every three days;

5

and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill-offerings and publish them: for this pleaseth you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah.

QUERIES

a.

Who is Amos calling kine of Bashan?

b.

How would Israel be taken away with hooks?

c.

Is the prophet authorizing the people to transgress?

PARAPHRASE

Listen to Me, you fat cows of Bashan living in Israelyou sensuous women who encourage your husbands to rob and oppress the poor and crush the needyyou debauched women who nag your husbands to supply you with intoxicants: The Lord God affirms most certainly that by His holiness which cannot tolerate unrighteousness, He is bringing days of judgment upon you. Your enemies will come and violently tear you away from your place of comfort and ease just as a fisherman hooks a fish and takes it out of its natural habitat. You will be taken prisoner out of your city not through the gates because they will have been destroyed; no, you will go out through the great gaping holes in the walls of your city. And because of your sins you will have thrown yourselves into captivity toward Hermon. God ahead and sacrifice to idols at Bethel and Gilgal; if you offer slain sacrifices every morning, and tithe every three days you only multiply your apostasy from the living God. You have so completely perverted true religion that you think you can, by your excessive zeal in offering even leavened sacrifices and by legally commanding freewill offerings, continue on in your sins, fooling the Holy God. This is not because you dont know what Gods holiness means, but because you love to do evil.

SUMMARY

Gods holy nature, which they knew but refused to live up to, warns them of the impending judgment upon their unholiness.

COMMENT

Amo. 4:1 . . . YE KINE OF BASHAN . . . THAT SAY UNTO THEIR LORDS, BRING, AND LET US DRINK, Most commentators feel that Amos is referring to the sensuous women of Israel when he calls them cows of Bashan. Bashan was noted for its fat, sleek, cattle well-fed on Bashans luxurious pasture lands (cf. Deu. 32:14; Mic. 7:14; Numbers 32). These indulgent women were pampered by their husbands (lord) who in turn had to oppress the poor and crush the needy to supply their wives with the means of debauchery, (cf. Amo. 6:1-7). Compare Isa. 3:16 ff; Isa. 32:9-13 for further description of the wantonness of the women of Israel. There are many cows of Bashan today in the world. Sensuous women who tempt their husbands to evil scheming in order that they may have the means to continue in their libertine living.

Amo. 4:2-3 THE LORD . . . HATH SWORN BY HIS HOLINESS . . . THEY SHALL TAKE YOU AWAY WITH HOOKS . . . YE SHALL CAST YOURSELVES INTO HARMON . . . These poor and needy have no recourse for justice. They are exploited even by the judges who should stand for justice. But the Lord, because He is holy, righteous, just, merciful, rises up as their Vindicator. The Perfect Holiness of Jehovah cannot tolerate evil (Psa. 5:4-5; Psa. 11:5), especially in a people whose call and blessing was that they should be a holy people! The rich of Israel were making no attempt to be holy in their living. We must be holy if we wish to be in communion with God (cf. Rom. 6:19; Heb. 12:14; Isa. 6:3; Col. 3:12; 1Pe. 1:15-16; 1Pe. 2:5; 2Pe. 3:11, etc.). We like the way John wrote it, Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous, (1Jn. 3:7). There is the imputed holiness God gives us through what Christ accomplished on our behalf; on the other hand there is a holiness of living and thinking which we ourselves must workmotivated and energized, of course, by that holiness of His which He freely bestows upon us through the Gospel.

Because of their unholiness God would allow their enemy (the Assyrians) to come and violently jerk them out of their luxurious fish-bowl like a man who hooks a fish jerks it out of the water. They will be violently torn from their pleasant surroundings and caused to flounder and thresh in agony as a fish out of water. Amos is not referring to rings literally placed in the ears and noses of slaves, as was the custom then, but he is simply describing the sudden and awful change of circumstances that are about to come upon these debauched rich.
The gates of their cities will be so utterly destroyed and piled high with debris from wars destructive forces and their walls so completely torn down that the people will be marched off to captivity through the great gaping holes in the walls instead of the gates. These people of Israel, because of their sins, brought upon themselves this captivity. They are said to have cast themselves into this foreign land Harmon (which most translators believe is the territory beyond Mt. Hermon, or Damascus and beyond.)

Amo. 4:4-5 COME TO BETH-EL, AND TRANSGRESS; TO GILGAL, AND MULTIPLY TRANSGRESSION; . . . SACRIFICE EVERY MORNING . . . TITHES EVERY THREE DAYS . . . SACRIFICE THAT WHICH IS LEAVENED . . . PROCLAIM FREEWILL-OFFERINGS . . . FOR THIS PLEASETH YOU . . . Amos uses the figure of speech called irony here to show Israel the folly of her sins. Irony is a kind of ridicule which exposes the errors or faults of others by seeming to adopt, approve, or defend them . . . Other examples of the use of irony in the Bible are Job. 12:2; 1Ki. 18:27; Ecc. 11:9; Jdg. 10:14; 1Ki. 22:15; 1Co. 4:8. Amos was not approving or authorizing the people to sin! He as much as says, Go ahead and do the sins you are doing, you are only multiplying Gods displeasure with you in so doing! They were presuming upon the forbearance and patience of God . . . and by their hard and impenitent heart storing up wrath for themselves . . . (cf. Rom. 2:4-5).

They had so perverted true religion of Jehovah they thought that by their superabundance of offerings they could fool God into thinking they were righteous. They did not stop with offering sacrifices of unleavened cakes upon the altar; to make sure they offered an abundance they even offered some of the leavened cakes (forbidden by the Mosaic law) as well. Not only this but the offerings which were supposed to be motivated out of a purely spontaneous impulse (freewill-offerings) (cf. Lev. 22:18 ff; Deu. 12:6) they forced from people by making laws regarding freewill offerings! This was entirely the wrong attitude toward the Holy One of Israel, for He looks not on the outward man but upon the heart! Isaiah just a few short years later brought scathing denunciation against such conduct (Isa. 1:1 ff). Israel is less sensible than the ass or the ox! They do not know God! But this is not because God has not revealed Himselfnot because they have no opportunity to know Himnot because He is unknowable! No; they love to have it so! This type of religion pleases them. It soothes their consciences. Men who do evil, hate the light and love the darkness, because their deeds are evil and if they should come to the light their deeds would be exposedthen they would see how utterly vain and foolish their deeds are (cf. Joh. 3:18-21). Any man who thinks God is pleased with a trust in forms and rituals is foolish. Of course, there are certain specific forms of doctrine which we are obliged, by the very nature God Himself (holy, loving, trustworthy, omnipotent) to perform. But our faith is not in the act or rite itself but in the Person who commanded it! Again, if we refuse to do the thing which God has clearly commanded in the New Testament, it simply shows we do not trust the Person who commanded itwe trust our own wisdom more! On the other hand, a mere perfunctory repetition of rituals does not necessarily mean we trust God the Person either. Sooner or later, just how much we trust Him, love Him and want to be like Him shows up in our daily living! This was true of Israel then, and it is true of all men now. For a list of Old Testament saints who trusted God and what that trust led them to do, see Hebrews, the eleventh chapter.

QUIZ

1.

What does the phrase kine of Bashan describe?

2.

Where did their lords get the drink demanded by these cows of Bashan?

3.

Why does the Lord swear by His holiness that they shall be judged?

4.

Why would they go out at the breaches?

5.

To what extent had these people perverted the worship of God?

6.

Why is God not pleased with mere repetition of religious ritual?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) Bashan.This contained the rich pasture-lands east of the Jordan, between Hermon and the mountains of Gilead, where cattle flourished. The strong bulls of Bashan (Psa. 22:12) were descriptive of the malignant enemies of the ideal sufferer. The feminine kine refers to the luxurious self-indulgent women of fashion in Samaria.

Which say to their masters (i.e., their husbands), Bring, and let us drink.Their very debauch being paid for by the robbery of the poor. Some regard the feminines as sarcastic epithets, merely expressing effeminacy on the part of men. But this is not a probable explanation.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. Hear this word As in Amo 3:1; Amo 5:1.

Ye kine Jerome, who was followed by some later writers, understood this to apply to the effeminate nobility, “the rulers of Israel and all the leading men of the ten tribes who spent their time in pleasure and robbery”; others limit it to the nobles condemned in Amo 3:9 ff. However, it is better to understand the words as addressed to the wanton women of Samaria, whose thoughtlessness and luxury had transformed their gentle natures into those of brutes (compare Isa 3:16 ff; Isa 32:9 ff.).

Bashan The very fertile district east of the Jordan and north of the Yarmuk, which was rich in pasture land (Mic 7:14; compare Psa 22:12).

Mountain of Samaria See on Amo 3:9.

Which oppress crush Indirectly, by insisting upon the gratification of their appetites, though the means with which to do this had to be secured unjustly. The two verbs are combined in Deu 28:33; 1Sa 12:3-4, etc.

Masters R.V., “lords”; or, husbands, which is another meaning of the word.

Let us drink Or, feast, the feasts including drinking and carousing of every sort.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Oracle Of Warning To The Wealthy Women Of Samaria ( Amo 4:1-3 ).

We can tend to forget that the women of Israel/Judah were regularly equally guilty with the men, but the prophets never forgot it, for they saw it before their very eyes (compare Isaiah’s vivid word picture in Isa 3:16 to Isa 4:1; Isa 32:9-12). It was often the wives of the wealthy who pressed their demands on their husbands, causing them to oppress the poor, thereby becoming oppressors of the poor themselves. Here they are described as ‘cows of Bashan’, in other words as sleek, fattened and over-nourished. There may also be in this a hint of how they clamoured around Baal who was often portrayed in the form of a bull, as cows in heat gather round a bull.

Amo 4:1

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their lords, ‘Bring, and let us drink.’ ”

Bashan was noted for its well fed cows and its rich pasturage thus providing an apt picture of the wealthy women of Samaria, accentuated by the fact that, like sleek fat cows they gathered round the Bull (Baal) in the same way as did their husbands (Amo 4:4). But here the main indictment is what resulted from that. Ignoring the Law of YHWH they oppressed the poor, and crushed the needy in order to enjoy their luxuries, and indulged themselves in much wine. In other words they were equally to blame for the violence and injustice meted out by their husbands, while they themselves lived lives of indolence and insobriety.

The mixture of masculine and feminine in the verses may, however, suggest that all the wealthy, both men and women, were in mind, the idea of them as ‘cows’ being connected to their attitude towards Baal (the Bull). On the other hand ‘who say to their lords’ might be seen as favouring a feminine reference, unless we see that phrase as deliberately contrasting with ‘the Lord YHWH’, with ‘lords’ signifying either the corrupt leaders of Samaria or Baal and other gods. The contrast applies in any case, indicating that whoever is in mind are looking to the wrong ‘lord’.

Amo 4:2

“The Lord YHWH has sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days will come on you, that they will take you away with hooks, and your residue with fish-hooks.”

But all this was shortly to end, for the One Who is Sovereign over all, the LORD YHWH (in contrast with their ‘lords’ – Amo 4:1), had made an oath ‘by his holiness’ (He swore by His own holiness because He was appalled at their unholiness) that the days were coming on them when they would be taken away with hooks, and then what remained of them with fish-hooks. The vivid picture is partly metaphorical (they would be caught as men catch fish), but it is also partly intended literally, for the Assyrians did regularly put hooks through the noses of their captives as they transported them to other lands (evidenced on inscriptions in the case, for example, of the Pharaoh Tirhakah).

If we see it as signifying ‘meat hooks’ (for carcasses) and ‘fish hooks’ (for fishing), we may see it as indicating that some would be carried off as dead carcasses, while others would be taken alive on the rod. But the use of hooks by the Assyrians suggests that the unpleasant road to exile is very much in mind.

“The Lord YHWH has sworn by his holiness.” Compare Psa 89:35. It was a guarantee in His ‘set apartness’ (His uniqueness and righteousness), of His faithful fulfilling of His covenant, even the unwelcome parts.

Amo 4:3

“And you will go out at the breaches, every one straight before her, and you will cast (yourselves) into Harmon, says YHWH.”

And while the walls of Samaria might appear to them to be strong and unbreachable, those walls would be beached and they themselves would be carried off as captives through the breaches in the walls. There would be no need for the use of gates. They would be led off straight ahead. For the broken down walls of Samaria would by then be full of unofficial exits.

“And you will cause (yourselves) to be cast (hiphil – or ‘be caused to be cast’ – hophal) into Harmon, says YHWH.” We are not certain what ha harmonah, which appears only here, refers to, but it may well have been a well known place near Samaria for the casting of rubbish like the Valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem. It is unwise to emend a text simply because our present modern knowledge is not sufficient to provide an explanation. Suggestions made have included ‘Mount Hermon’, which would require har hermon (although ha hermon would be possible, although found nowhere else, but the problem is still the lack of the end ‘h’), or connection with Ugaritic hrnm which might then signify Hermel, near Kadesh on the Orontes River. It is probably best to see it as denoting some place which would cause the ladies to wrinkle up their noses.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Two Indictments Of The People Which Will Result In A Series Of Chastisements ( Amo 4:1-13 ).

A new oracle now begins with the words ‘hear this word —’ (compare Amo 3:1; Amo 5:1) and consists of indictments, first on the wealthy women of Israel (Amo 4:1-3), and then on all of Israel who are not true to YHWH (Amo 4:4-5). It then follows these up with a series of chastisements which are either a reflection of their past, or are something which will come on them, each of which closes with the phrase ‘yet you have not returned to Me, says YHWH’ (Amo 4:6-11). Finally it closes with a warning of what YHWH will now bring upon them, as he declares to them ‘prepare to meet your God O Israel’ (Amo 4:12-13), which in the context means, ‘Get ready for what is coming on you from YHWH as you face His judgment’.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Amo 4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

Amo 4:1 Comments – Amos is basically rebuking the rich women in Israel, calling them well-fed cows. They provoke their husbands to oppress the poor so they can enjoy more fleshly indulgences.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Denunciation of the Outstanding Vices

v. 1. Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, this name being taken from the strong, well-fed cattle of the pasture country east of Jordan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, the description agreeing with the extortions and the luxurious life of the rulers of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters (the picture of the cattle of Bashan being retained), Bring and let us drink.

v. 2. The Lord God hath sworn by His holiness, by a most solemn oath, that, lo, the days shall come upon you that He will take you away with hooks, or, “when men will drag you away with hooks,”. and your posterity, or the remnant of you, that which is left after the first punishment, with fish-hooks, as fish are drawn from the water.

v. 3. And ye shall go out at the breaches, through the breaches which had been torn in the walls by the attacking enemies, every cow at that which is before her, literally, “every one before her,” anxious to get away, looking neither to the right nor to the left; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the Lord, or, “be cast forth to Harmon,” apparently the place where they were led away captive. So much having been said of the rulers of Samaria and of Israel, the Lord now, in bitter irony, turns to the entire nation, bidding the people just continue in their idolatry and transgression; the divine punishment would not be kept away by their tactics.

v. 4. Come to Bethel and transgress, in their idolatrous worship; at Gilgal, another seat of idol-worship, multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, in a wonderful zeal for worship, and your tithes after three years, rather, “after three days,” for Amos purposely speaks hyperbolically: Even if you should offer burnt offerings every morning and tithes every three days, it would only increase your guilt before Jehovah;

v. 5. and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, Cf Lev 7:12-14, and proclaim and publish the free offerings, making a great show of their religious fervor; for this liketh you, this they delighted in doing, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God. The more zeal the hypocrites show in imitating the outward worship of the true believers, the more guilt they heap upon themselves in the sight of God, whose all-seeing eye penetrates their flimsy pretexts and causes Him to emphasize His threats of punishment.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Amo 4:1-13

2. Second address. The prophet reproves the voluptuous women of Samaria, and fortells their captivity (Amo 4:1-3); with bitter irony he describes the people’s devotion to idolatry (Amo 4:4, Amo 4:5): he shows how incorrigible they have proved themselves under God’s chastisements (Amo 4:6-11); therefore they must expect further punishment, if so be that they will learn to fear the Lord (Amo 4:12, Amo 4:13).

Amo 4:1

The very women are leaders in dissoluteness and oppression. Ye kine of Bashan. Fat and well liking, such as the rich pastures of Bashan produce. Some have supposed that by this term are meant the luxurious nobles of Samaria, who are called “cows” as being effeminate and licentious. This is possible; but such grandees would be called rather “bulls of Bashan,” and the “masters” mentioned just below signify more naturally these women’s husbands than the kings. Pussy notes that the genders in the sentence are interchanged. “Hear ye,” “your Lord,” “upon you,“ “they shall take you,“ being masculine; “that oppress,” “that crush,” “that say,“ “your posterity,” “ye shall go out,” “each before her,“ “ye shall cast,” feminine. Evidently the prophet addresses his reproaches to the luxurious of both sexes, though he begins with the women. The land of Bashan extended from Hermon to the Jabbok, including Gaulonitis, Auronitis, Batauea, and Trachonitis. It was always famous for its pasturage, cattle, and oaks. The Vulgate takes the term as metaphorical, and has, vaccae pingues. So Symmachus, , which translation Jerome adopts. Mountain of Samaria. The hill of Shomer, on which Samaria was built (see note on Amo 3:9). Oppress the poor. This they did in ministering, or getting their husbands to minister, to their luxury and debauchery. Apparently they urged their husbands to violence and fraud in order to obtain means to satisfy their extravagance. A bad woman is thoroughly unscrupulous (see the case of Ahab and Naboth, 1Ki 21:7, etc.). Their masters; their lords; i.e. husbands (comp. Gen 18:12; 1Pe 3:6). Bring, and let us drink. They invite their husbands to supply the means of debauchery and to join in their revels.

Amo 4:2

By his holiness. God swears by his holiness, which cannot tolerate iniquity, and which they had profaned (Amo 2:7; comp. Amo 6:8). That he will take you away. “That one, or they, shall take you away;” the enemy, the instrument of God’s vengeance, is meant. With hooks; tsinnoth; Septuagint, : Vulgate, in contis. The translation, “with hooks,” is correct, the idea being that the people shall be utterly helpless and taken for destruction, like fish caught with hooks (Jer 16:16; Hab 1:15). Your posterity; acharith (Amo 9:1); better, your residue, those who have not been destroyed previously. The Septuagint and the Vulgate give quite a different notion to the passage. The former (according to the Vatican manuscript) has, , “And fiery destroyers shall cast those with you into boiling caldrons;” the latter, Et levabunt vos in contis, et reliquias vestras in ollis ferventibus. (For the explanation of these versions, which arise from mistakes in the meanings of ambiguous words, see Schegg and Kuabenbauer.)

Amo 4:3

At the breaches made in the city walls, as cattle hurry through gaps in a fence. Thus they should go forth when Samaria was taken. Every cow at that which is before her; better, each straight before her, just where the opening offered itself (comp. Jos 6:5, Jos 6:20). The LXX. inserts , “naked.” And ye shall cast them into the palace; Septuagint, , (, Alex.), “And ye shall be cast forth into the mountain Romman; Vulgate, et projiciemini in Armon. The Syriac and Arabic Versions, and Aquila, render, “unto Mount Armon;” the Chaldee paraphrast, “far beyond the mountains of Armenia.” The Hebrew expression haharmonah occurs nowhere else. Our version takes it in the sense of armon, “a palace,” intending probably a palace or citadel of the enemy, which certainly ought to have been expressed. Kimchi renders, “Ye shall cast yourselves into the palace of the king.” The passage is probably corrupt. If the verb is taken as passive, the unusual word must be considered to denote the place of banishment. Thus, “Ye shall be cast forth into Harmon.” Whether Harmon means Armenia, as many ancient commentators thought, or not, cannot be determined. Various opinions may be seen in Keil, Schegg, Trochon, and others; but the simplest explanation is that of Orelli and Ewald, viz. that each fugitive shall fling away her idol Rimmona (the wife of the god Rimmon, 2Ki 5:18), in order to be more free for flight (comp. Isa 2:20).

Amo 4:4

The prophet now turns to Israel, and ironically bids them exhibit their zeal for idolatry, and thus increase their guilt. Bethel; as the chief seat of idol worship (Amo 3:14). At Gilgal; rather, to Gilgal, “come ye” being repeated in thought. Gilgal was a strong position in the plain of Jordan, three miles east of Jericho, taking its name probably from the stone circles erected for purposes of worship in very early times. Joshua (Jos 5:9) gave a new meaning to the old name. There is a large pool of water in this neighbourhood called Jil-julieh, about four miles from the Jordan, which is doubtless a corruption of the ancient name Gilgal. It seems to have been regarded as a holy place in Samuel’s days or even before (see Jdg 3:19; 1Sa 7:16; 1Sa 10:8; 1Sa 11:14, etc.; 1Sa 13:8, etc.); and later was appropriated to false worship, though we have no information as to the date of this declension. Gilgal and Bethel are associated together in idolatrous worship (Amo 5:5 and in Hos 4:15; Hos 9:15; Hos 12:11). Bring your sacrifices every morning. They were careful to maintain the outward semblance of the regular Levitical worship, even beyond the letter of the Law in some respects, though their service was all the time idolatry. As this and the following clause are still ironical, Amos is speaking, not of the daily-prescribed sacrifice (olah, Num 28:3), but of the offerings (zebach) of individual Israelites which were not required to be presented every day. Your tithes after three years; literally, on the three of days; lishlosheth yamim; Vulgate, tribus diebus; Septuagint, , “every third day.” Revised Version, “every three days.” So Gesenius, Ewald, Keil, Schegg, Hitzig, Baur. The prophet bids them bring their tithes, not as the Law ordered, every year (Le 27:30), or, as in the ease of the second tithe, every three years (Deu 14:28; Deu 26:12), but, by an ironical exaggeration, “every three days.” Dr. Pusey defends the English Version on the ground of the idiomatic use of “days” for one circle of days, i.e. a year (Le 25:29; Jdg 17:10; 1Sa 27:7). But this loses the irony which is so marked in the whole passage. Keil, “If ye would offer slain sacrifices every morning, and tithe every three days, ye would only thereby increase your apostasy from the living God.”

Amo 4:5

Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven; more definitely, offer by burning a thank offering of that which is leavened. This is an alteration of the prescribed ritual in two particulars. The Law forbade leaven in any meat offering consumed by fire (Le Amo 2:11; Amo 7:12); and if it allowed cakes of leavened bread to be offered on one occasion, these were not to be placed on the altar and burned, but one was to be assigned to the officiating priest, and the rest eaten at the sacrificial meal (Le Amo 7:13, Amo 7:14). The ironical charge to the Israelites is that in their unlicensed zeal they should not only burn on the altar that which was leavened, but, with the idea of being more bountiful, they should also offer .by fire that which was to be set apart for other uses. The Septuagint Version can only be explained by considering the translators to have had a different reading, , “and they read the Law without.” Proclaim publish. Make public proclamation that free will offerings are to be made, or else, like the Pharisees (Mat 6:2), announce with ostentation that you are about to offer. The essence of such offerings was that they should be voluntary, not of command or compulsion (Le 22:18, etc.; Deu 12:6). Septuagint, , “and called for public professions” (as Deu 12:6, Deu 12:17, Deu 12:18). This liketh you; this ye love; Septuagint, “Proclaim ye that the children of Israel loved these things.” Their whole heart was set on this will worship.

Amo 4:6

In this and the five following verses God sets forth instances of the judgments which he had sent at various times to correct Israel; viz. famine, drought, blight, pestilence, earthquake; but all had been in vain. Five times recurs the sad refrain, “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.” God’s unwearied love had not conquered their rebellion. Cleanness of teeth; Septuagint, , “dulness of teeth;” Vulgate, stuporem dentium. It is not “toothache” that is meant, but famine, as is seen by the parallel term, want of bread; as Corn. a Lapide says, “Cum enim in fame et penuria dentes non habent quod mordeant et mandant, innocentes sunt et mundi.” This is the first chastisement mentioned. It was threatened in the Law as a consequence of backsliding (see Lev 26:1-46.; Deu 28:48, Deu 28:57). The famines to which Amos alludes are not recorded. Plainly they were not fortuitous, but were providential inflictions, in accordance with previous warnings Yet have ye not returned unto me. Pusey notes that the words imply, not that they returned not at all, but that they did after a fashion return, but not so as to reach God, their repentance being a half-repentance and their worship a half-worship, and therefore unacceptable.

Amo 4:7

The second punishment is drought, as predicted (Le 26:19, etc.; Deu 28:23). When there were yet three months to the harvest, and when rain was most necessary to swell the grain. The season meant is in February and March, when what was called “the latter rain” fell. In the south of Palestine the harvest commenced at the end of April, but in the northern parts it was some weeks later, so that it might be said in round numbers that it took place three months after the latter rain. I caused it to rain upon one city. That they might not attribute this drought to the blind laws of nature, God caused it to be of a partial character, giving rain to one city while he withheld it from another. One piece. The portion of ground belonging to an individual is so called (Deu 33:21; Rth 2:3; Rth 4:3).

Amo 4:8

This want of rain produced great dearth of water to drink, and persons had to go long distances to procure supplies. Wandered; literally trembled, staggered, as spent and exhausted by thirst. The word is used in Psa 59:15; Psa 109:10. The supply thus used was soon exhausted, and brought no permanent relief.

Amo 4:9

The third chastisement is occasioned by blight (Deu 28:22) and palmerworm (Deu 28:39, Deu 28:42). Blasting; the scorching east wind spoken of by Isaiah (Isa 27:8) and Ezekiel (Eze 17:10). Vulgate, in vento urente; Septuagint, , “with parching;” Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, . Mildew; a blight, under the influence of which the ears of corn turned yellow and became unfruitful. “Blasting and mildew” are mentioned together in Moses’ curse (Deu 28:22) and in Solomon’s dedication prayer (1Ki 8:37; comp. Hag 2:17). The LXX. has, , “with jaundice.” When your gardens increased. It is better to take this sentence as the English margin, “The multitude of your gardens hath the palmerworm devoured.” So the Vulgate, Multitudinem hortorum tuorum comedit eruca. Gardens included orchards, herbaries, and pleasure grounds. The palmerworm; gazam; Septuagint, : Vulgate, eruca. The word occurs in Joe 1:4; Joe 2:25, and is taken by many commentators to mean some kind of locust; but it is more probable that the Greek and Latin translators are right in regarding it as “a caterpillar” (see Smith, ‘Dict. of the Bible,’ 2:696, etc.; ‘Bible Educator,’ 4:293). Amos seems to be referring to the visitation in Joel’s time, if we take gazam (“biter”) to be a kind of locust.

Amo 4:10

The fourth visitation is pestilence and the sword (Le 26:25; Deu 28:60). After the manner of Egypt. In the manner in which Egypt is stricken (comp. Isa 10:24, Isa 10:26; Eze 20:30). There is here no reference to the plague of Exo 9:3, etc; or Exo 12:29. The allusion is to the plague which was reckoned to be epidemic in Egypt, and to other loathsome diseases for which that country was notorious (see Deu 7:15; Deu 28:27, Deu 28:60) Sir G. Wilkinson notes that the plague used to occur about every ten years. Your young men have I slain with the sword. Pestilence and wax are allied scourges in Le Exo 26:25. A reference may here be made to the wars with the Syrians, wherein the Israelites suffered heavy losses (2Ki 6:25; 2Ki 8:12; 2Ki 13:3, 2Ki 13:7, 2Ki 13:22). And have taken away your horses; rather, together with your captive horses, still under the regimen of “I have slain.” The destruction of men and horses is mentioned in 2Ki 13:7. The stink of your camps. These unburied caresses caused pestilence in the district. Septuagint, , or, according to the Alexandrian manuscript, , “In my wrath against you I set fire to your camps.”

Amo 4:11

The fifth visitation is the earthquake (Deu 29:23). I have overthrown. This is the word used to describe the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:25; Jer 20:16), and it seems better to refer the occurrence mentioned to some such convulsions of nature which caused widespread destruction, than, as Keil and others, “to the utter confusion of the state by which Israel was brought to the verge of ruin.” We do not know anything about the particular earthquake to which the prophet alludes. (For an exhaustive catalogue of the earthquakes in this country, see Pusey’s notes on this verse.) As God overthrew. The substitution of the name of God for the personal pronoun, when the Lord himself is speaking, is not uncommon in Hebrew. Here it rather takes the form of a quotation from Genesis. Ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning (Zec 3:2, where see note)a phrase which implies, not only a narrow escape, but an escape accompanied with loss. The “brand” not wholly consumed is yet blackened and diminished by the burning.

Amo 4:12

Therefore. Because all previous judgments have been in vain, therefore will I send upon them something more terrible still. Thus. God says not how; he leaves the nature of the coming chastisement in mysterious uncertainty, that the very suspense may work fear and repentance. Because I will do this (pointing back to the mysterious “thus” above) unto thee; because I am ready to bring on thee still heavier punishment. Prepare to meet thy God; Septuagint, , “Prepare to call upon thy God.” Make ready to meet thy God in judgment, turning to him with changed heart, if perchance he may forgive thee and withdraw his heavy hand. Another explanation, derived from Symmachus and adopted by a Lapide, Schegg, and others, “Praeparare ut adverseris Deo tuo”an ironical encouragement to them to withstand Goddeprives the following verse of its suitability to the context. For the prophet would hardly invite them to this contest by expatiating upon God’s almightiness.

Amo 4:13

The prophet enforces his threats by declaring God’s power and omniscience. He that formeth the mountain; , “I am he that strengtheneth thunder”. The mountains are mentioned as the most solid and everlasting of his works; the wind, as the subtlest and most immaterial of created things. Declareth unto man what is his thought; i.e. man’s thought; reveals man to himself shows that he knows man’s thought before man puts it into words. This he does sometimes by the stings of conscience, sometimes by inspiring his prophets to declare men’s secret motives and the real state of their heart. Vulgate, Annuntians homini eloquium suum, where eloquium is equivalent to cognitatio. The LXX; with some change of letters, has, , “proclaiming unto men his Christ”a reading which supports the misinterpretation of “his thought” as meaning God’s thought, Christ being regarded as the of God. Many of the Fathers have seen here a prophesy of the Messiah. See Tirinus and Corn. a Lapide on this verse. That maketh the morning darkness. Keil, after Calvin, takes these words as asyndeton for “the morning dawn and darkness.” So the Septuagint, , “making morning and gloom.” This would be simply a further instance of God’s creative power. The Vulgate gives, faciens matutinam nebulam; and it seems probable (comp. Amo 5:8; Amo 8:9) that the clause means that the Lord turns the dawn into darkness. This may refer to the action of clouds or an eclipse; or it may be said metaphorically of prosperity and adversity. Treadeth upon the high places of the earth. An anthropomorphic representation of the might and majesty of God, who governs all things, and has the loftiest in perfect subjection (comp. Deu 32:13; Deu 33:29; Job 9:8; Mic 1:3). The Lord, Jehovah, the eternal, self-existent, covenant God, is he who in these things manifests himself, and therefore his threats are not to be despised (Amo 5:8). In the prophet’s view the laws and powers of nature have their scope in executing God’s commands.

HOMILETICS

Amo 4:1-3

The woes of the women at ease.

By a contemptuous and striking figure, the women of Samaria are styled the “kine of Bashan.” They were as kine, unmindful of the past, unheeding of the future, their attention limited to the present, and living in it only the life of sense. They were as Bashan’s kine, wandering in richest pastures, overfed, indulged, and pampered, and therefore waxed voluptuous and wanton. In explanation of the special reference to them, observe

I. THAT THE WOMEN OF A NATION ARE ALWAYS MORE OR LESS RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS SINS. This appears from the fact that:

1. They reflect the national character. Soft, and easily receptive of influence, whether good or bad, the female character is, to a greater extent than the male, a compound tincture of the prevailing qualities of the land and time. It is natural that, as reflecting the national sin, the women will be obnoxious to national punishment.

2. They form the national character. They have earliest, most constant, and most affectionate access to the young. They influence character at its softest and most pliant stage, and they approach it, moreover, on its softest side. Reflecting national character so truly, and impressing this so inevitably on the rising generation, it is through them chiefly that good or evil becomes hereditary in society.

“O woman, nature made thee
To temper man.”

The “tempering” is oftener for good than ill, converting into porcelain the common clay, purifying and ennobling all she comes near.

“Woman’s empire, holier, more refined,
Moulds, moves, and sways the fallen yet God-breathed mind.”

But if she reigns as the devil’s vicegerent, if the influences that go forth from her tend to the enthronement of corruption and wrong, she must be deposed as a matter of policy, and punished as a matter of justice (Isa 3:16-24; Isa 32:9-13).

II. A COURSE THAT INVOLVES EVIL IS AS GUILTY BEFORE GOD AS A COURSE THAT INFLICTS IT. The evil a woman does outside her family circle is largely indirect. Of the women of Israel it appears that:

1. They were self-indulgent at the necessary expense of the poor. “Which oppress the humble, which crush the needy.” This would sometimes be done directly, but generally through the agency of the men. A luxurious mistress often makes a hard and oppressive master. Her extravagant demands must be met by an increased income, and that is only too likely to be sought in exactions from the dependent poor. Let it be in overcharged dues or in underpaid work, in every case the luxury that forces on the demand is responsible for the evils of the enforced supply. “Those at ease often know not that their luxuries are continually watered by the tears of the poor but God counts wilful ignorance no excuse” (Pusey). Hood’s stanza, addressed to men, is doubly pertinent to women.

“O men with sisters dear!

O men with mothers and wives!

It is not linen you’re wearing out,

But human creatures’ lives.”

The self-indulgence of the women of Israel meant really the grinding of the poor, out of whose poverty “their lords” were; driven to wring the means of carrying on their shameful excesses.

2. They encouraged their husbands in self-indulgence. “Bring, and let us drink.” This was a doubling of the evil. They not only did wrong, but tempted others to do it. They wasted much, and procured the wasting of more. They were at pains to increase the number of harpies who would gorge themselves on the hard earnings of the poor.

3. This was not an isolated act, but a habit. “Oppress” is equivalent to “are continually oppressing.” Luxury had settled irate a chronic social evil. The demand for fuel to feed the fire of indulgence was constant. It was a cancer eating out the well being of society continually, and devouring, generation after generation, the inheritance of the poor. The evil of it smelled rank to Heaven, and the guilt of it clamoured for punishment.

III. GOD‘S OUTRAGED PERFECTIONS ARE THE GUARANTEE OF THE SINNER‘S PUNISHMENT. “The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by his holiness.” The occasions of God’s action are often supplied by men, but the grounds of it are in himselfin the perfections of his character and the purposes of his will.

1. Holiness is God‘s characteristic quality. There is a universal ascription of it to him in Scripture (Exo 15:11; Isa 6:1-3; Isa 57:15; Hab 1:13). Absolutely his “name is holy;” relatively he is the “Holy One of Israel.” This holiness is an infinite contrariety to all that is morally impure. It characterizes all his other perfections, and is, in this aspect, not so much a distinct attribute as the blending together of them all. Administratively, he swears by his holiness, and sits upon the throne of his holiness (Psa 89:35; Psa 47:8); believers are the people of his holiness, and heaven the habitation of his holiness (Isa 63:18, Isa 63:15); whilst a synonym for the consecrated life is “holiness to the Lord.”

2. God‘s holiness was the quality specially profaned. (Amo 2:7.) It was to profane his holy Name that they had sinned. The perfection specially sinned against is naturally the one to be vindicated. “He pledges his own holiness that he will avenge their unholiness (Pusey). Jealous of all his perfections, the one our conduct tends to obscure or hurt is the one God will most emphatically illustrate and glorify.

3. Holiness is the quality that makes punishment of sin inevitable. It is the recoil of God’s infinitely pure nature from moral evil. It is the expression and sum of an essential and external antagonism to it. It is incompatible with impurity as light is with darkness, and its necessary and natural action toward it is destructive. Fundamentally it is because God is holy that he punishes, and must punish, sin.

IV. THE SINNER‘S PUNISHMENT WHEN IT COMES WILL MATCH AND SQUARE WITH HIS SIN. (Amo 4:2, Amo 4:3.) Here the dovetailing of retribution with crime is very complete. There would be:

1. Deportation from luxurious scenes. “I will take you away.” The indulgences become habitual would be violently interrupted. The luxurious and vicious tastes, developed into tremendous strength by long continued sensuality, would be deprived of their gratification. Instead of the high living, become by long enjoyment a thing of course, and a necessity of their life, they would have the coarse and scanty fare of slaves. To visit with want and bondage, when habits of rule and luxury have become a second nature, is a judgment bitterly felt.

2. This in a violent and painful manner. “With hooks.” The figure is drawn from fishing. The drawing out of the fish by means of a hook is always painful, and is rendered doubly so by its resistance. So with the soft and delicately nurtured women of Samaria in the hands of a rough and brutal soldiery. They would suffer as a fish transfixed by a barbed hook, and their former luxury would be in a sense its own avenger.

3. This to the last one. “And your last one with fish hooks.” Not one should escape. God’s judgments are particular. He does not visit people in the mass, but individuals. Not a cow but would feel the cut of the drover’s whip, and experience the famine pangs of the scanty pasture.

4. This in connections with their own lusts as auxiliaries. The hook that draws out the fish has been baited for it, and voluntarily swallowed, though under a wrong impression. In heathen luxury and dissolution the Hebrew women found a bait which they swallowed greedily. Now they should find that, with the bait, they had swallowed also a cruel hook, which would draw them away to suffer evils worse than they had themselves inflicted. “And be cast away to Harman” (Authorized Version, “into the palace”), i.e. probably Armenia (see Pusey). Here, being used to minister to heathenish luxury and lust, they would be victims in the matter in which they had been so long the victimizers of others. There is a nameless cruelty in debauchery, which only the victims of it know. This, with the added burden of heathen horrors, the delicate and pampered Israelitish women would now suffer. Their punishment would rise upon them in familiar shape, the resurrection of their own sin.

5. The bovine stolidity of their prosperous days would make them helpless as driven cattle in the day of calamity. “In the wall ye shall go out every one before her,” i.e. “as a herd of cows go one after another through a gap in the fence” (Pusey). The level of intelligence goes down with the level of morality. The penalty of living the brutes’ life of sense is a weakening of the heavenly gift of reason, by which we are distinguished from them.

Amo 4:4, Amo 4:5

Corruption and religiosity in unholy alliance.

Here the prophet turns from the women of Israel, and addresses the people at large. His language is that of strong irony. What he bids the people do is the thing he knows they have been doing and will go on doing, notwithstanding the imminence of the punishment he predicts. He means, by a sarcastic coordination of their acts of hollow worship with those of their sin-stained lives, to bring them to see themselves as God and others saw them.

I. MORAL CORRUPTION AND A ZEAL FOR RELIGIOUS FORMS MAY EXIST TOGETHER. (Amo 4:4.) Here it would seem as if the multiplication of transgressions and of observances went pari passu together.

1. The observance if religious forms involves nothing in the way of spirituality. Taste is wanted, and feeling and judgment, but that is all. Enjoyment in the formal acts of worship may be an aestheticism which is altogether apart from spirituality. The sensuous delight in music, oratory, attitudinizing, millinery, upholstery, and other ecclesiastical impedimenta is just as abundant and as much at home in the theatre as in the church, and is the same non-spiritual thing wherever found.

2. Worship may even be made so sensuous as to become the minister of luxury. Other things being equal, the largest congregations gather where the adjuncts of worship are most elaborate and most gorgeous. Many confessedly attend the house of God exclusively for the music and singing, never waiting to hear the gospel preached, or consenting to do so only for appearance’ sake. And the thing is perfectly intelligible. A musical and ornate service is decenter than a music hall, and pleasanter than their own room, and makes an agreeable break in their idle Sunday afternoon. So far from such an observance involving or tending to produce spirituality of feeling, it leaves this out in the cold, and makes its appeal entirely to sense. It has no more bearing on the religious life than theatre going, or club going, or race going, or any other mode of raising the sensational wind.

3. External religious observance quiets the conscience, and so smoothe the path of the self-indulgent. Even after the sinful life has far advanced, his conscience gives the sinner trouble. Failing to prevent the sin, it suggests the performance of some compensatory work. To sin, and then do penance, is easier than to crucify the flesh and be separate from sin. And one of the commonest salves for an accusing conscience is diligence in the externals of religious observance. It looks and feels like worship, and it makes no demands on the religious faculty. Rather, by substituting an emotional exercise for one of the conscience and heart, it deadens the moral sense, and lulls the transgressor into a dangerous complacency.

II. MEN WHO REST IN FORMS ARE PRONE TO MULTIPLY THEM. This is a logical necessity. If the form be everything, then the more of it the better. Besides, the sensation produced by observing it gets stale after a time, and, in order to keep it at its first strength and freshness, there must be a continual increase of the dose. Israel illustrated this principle in two degrees.

1. They were particular about ceremonial obsevances. They offered the slain sacrifices, the praise offerings, the free offerings, and the tithes at their appointed times. In addition to the annual tithe they also gave a second tithe every three years (Deu 14:28; Deu 26:12). This was keeping up to the very letter of the Law. A Pharisee in later times could not have given more circumstantial obedience to it than they did. When the opus operatum is made the whole of a religious ordinance, it is sure to be circumstantially observed; and the rule is that the more completely the spirit is lost sight of, the more elaborately is the letter observed. To the exhaustive observance of ordinances by Israel, according to our text, there was one significant exception. This was the omission of the sin offering and the trespass offering. They had no consciousness of sin. They deported themselves as men who had praise to offer and gifts to bestow, but no sin to be atoned or to confess. To the formalist an adequate idea of sin is impossible, and in his worship the question is not raised.

2. They went beyond the letter of Divine requirement. In addition to the re.ruing sacrifice required by the Law, they offered slain sacrifices (so the Hebrew) every day. Then, not content with burning unleavened cakes on the altar as a praise offering, they burned also the leavened cakes which were to be eaten at the sacrificial meal (see Keil, in loc.). As to the free offerings, they carried the provision for having them made beyond the command by having them cried. Thus, so far as forms went, the idol loving, corrupt, rebellious people were almost exemplary worshipperswent further, indeed, than true worshippers had always felt called upon to no. “It is a characteristic of idolatry and schism to profess extraordinary zeal for God’s worship, and go beyond the letter and spirit of his Law by arbitrary will worship and self-idolizing fanaticism” (Lange). To compensate for the utter absence of the spirit, the letter is made to do double and vicarious duty.

III. TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO THE EXTERNAL FORM OF AN ORDINANCE TENDS TO THE VIOLATION OF THE SPIRIT OF IT. On the one hand, the spirit gets lost sight of through inattention, and on the other hand, the inventive faculty introduces practices inconsistent with it.

1. In their anxiety to offer more than was required Israel offered a thing that was forbidden. To “kindle praise offerings of that which is leavened” was contrary to Levitical law. The leavened bread of the praise offering, which they burned along with the unleavened cakes and oil, was not to be burned, but eaten (Le Amo 2:11; Amo 7:12-14). The human mind cannot add to a Divine ordinance anything in character. The addendum will either obscure or traverse the religious rite to which it is attached. God’s ordinances, like his oracles, can only be added to under a heavy penaltythe penalty of mistaken action arising out of erroneous thought.

2. They destroyed the essentially spontaneous character of the free will offerings by endeavouring to make them practically compulsory. These offerings must be made of the offerer’s free will (Le 22:19). Made under compulsion, moral or otherwise, they lost their spontaneous character, and might as well not have been made at all. And what but compulsion was it to “proclaim and publish,” or literally to “call out” for them? God’s ordinance can be safely and rightly observed only in God’s way. In such a matter human invention, if it interferes, is sure to err. Hence the so emphatic and frequent warnings in Scripture against “the commandments and ordinances of men.”

3. This amateur tinkering of Divine institutions is very agreeable to human nature. “For so ye love it.” Unspiritual men love the forms of religion if they serve as a means of escape from its realities. They love them more still if, by observing them, they can seem to accomplish a salvation by works. They love them most of all when they are partially of their own invention. Almost all human ordinances in religion are the expression of man’s love of his own intellectual progeny.

IV. THE MULTIPLICATION OF ACTS OF WILL WORSHIP IS ONLY THE MULTIPLICATION OF SIN. The close association of the words “transgression“ and “sacrifice” would indicate that the sacrifice itself was sinful.

1. It was not meant to please God, being an act of pure self-will. That which will please God must be meant to please him. A formal religious act, if done for our own pleasure, and not as an act of service to God, is valueless (Col 2:20-23). Will worship is self-worship. It is only an insidious way of “satisfying the flesh.” It is a thing by which God is not honoured, but dethroned, and by which man is prejudiced with God and not commended (Isa 2:11).

2. It was not fitted to please him, being observed in a manner contrary to his will. God’s ordinances had been altered. The alteration of form in every case had been a violation of the spirit. The ordinances were no longer God’s, but something different from and inconsistent with the thing he had appointed: The observance of them was not service, but disobedience and rebellion. For the Nadabs and Abihus who offer strange fire before the Lord there is reserved the fire of his wrath and not the light of his favour.

3. It was reeking with the wickedness with which it was deliberately mixed up. “Multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices.” The “obedience” to himself which “is better than sacrifice” was entirely wanting. The “mercy” to men which he will have “and not sacrifice” had been desiderated in vain. With one hand they piled high the offering, and with the other piled higher still the trespass. And in so doing they piled the mountain of a moral impossibility between them and acceptance. The form of worship, in combination with the reality of sin, is a spiritual monstrosity which, as an offering to God, may not be so much as named. God will take no gift from a sin-stained hand (Isa 1:15). “If we regard iniquity in our heart, the Lord will not hear us” (Psa 66:18). If we lift up unclean hands in worship, he will not accept (1Ti 2:8). Let us “wash our hands in innocence” when we go to the “holy altar.” With clouds of sin hovering over our sanctuary service no dews of Divine favour can ever fall.

Amo 4:6-13

Judgment the Divine retort to human sin.

This is the sad history of God’s vain contendings with an incorrigible nation. In Amo 3:1-15. is an account of the mercies by which he at first had tried to draw them. All that had failed utterly. They met privilege with inappreciation, friendship with rebuff, and favour with incredible disregard. Then he had changed his tactics. They would not be drawn, perhaps they might be driven. The experiment was worth the making, and the record of it is in these verses.

I. THE VARIED VISITATIONS OF JEHOVAH. “So then God had but one gift which he could bestow, one only out of the rich storehouse of his mercies, since all besides were abusedchastisement” (Pusey). This he sent:

1. In diverse forms. He reduced them by famine, which often acts as a moral depletive, by cutting off its supply from, lust. He plagued them with pestilencea visitation that strikes terror into the boldest hearts. He slew them with the sword of their enemiesa fate which has terrors peculiarly its own. He swallowed them up in earthquakesthe most portentous and awful of earthly phenomena.

2. In increasing severity. Famine is direful, but it is directed primarily against the means of life. Pestilence is ghastlier, for it is directed against the life itself. The sword is more terrible than either, for it takes the life with circumstances of cruelty, which are an added horror. The earthquake is the most terror-moving of all, for it summons the overwhelming forces of nature to our destruction.

3. With differentiating circumstances in different cases. There was nothing humdrum in the visitations, no pitching them on the dead level of hackneyism or prescription.

(1) The drought came three months before harvest. This was a most unseasonable and fatal time. It was in February, just when the latter rain was due. The seed would be brairded, or just in the stage in which rain was the one thing absolutely essential to life and growth. Drought at this season “is utterly ruinous to the hopes of the farmer. A little earlier or a little later would not be so fatal, but drought three months before harvest is entirely destructive (‘The Land and the Book’).

(2) It came on one place and not on another. Ordinarily the showers fall impartially. They water the fields of the just and the unjust alike (Mat 5:45). They refresh the wilderness where no man is, as abundantly as the cultivated land, with its teeming population (Job 38:26). When they become eclectic, falling on one city or field and not on another, the feature reveals miraculous intervention. When, as probably in this case (see Pro 3:33), the watered fields or cities are those of the righteous, the adjustment is eloquent of the moral government of a God who hates sin (Isa 65:13). On the artificially irrigated gardens, where drought would not readily tell, he sent blasting, mildew, and worms (Amo 3:9). In the repertory of nature he found an instrument of destruction suited to every possible case, and in the allocation of these was revealed his omnipotent and resourceful hand. The overthrow of “some” when others escaped (Amo 3:11) was a providence burdened with the same lesson.

(3) The cause and its effect are set dose together for identification. “The piece whereupon it rained not withered,” etc. The nearer results are to their causes the easier it is to see the connection between them. God, both in the visitation and the record of it, pointedly associates the drought with the sin, and the withering with the drought, and thus puts his signature and endorsement on his disciplinary work.

4. In minute correspondence to prophetic warnings. They were plagued with pestilence “after the manner of Egypt” (Amo 3:10). This Moses had circumstantially announced would be the result of disobeying the Law revealed on Sinai (Deu 28:27, Deu 28:60), whilst immunity from it was promised in connection with fealty and obedience (Deu 7:15). Then, with blood curdling explicitness (Amo 3:6, Amo 3:7, Amo 3:10), famine, pestilence, the sword, and desolation (Le 26:23-33), blasting, mildew, drought, and locusts (Amo 3:9; Deu 28:21-26, Deu 28:38, Deu 28:42), and, to crown all, destruction and ruin, as of Sodom and Gomorrah (Deu 29:22-28), are piled (Amo 3:11), Ossa on Pelion, in prophetic intimation to Israel to be “upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed forever” (Deu 28:46). In all this the work of identifying national judgments, as from a pledge keeping and sin-avenging Jehovah, is made easy to all but the wilfully blind.

II. THEIR MEAGRE RESULTS. Judgments fell thick and wide in five varieties of terror moving severity and appositeness, and five times the prophet, gleaning vainly after the scythes of God for a grain of good result, can but repeat the sadly reproachful refrain, “Yet ye have not returned unto me, saith the Lord.”

1. The sinner refuses to believe that his affliction is punishment. He attributes it to accident, or bad management, or natural causes, or the malice of others, as the case may be. While unconscious of his sin, he is necessarily blind to the significance of his suffering, and until he sees this he cannot profit by it. If men would “hear the rod and who hath appointed it” they would have realized a primary condition of improvement under it.

2. Suffering is not in itself purifying. A bad man it often makes worse. He wants to “curse God and die.” Even if the hardening stops short of this, he is frequently soured and embittered. Suffering, to be beneficial, must not go alone. It prepares for other measures. It makes men more amenable to moral influence, but if no such influence be brought to bear in connection with it, it is no more fitted of itself to purify the character than ploughing is to fertilize the desert sand. “Bray a fool in a mortar, yet will not his folly depart from him.”

3. The love of sin is stronger than the fear of suffering. Courses, which all observation and experience declare to be ruinous to health and happiness, are entered on deliberately by millions. Even the physical evil consequences of the early steps in sinful indulgence, which are soon felt, do not arrest the evil doer in his way. By the confirmed sinner hell itself is practically, if not consciously, preferred to reformation. Only what weakens the love of sin secures the successful application of suffering for its removal. The operation of one or ocher of these principles, or the concurrence of them all, no doubt accounted for Israel’s persistent sinning even in the fire.

III. THE LAST RESORT TO WHICH GOD WILL NOW BETAKE HIMSELF. “Therefore thus will I do unto thee. The terror of these words is in nothing lessened by their vagueness. It is evident rather:

1. That the thing menaced would in point of severity be an advance upon all that had yet been done. Only thus would there be any use in adopting it. After expostulation the rod, and after the rod a swordthat is the logical order of corrective measures. “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee,” was a foreshadowing of God’s consistent policy.

2. It would involve being brought face to face with God. “Because I will prepare” (Amo 3:12). The kind or occasion of the meeting with God is not explained. It is, therefore, to be taken to include all modes and occasions, whether in life, at death, or at the final judgment. And the thought of it is one of terror to the ungodly, under whatever circumstances. They can face his judgments; God is not in them, unless in figurative sense. They can face his prophets; God is not in them, unless in a spiritual sense. But to face God literally was, even to a pious Jew, like facing death (Exo 33:20; Jdg 13:22); whilst to the impious it must have been the embodiment of all terror. It is from the “presence of the Lord” that the wicked in the judgment call upon the hills to hide them. That, of all things in the universe, is an ordeal they cannot face.

3. It is left undefined that it may seem the more terrible. We have hers the eloquence of silence. The terror of the threat is enhanced by its vagueness. Familiarity breeds contempt. If a thing, however bad, is exactly defined, we can familiarize ourselves with the thought of it in time, and brace our courage up to meet it. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be,” but our idea of it, meantime, has an element of enlargement in its very indefiniteness. God says vaguely “Thus,” and stops short, that imagination may fill up the blank. His silence is charged with deeper meaning than any words could carry.

IV. ONE FINAL APPEAL BEFORE THE STROKE FALLS. “Prepare,” etc.

1. Look for a meeting with God. It is inevitable. It is at hand. The fact must be faced. No good, but harm, can come out of the attempt to escape or blink it (2Co 5:10; Psa 139:7-12).

2. Prepare for it. This is a word of hope. Meeting with God is inevitable; but it need not necessarily he injurious. Preparation for it is possible, being enjoined, and would avail something if it were made. “God never in this life bids people or individuals prepare to meet him without a purpose of good to those who do prepare” (Pusey).

3. Do this because of impending judgments. “Because I will do this unto thee.” We might suppose that if God was going to destroy, the preparation to meet him would be too late. But that does not follow. When Nineveh was wicked God expressed his purpose to destroy it, but when it became penitent he spared it. Hezekiah, prayerless in the particular matter, was bidden prepare to die; but Hezekiah, praying for more life, was spared fifteen years (Isa 38:1, Isa 38:5). What God will do to us, so far as it comes within our cognizance, is conditioned by what we will do to him. Until the judgment has actually fallen, the threat of it is a message of mercy. A sentence of destruction itself is a call to repentance, and so has woven into it a thread of hope. “Because I will do this unto thee, prepare.”

Amo 4:11

Burning, yet not turning.

From Moses to Amos was about seven hundred years. It is a long time with men and the works of men. But it is little in the two eternities through which the purposes of God extend. There were prophecies which it had taken all this period to mature; courses of treatment for the cure of sin pursued through all the interval, and whose last measure had not yet been taken. One of these finds record here. A new event looks out at us in the guise of an ancient prophecy (Deu 29:22-24). What seven centuries before had been conceived in the womb of time is here “delivered upon the mellowing of occasion.”

I. GOD‘S JUDGMENTS A FIRE. “Plucked out of the burning.” A commentary on this figure is the association by Isaiah of “the spirit of judgment” and “the spirit of burning” (Isa 4:4). Like a fire:

1. Judgments are painful. The sensation of burning is about the most painful we know. Too severe for capital punishment, too cruel even for prisoners of war, death by burning has been generally reserved for the martyred saints. This intensest form of physical pain is a fitting symbol of the effects of God’s inflictions. What he sends is the greatest of its kind. If it be pleasure it is ideala pleasure at his right hand forevermore. If it be pain it is phenomenala torment whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever.

2. They are consuming. What fire feeds on it destroys. Where the flames have passed no organic matter remains. So with God’s judgments. They are the mills of God which “grind exceeding small.” That on which they must fall “they destroy and consume unto the end.” They are nothing if not adequate to their purpose.

3. They are purifying. By burning out what is inflammable they leave what is incombustible behind, unmixed and pure. This idea of refining is often associated with the fires of judgment (Zec 13:9; Ma Zec 3:2, Zec 3:3). They seize on the dross of evil, and burn it out of the mass. When their work is done there is only the fine gold of a pure nature in the crucible.

4. They are irresistible. Fuel, in contact with fire, can do nothing but burn. If the flame is to be quenched it must be done by some extra agency. To be as “tow” or “stubble” in the flames (Isa 1:31; Neh 1:10) is the strongest possible figure for helplessness under the avenging stroke of God. Men cannot prevent it, cannot avoid it, cannot arrest it, cannot in any degree reduce its force. When he works “who shall let it”? When his day burns as an oven, who shall withstand the fire (Isa 43:13; Ma Isa 4:1)?

II. SINNERS ARE THE BRANDS ON WHICH IT FEEDS, “Ye were as a firebrand.” There are certain steps which lead up to burning, whether literal or figurative. The brand was:

1. Withered. It is not on the sappy growing branch that the fire seizes. Before, in the natural course, it reaches the flames, a preliminary process has been finished. Its leaf yellows and falls, its bark shrivels, its sap dries up. Then it is mere tinder, and fit for nothing but the fire. So sin withers and kills the branches of the tree of human character. It dries up the sap of spiritual life, and so turns sere the leaf of profession, and destroys the fruit of well doing. In a little no function of life is possible, and all its uses are lost. To cut it down is all the husbandman can do, and to burn it follows in the natural course.

2. Brought to the flames. There are no prairie fires in God’s domain. What is burned is first prepared, and then bound in bundles (Mat 13:30) and then set fire to. There is no accident anywhere. The man by his ill-doing makes himself tinder, and God in his providence uses him for the only purpose he suits.

3. Combustible. Fire seeks out and feeds on what is most inflammable. There is an affinity between the two things that does not fail to bring them together. So with God’s avenging fires and the fuel they consume. The vultures of his judgments spy out, and alight upon the carrion of the sinner’s lusts. Every transgression of the written Law is a transgression also of the unwritten law of the nature of things, and brings punishment on and through the instrument of the sin.

III. THE BURNING THAT SCATHES WITHOUT CONSUMING. “Plucked out of the burning.” This language implies:

1. A narrow escape. The brand had been in the fire, and actually alight. A little while and it would have been inextinguishable. The fires of judgment had been around Israel, and around her close and long. If she had been in them but a little longer she could not have come out alive. The narrowness of her escape was a fact charged with the double influence of fear as to what might have been, and gratitude for what actually was.

2. An escape with a certain amount of injury. The brand that has been alight has suffered. Its fair surface has been scathed and charred. It can never be its original self again. Such a thing was Israel. “Once it had been green, fresh, fragrant, with leaf or flower; now scorched, charred, blackened, all but consumed. In itself it was fit for nothing but to be cast back into the fire whence it had been rescued. Man would so deal with it, a recreation alone could restore it. Slight emblem of a soul whose freshness sin hath withered, then God’s severe judgment had half consumed; in itself meet only for the everlasting fire, from which yet God withdraws it” (Pusey).

3. An escape managed for an important purpose. God tries all means before going to extremities. He threatens, menaces, sets fire to, and scorches, yet after all delays to consume.

(1) This gives the sinner a final opportunity of reconsidering his relation to sin. It is possible that a last chance of reformation may be embraced for the very reason that it is the last one. The prospect of death is a new factor in the problem of a man’s relation to the Prince of life, and is likely to modify the solution.

(2) It gives him a chance of viewing sin in the light of its effects. The charred brand knows the taste of the fire. The ultimate like the immediate punishment of sin is burning. The plagued sinner has tasted the firstfruits of his terrible retribution. He can argue from it what the harvest will be. This is all in favour of his profiting under the dispensation.

IV. THE NATURE THAT WILL CONSUME BEFORE IT WILL MELT. Israel had not repented, and was not going to repent. Rescued from the flame in unspeakable mercy for a season, the brand would have to be thrust in again and burned. This unconquerable hardness was that:

1. Of a nature that had strayed. The hardest sinner is the apostate. He sins against light, against favours received, against experience enjoyed, against gracious influences felt. To have beaten down, and sinned in spite of all these deterrents, argues a hardness and determination that the stranger to gracious influences has not had an opportunity of acquiring. Paul tells us that those who have so sinned cannot be “renewed to repentance” (Heb 6:4-6).

2. Of a nature that had been hardened by punishment. There is a degree of induration in the back that has experienced the lash. The brand put into the fire and taken out again is hardened by the process. The criminal often leaves the prison more callous than he entered it. So with the subjects of Divine judgment. If they are not melted by it they are indurated. Hatred to God and love to the sin are intensified, rebelliousness is stirred up, self-will is put on its mettle, and so moral insensibility is increased by the process of resistance.

3. Of a nature in which sin is supreme. In most natures there is a struggle between good and evil. It is largely a question of circumstances, which will preponderate at any given time. Temptation is resisted sometimes, and sometimes yielded to, according to our mood and the manner in which it is brought to bear, This indicates a state of war between the law in the members and the law in the mind, victory inclining to Israel or to Amalek as the hands of conscience are upheld. But when a man sins invariably, under whatever pressure of temptation, and when there is no temptation at allsins in spite of all conceivable deterrent circumstancesthe case is different. He says to evil, “Be thou my good.” His moral nature is inverted. He will not mould into a vessel of mercy now. He is “a vessel of wrath and fitted for destruction”

Amo 4:12

The great preparation.

“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel,” etc. Here an important duty fathers itself on a stupendous fact. An omnipotent God is in judgment with sinful Israel. His wrath has expressed itself in bolt after bolt of judgment already hurled. But these measures are far from embodying all his punitive resources. In the failure of these to bring repentance there are woes unnamed, because unutterable, still in store. If Israel, then, would have the heaviest artillery of retribution kept out of action, they had need bestir themselves in the matter of a duty the further neglect of which must precipitate disaster.

I. GOD AND MEN LIVING APART. The enjoyment of God’s presence was paradise (Gen 3:8), and will be heaven (1Th 4:17); that privilege lost is death (Gen 3:24), and will be hell (Luk 16:26).

1. The wicked neither have God‘s presence nor desire it. “God drove out the man,” when he became a sinner; and all men, as sinners, are “afar off.” Purity and impurity are incompatible, and there can be no fellowship between them. Righteousness and unrighteousness are antagonistic, and cannot come together without coming into collision. Man’s instinctive consciousness of this led him to anticipate expulsion from God’s presence by trying to run away (Gen 3:8). The separation between God and the sinner is thus by consent, and in the nature of the case, and so inevitable during the status quo.

2. The righteous enjoy it in the imperfect measure in which they desire it. The need of Divine fellowship, universal with men, becomes conscious when they become spiritual (Psa 42:2). As supply everywhere meets demand (Php 4:19), and measures it, the drawing near of God is synchronous with the springing of desire for it (Mat 5:6), as well as proportioned to its strength (Rev 21:3). To each of us God comes when we desire him, and as we desire him. If the presence be intermittent or incognizable, it is because appreciation is inadequate, and the longing for it irregular or weak (Isa 57:15; Isa 43:22).

3. To desire it perfectly and possess it fully is heaven. “Heaven is endless longing accompanied with an endless fruition” (Maclaren). In it there is perfection of the faculties which commune with God. There is perfection of opportunity for their exercise. Accordingly, there is perfect attainment of the normal result. We are “with Christ,” and “know even as also we are known.”

II. CERTAIN OCCASIONS ON WHICH THEY NEVERTHELESS MEET. The wicked fear God (Rom 8:15) and bate him (Rom 8:7), would be miserable in his presence (Rev 6:16), and so do all they can to keep away from it (Job 22:17; Job 21:14). But:

1. They meet him in the dispensations of providence. He is their King. He rules their life. All the events in it are of his disposing. He is where he operates, and so in each operation of which they are the subjects they meet him. Especially does he come to them in his judgments, which they are provoking every day. Misfortune, sickness, death,these in their order, for a widening circle, and at ever closer quarters, are occasions of meeting God which none would choose, yet none can shun.

2. They meet him in the influences of his grace. “No one’s salvation is so desperate, no one is so stained with every kind of sin, but that God cometh to him by holy inspirations to bring back the wanderer to himself” (Jerome, in Pusey). The strivings of the Spirit are unnoticed often, and resisted often (Luk 19:44; Act 7:51), and so are in the end withdrawn (Gen 6:3); but, so far as we know, they are universal. As truly as he met the Prophet Balaam in the way does God meet men in the exercise of constraining or restraining grace.

3. They shall meet him in the judgment day. “Before him shall be gathered all nations.” This meeting is sure, and will be unutterably momentous. All other meetings are preliminary and preparatory to it. It will gather up and declare and finally administer their cumulative results, The wicked shall be finally banished from God’s presence, and the righteous be finally admitted to it; and so for each it shall be the great meeting and the last meeting.

III. THE PREPARATION NEEDED FOR SUCH ENCOUNTERS. Israel was evidently deficient in this; not expecting the meeting and not furnished for it. In making it we must:

1. Prepare a character. To meet God satisfactorily men must be like him. To see him on the one hand, or relish him on the other, or be capable in any sense of holding communion with him, a man must be pure (Mat 5:8; 2Co 6:14). He must bring to the meeting a character in sympathy with God’s, if he would bring a blessing away.

2. Prepare a case. Man before God is a criminal, guilty, condemned, and sentenced. He wants all this reversed, and he must be able to show reason before it can be done. And what are the elements essential to his ease? Clearly the penalty he was under must have been exhaustively endured (1Pe 2:24); the Law he is under must have been perfectly obeyed (Isa 42:21); both these things must have been done with the approval and by the appointment of God (Heb 5:4, Heb 5:5); and the man must be intelligently resting his case on these facts. In other words, there must be Divine vicarious obedience and death, divinely recognized, and rested in by faith. Any appearance before God apart from these must end in confusion.

3. Prepare an advocate. Man cannot plead his own case. lie has no locus standi. He can approach God only through a mediator (1Jn 2:1). This mediator, to be admissible, must have Divine recognition (Isa 42:1; Heb 5:4, Heb 5:5); to be efficient, must have Divine power (Psa 89:19; Mat 28:18); and to be available, must have Divine sovereign love for men (Eph 5:2). These conditions meet, and meet only, and always met, in Jesus Christ. He is the one Advocate of every dispensation. Access into the antitypical holiest of all has been one thing and by one way always (Heb 9:8; Heb 10:19-22). It is and was and shall be only spiritual and through the Son of God.

4. Prepare at once. To Israel a meeting in judgment had been long foreshadowed, and was now overdue. It might be any time, and must be soon. A surpriseand in like circumstances it is the same with allwas probable, and would be disastrous (Rev 3:3). To prepare immediately was, therefore, a duty as urgent as it was clear (Mat 24:44). It is ill beginning to dig a well when the house of life is already on fire.

IV. THE CONSIDERATIONS THAT MOVE US TO PREPARE. In the context these are written large. There is:

1. An implied promise. “It has hope in it to be bidden to prepare” (Pusey). The person so enjoined is not yet given up. The menaced doom is not yet inevitable. The way in which God shall be met, and so the result of the meeting, is still capable of being modified. Every call to action is an implicit promise of the result to which it naturally leads. There is also:

2. An explicit threat. “Thus will I do unto thee.” There is a vagueness here that is far more terrible than the most explicit denunciation. A series of woes already sent has just been named. But there is a woe that is unutterable in reserve, and already on its way. This, because words are too weak to express it, is left to the imagination to picture. “Thus will I do unto thee,” he says, and attempts to particularize no further, where the sentiment is too terrible for words. And so it is with the woe in store for all the impenitent wicked. It cannot be literally defined, and so is suggested by figures such as “the blackness of darkness” (Jud Amo 1:13), “the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched” (Mar 9:48). But, however figuratively represented, the woe is real, is prepared, is being kept in store, is incomparably great, and shall fall as God is true.

3. Whether we are prepared or not, the meeting with God must come. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” There is a needs be in the case. The purpose of God must be fully carded out in issuing all the matters that go down unsettled to the grave. The righteousness of God must conclusively be vindicated in meting out to all rewards according to their works. The truth of the Divine Word, pledged in promise and in threat, must be established forever in the answering of event to explicit prediction. The meeting may be a joy to us or a shame, as we choose to have it; but it must be a fact.

4. A feeling of unreadiness is a necessary step to preparation. The measure of a sinner’s fancied readiness to face his Maker is the measure of his ignorance as to what real fitness implies. The man who has been brought to say, “I dare not face God,” has made one step in advance. He is disillusionized. His eyes are open and his conscience awake. Self-deception and false security are at an end (Rev 3:17, Rev 3:18). The first step toward grappling with the facts has been taken when once we have fairly faced them. Realize that you are sinners, and the grace of God that bringeth salvation will find appreciation and an open door.

Amo 4:13

The God with whom we have to do.

God always acts in character. From the thing he is may be inferred the quality of the thing he will do. We see him here

I. AS REVEALED BY HIS NAMES. Each Divine name and title is a Divine revelation; sets forth some one of God’s incomparable perfections.

1. Jehovah. “The Being;” “the Living One.” In contradistinction to idols, having real existence. In contradistinction to created things, having eternal existence. In contradistinction to all outside himself, having necessary existence. Jehovah is the true God and alone claiming faith, the self-existent God and alone giving life, the eternal God and alone conferring immortality.

2. God. “The Adorable One.” The Sum of all excellence. The Object of all worship. The Inspirer of all veneration. The Being who at once deserves and commands the heart s whole allegiance and devotion.

3. Of hosts. “God of the armies.” The hosts are the heavenly bodies (Gen 2:1; Deu 4:19), the angels (Jos 5:14, Jos 5:15; 1Ki 22:19; Psa 103:21; Psa 148:2), and men (Exo 12:41). All these he made, owns, keeps, controls, and uses. He is the universal Sovereign, and “doeth according to his will” everywhere, always, and without appeal. Such a Being it is no light thing to meet. Just as it is done will utter ruin or absolute safety result.

II. AS REVEALED BY HIS WORKS. The worker puts something of himself into his workthe author into his book, the painter into his picture, the mechanic into his machine. And so with God (Psa 19:1).

1. He produces physical phenomena. Three kinds are enumerated:

(1) solid matter, “the mountains;”

(2) gaseous matter, “the wind;”

(3) ethereal matter, “dawn, darkness.”

Matter in all forms is the creature of God. Its mutations are the doing of his power. Its elements are the instruments of his hand. He does to it and by it what his own moral excellence prompts. And thus it reveals him. We

“View great Nature’s open eye,
And see within it trembling lie
The portrait of the Deity.”

2. He reveals mental phenomena. “Maketh known to man what is his [man’s] thought.” The power of introspection is peculiar to man of earthly creatures. He takes cognizance of what passes in his own mind; reads his thoughts, and analyzes the process of thinking. This is among the highest exercises of reason. It is a revelation of its marvellous powers, and so of the wisdom and power of him by whom the faculty was bestowed. If a man’s thoughts are open to himself, much more are they to God. The mind can do all this; what cannot the Maker of it do (Jer 17:9, Jer 17:10)?

3. He rules moral phenomena. “Goeth over the high places of the earth.” The “high places” are the exalted people. All these he rules. The highest do his bidding. From prince to peasant all are but clay in the Potter’s hands. Who, then, shall strive with him? What can avail against his transcendent might? All natural forces, all creaturely existences, are but tools in his hand, and ministers that do his will. This is the God we must meet, and to meet whom we may well prepare.

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON

Amo 4:4, Amo 4:5

Hypocrisy.

The rhetorical fervour of the prophet leads him in this passage to address himself to the guilty nobles of Israel in terms of bitter irony. That descendants of Abraham should have forsaken Jehovah, should have set up altars to a golden calf, or to deities of their heathen neighbours,this cuts the prophet to the heart. But that, even whilst acting thus, they should retain some of their ancient observances, should profess any reverence for the precepts of the Law of God,this is the most cruel wound. Hence this language of irony, the severity of which is apparent to every reader.

I. IT IS HYPOCRISY OUTWARDLY TO REVERENCE THE ORDINANCES OF GOD WHILST REALLY SERVING GOD‘S ENEMIES. Sacrifices, tithes, leaven, offeringsall of which are mentioned in this passagewere prescribed in the Mosaic Law. The sin of the Israelites lay here. All the time that they were attending to these observances, they were worshipping idols, and breaking the first and second commandments of the ten. Virtually, all men who profess Christianity, and yet love the sinful practices and pleasures of the world, are guilty of this sin. It is hypocrisy, which is worse than an open defiance of the Divine authority.

II. HYPOCRISY SEEMS TO MEET A NEED OF DEPRAVED AND SINFUL NATURES. “This liketh you;” “So ye love to have it;”such is the reflection of Amos upon this evil conduct. Men do not “like” to break off the associations of the past; they do not “like” to turn their back upon the principles they have formerly professed; they do not “like” to forfeit the apparent advantages of conformity to the requirements of religion. Yet, at the same time, they are not willing to forsake the pleasures of sin, to deny self, to take up the cross.

III. HYPOCRISY MAY DECEIVE SOCIETY, AND MAY EVEN DECEIVE THE HYPOCRITE, BUT IT CANNOT DECEIVE GOD. The conscious aim of the hypocritical is often to impress their companions with the belief of their goodness. But in many cases men actually persuade themselves of their own piety, whilst their life is in flagrant contradiction to the assumption. Let it never be forgotten that God “searcheth the heart, and trieth the reins of the children of men;” that his scrutinizing gaze cannot be averted, nor his righteous judgment avoided. Those who multiply insincere observances really “multiply transgression.“ And multiplied transgressions surely involve multiplied penalties.

APPLICATION. Bethel and Gilgal are not the only spots on earth where hypocrisy has been practised. The question of all importance forevery professed worshipper to put to himself is thisIs there harmony between the language which I use in devotion and the thoughts and desires of my heart, the actions and habits of my life?T.

Amo 4:6-11

National calamities are Divine chastisements.

Graphic and morally impressive is the catalogue of Divine judgments which the inspired prophet here draws up and puts upon record for the admonition of future ages.

I. OF WHAT THESE CALAMITIES CONSIST. They are thus enumerated in the several verses.

1. Famine.

2. Drought.

3. Blight.

4. Pestilence.

5. War.

6. Destruction.

Alas! from the beginnings of human history such have been the sad and weary experiences of the nations. Some of these ills appear to be beyond human control; others of them are more or less attributable to human ignorance, to human neglect, to unbridled lust and passion. The peculiarity of their treatment in the books of Scripture is not in their description, but in the connection shown to exist between them and the moral life and probation of man, and the righteous government of God.

II. FOR WHAT INTENT THESE CALAMITIES WERE INFLICTED. They are not here regarded simply as events; even the philosophical historian does not regard them thus.

1. They convince the observant and pious mind of the concern of God in human affairs, and of God’s indignation with human sin. Certain philosophers imagined the great rulers of the universe to be indifferent to all the affairs of men. The Scriptures teach us that nothing escapes Divine observation, that nothing eludes Divine justice, God’s censure, or approval.

2. They induce, in the case of the right minded, repentance and reformation. When God’s judgments are abroad, the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness. If events teach men that “the way of transgressors is hard,” they may also teach them that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth.” “Before I was afflicted,” said the psalmist, “I went astray; but now have I kept thy Word.”

III. IN WHAT SPIRIT THESE CALAMITIES ARE RECEIVED.

1. There can be no question that, in many instances, they are the occasion of hardening of the heart. As in the case of Pharaoh King of Egypt, afflictions may increase insensibility and rebelliousness.

2. There are cases in which chastisements of the kind here described produce national humiliation and repentance. Such was the case with Nineveh, even when Jonah preached and foretold the city’s doom; the people repented even before the calamity came, and so averted it. And there were instances in the history of stiff-necked Israel where chastisement led to general abasement and repentance.

3. There are cases in which calamity fails to produce a general reformation, but is nevertheless the means of effecting in individuals a genuine repentance and a sincere conversion unto God.T.

Amo 4:6

Obduracy reproached.

There is a mingling of severity and pathos in this language of Jehovah addressed to Israel. The repetition of the reproach adds to its effectiveness and solemnity. As one calamity after another is described, and as all are represented as chastisements inflicted by Divine righteousness, the touching words are added, “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.”

I. THE WANDERINGS IMPLIED. In order that there may be a return to God, there must first have been a departure from God. Such had certainly been the case with Israel. The people and their rulers had alike done wickedly in departing from their covenant God. They had mingled with the worship of Jehovah practices superstitious and idolatrous. They had broken the Divine laws of morality, and that in a flagrant and shameful manner.

II. THE SUMMONS AND INVITATION TO RETURN WHICH HAD BEEN ADDRESSED BY GOD TO ISRAEL. Dealing with sinful men, a benevolent God has not been content simply to reveal truth and to inculcate holiness. He has ever addressed the children of men as those who have disregarded the truth and disobeyed the Law. Revelation is full of declarations of Divine mercy and promises of Divine forgiveness.

III. THE CHASTISEMENTS WHICH WERE INTENDED TO PRODUCE REPENTANCE AND REFORMATION. Words proving insufficient, they were followed by acts. It is dangerous for us confidently to interpret the plans of Divine providence. Yet God most high is the supreme Ruler of the nations, and in his own Word his “dealings” with the nations are interpreted with unerring justice and truth. The several disasters recounted in this passage as having befallen Israel are declared to have been of the nature of chastisements designed to awaken refection and to call to penitence and to newness of life. “The voice of the rod” is a voice sometimes effectual, and always morally authoritative.

IV. THE INATTENTION OF ISRAEL TO THE SUMMONS AND TO THE CHASTISEMENTS. It is amazing to learn that not only the messages of prophets and authorized heralds, but even the “judgments” of the righteous Ruler, failed to produce the intended effect. Yet so it was, and those who had been often reproved hardened their neck. In this Israel was an example of that obduracy which may be discovered in all ages and in all communities. The power of man to resist the appeals and the entreaties, the commands and the chastisements, of a righteous God, is one of the most surprising and awful facts of the moral universe.

V. THE PATHETIC REPROACH. He whose power could smite and destroy the rebellious speaks as if himself wounded and distressed by the perseverance in rebellion of those he governs. It seems as if Omniscience were astonished and appalled at human obstinacy and obduracy. Hence the expostulation, the reproach addressed to the impenitent and rebellious, “Yet have ye not returned unto me.”T.

Amo 4:11

The brand snatched from the burning.

Amongst the methods employed by the Divine Ruler to bring Israel to repentance was some calamity, some “judgment,” which overtook certain of the cities of the land. It may be doubtful whether we are to understand that those cities were, like Sodom, struck by lightning and partially consumed by fire from heaven; or were attacked and given to the flames by an invading, hostile force; or were overtaken by some disaster figuratively described in this pictorial language. In any case, the circumstances are naturally suggestive of reflections upon the methods and purposes of God’s treatment of sinful men.

I. A STRIKING PICTURE OF PUNISHMENT FOR SIN. Like a city given to the flames, like a brand flung upon the blazing fire, is the man, the community, that, on account of disobedience and rebelliousness, is abandoned for a time and for a purpose to the ravages of affliction and calamity. How often has a sinful, proud, luxurious, oppressive nation been consigned to this baptism of fire! How often has the wilful and obdurate nature been made to endure the keen and purifying flames! The connection between sin and suffering does indeed abound in mysteries; yet it is a reality not to be denied.

II. A STRIKING PICTURE OF THE DANGER OF DESTRUCTION TO WHICH THE IMPENITENT AND SINFUL ARE EXPOSED. Fire may purify the gold from dross, but it may consume and utterly destroy the chaff. Some nations exposed to the flames of war and calamity have perished and disappeared. Some individual lives seem, at all events, to have vanished in the flames of Divine judgment. The peril is imminent and undeniable.

III. A STRIKING PICTURE OF DIVINE DELIVERANCE. As the brand is plucked, snatched from the burning, so that, although bearing the traces of fire upon it, it is not consumed, even so did it happen to Israel that Divine mercy saved, if not the community, yet many individuals, from destruction. Where, indeed, is the soul, saved from spiritual death, of which it may not be said, “Here is a brand plucked from the burning”? And there are instances of salvation in which the similitude is peculiarly appropriate. There are those whose sins have, by reason of enormity and repetition, deserved and received no ordinary punishment in this life. And amongst such there are not a few whom the pity, the wisdom, and the power of our Saviour-God have preserved from destruction, and who abide living witnesses to his delivering might and grace.

APPLICATION. Here is encouragement for those who labour for the conversion and salvation of the degraded and debased. Even such, though nigh unto burning, may be plucked by Divine mercy from the flames of judgment.T.

Amo 4:12

Prepare to meet thy God.

Forbearance has its limits, and probation is not forever. Discipline itself is temporary, and, when the purposes of God concerning men are fulfilled, will come to an end. There is a time for preparation, and then after that comes the time for reckoning and for recompense.

I. THE PERSONS DIRECTED TO PREPARE FOR THIS MEETING.

1. Especially the disobedient, the threatened, the chastened. The previous verses make it evident that it was to these that the admonition was particularly addressed. The people of Israel, as a whole, had departed from God, and had been censured and chastened by God. It seems to have been in consequence of their impenitence and obduracy that they were addressed in the solemn language of the text.

2. Yet the appeal has surely reference to such as were learning the lessons so powerfully though so painfully inculcated by Divine providence. There were individuals disposed to profit by the awful dispensations that were befalling the nation, and by the faithful admonitions addressed by inspired prophets.

II. THE EVENT DESCRIBED AS A MEETING WITH GOD.

1. It is not to be supposed that there is ever a time when God is not in immediate contact with his creatures. We meet him at every turn, we meet him at every moment. His eye is ever upon us, his hand is ever over us. “Whither shall we flee from his presence?” To the pious soul this thought is grateful, congenial, welcome. To the irreligious soul this thought should be productive of sincere humiliation and penitence.

2. There are, however, occasions appointed by the providence of God upon which the sons of men are constrained, manifestly and unmistakably, to meet their God. Nations meet God in national crises, in solemn conjunctures of incident, of probation, of destiny. Individuals meet God in critical events in human life, in remarkable experiences of the inevitable incidence of the moral law of God.

3. All Scripture declares that there is a future judgment, when all the intelligent and accountable shall be summoned into the Divine presence and before the Divine tribunal. “After death the judgment;” “Then shall every man give account of himself to God.” We are directed to keep this day of account before our view, and to live in prospect of it.

III. THE PREPARATION HERE ENJOINED.

1. In character it must be thorough and sincere. Nothing hypocritical or superficial can suffice. For the meeting anticipated is with him who is the Searcher of all hearts.

2. In nature it must consist of true repentance and true faith. A turning of the heart from evil, and a turning unto God,these are essential. Unfeigned repentance and cordial faith are indispensable.

3. In manifestation it must be in conformity with Divine requirements. If thou wouldst meet God with holy confidence, then must thou “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.”T.

Amo 4:13

The majesty of God.

This and several other passages in this book of prophecy prove to us that Amos was a man who lived much in communion with nature and nature’s God. A herdsman and a gatherer of figs, he passed his earlier years, not in towns, in palaces, in libraries, in schools, in the temple, but beneath the open sky, and in the presence of the solemnity, the grandeur, the sublimity, of the works of the Eternal. He had climbed the mountains of Judaea, had gazed upon the rugged ranges that closed in the Dead Sea, had scanned the desert of the south, and had delighted himself in the blue waters of the Mediterranean. He had out watched the stars and greeted the glorious dawn; he had bowed his head before the tempest, and heard the voice of the Almighty in the thunder’s crash. He had read the scroll which unfolds itself to every observant eye; he had listened to the language best heard in solitude and seclusion. His meditations concerning God as known, not by the book of the law, but by the book of nature, relate to

I. GOD‘S CREATIVE POWER. This he doubtless recognized wherever he turned, by day and by night, in the peaceful plain and upon the awful hills. He here refers to two instances of the Maker’s might, two proofs of his incomparable majesty. “He formeth the mountains.“ The stability and the immensity of the mountains have ever possessed a charm and an inspiration for the sensitive and thoughtful student of nature. Little as Amos could have known of those processes by which the enduring hills have been fashioned, he was capable of appreciating their testimony to the Creator, and probably of recognizing their symbolism of Divine attributes. The wind is a phenomenon which has always impressed the observer of God’s works. Its immense power and its inscrutable mystery, its tenderness as it breathes through the forests at eventide, its awfulness when it roars upon the mountains, when it lashes into fury the mighty waves of the sea, are suggestive of the manifold operations of the all-comprehending Deity. And our Lord himself has reminded us of its symbolical significance as setting forth the wonderful, varied, and inexplicable manifestations of the presence and the working of the Divine Spirit.

II. GOD‘S SPIRITUAL INSIGHT. When the prophet describes God as “declaring unto man what is his thought,” the language has sometimes been taken to refer to the Divine thought revealed to man; but it probably is to be interpreted of that omniscient energy by virtue of which the Eternal penetrates the spiritual nature of men and reads their thoughts afar off. That the creating Spirit is thus in perpetual and intimate contact with those created spirits into which he has breathed the breath of life, and which he has fashioned in his own likeness: this is reasonable enough. Yet the enunciation of this unquestionable truth should have two effects upon us. It should enhance our conception of God’s majesty, and so call forth our adoration and our praise; and it should make us concerned as to the moral quality of the thoughts of our minds, which the omniscient and holy God must surely estimate with justice, and by a standard infinitely lofty and pure.

III. GOD‘S PROVIDENTIAL RULE. If we take literally the language, “That maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth,” then these clauses are additional acknowledgments of the Creator’s power and wisdom as displayed in nature. But coming after the preceding clause, which refers to men’s thoughts, they seem to invite another interpretation. God’s presence is to be recognized in the order of the world, in the tokens of moral government, in the workings of retributive lawin a word, in the facts which are justly deemed providential.

IV. GOD‘S GLORIOUS NAME. To the Hebrew mind there was a very close connection between the nature and attributes and the Name of the Divine Ruler and Lord. He was Jehovah, i.e. the Self-existing and Eternal, whose Being accounts for all being beside. He was the Lord of hosts, i.e. supreme over all powers, possessed of all might, ordering all natures and all processes according to his own wisdom. The angelic hosts of unseen ministers and warriors, the armies of Israel and of the nations, the innumerable forces that obey the Divine behests and bring to pass the Divine purposes,all these are beneath the cognizance and the sway of the Eternal, all these are ever executing his authoritative commandments and establishing his universal and everlasting kingdom. In the presence of a Being so glorious, so mighty, so holy, what power attaches to the monition of Scripture, “Stand in awe, and sin not”!T.

HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND

Amo 4:12

Prepare to meet thy God.

The threats which precede this summons are very indefinite. Designedly so; for the prophet wished to arouse a genera/foreboding of retribution amongst the careless people, which would have its fulfilment in national disasters, but its final consummation in another world. Such indefiniteness also makes it possible to apply his words to men of every age and country. All responsible beings must at last meet their God, and may wisely be urged to “prepare.” From the time of man’s fall the all-merciful Father has been calling men to return from their evil ways. Adam was encouraged to hope in his mercy. The antediluvians were faithfully warned through Noah, the preacher of righteousness. Israel was constantly being exhorted by the inspired prophets. John the Baptist had as the burden of his preaching this same word “prepare;” and it has come ringing down the centuries to make itself heard among us also.

I. THE JUDGMENT FORETOLD. It is clear that the reference is to a summons to the tribunal of God, the Judge of quick and dead. There is a sense in which we may meet God in the study of his wonderful works in nature; in the strange and sometimes startling events of his providence; in the pages of his Word; in earnest supplication at his footstool. But another special and more solemn occasion is alluded to in our texteven that day when the great white throne will be set, and every man will have to give an account of all the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad.

1. That judgment is certain to come. Even nature seems to point onward to some crisis in the future of our race. Conscience warns us that sin cannot always go unpunished, for the world is governed by a God of righteousness. Scripture constantly affirms that he has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world by that Man whom he has ordained.

2. It is quite uncertain when it will, come. “Of that day and of that hour knoweth no man.” It will come suddenly and unexpectedly, as a thief in the night. Death will end our time of probation, and no one knows where and when it may meet him. Therefore “prepare to meet thy God.”

3. When it comes the trial will be thorough and final. All actions, together with their motives, are under the Divine cognizance. None will escape his notice. No false excuses will avail; and, on the other hand, no mere errors will be condemned as if they were wilful sins. The good will be severed from the evil, as our Lord teaches us in the parables of the dragnet and the tares of the field.

II. THE PREPARATION NEEDED. We should not be urged to “prepare” unless by nature we were unprepared. It is merciful of our Judge to give us warning, counsel, and opportunity. He willeth not the death of a sinner, but would rather that he should repent end live. Had it not been possible for us to make ready, had he wished us only to hurry onward to a certain doom, we should not have heard this exhortation. But he gives us forewarning in many ways, and at certain seasons with peculiar force; e.g. when death enters our family, or some accident befalls ourselves.

1. We need self-examination. “Know thyself” was the advice of a heathen philosopher; but it is worth heeding by us all. We want the illumination of God’s Spirit and the instruction of God’s Word to aid us. “The candle of the Lord” must throw its rays into the recesses of our hearts.

2. We need confession and repentance. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

3. We need faith in the atonement of Jesus. It is said of all sinners who safely pass the great tribunal and enter into the heavenly world, “They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

III. THE REASONS URGED. These appear in the next verse.

1. God is omnipotent. “He formeth the mountains.” The mightiest cannot resist him; the most subtle will not escape him.

2. God is omniscient. “He declareth unto man what is his thought.” He is the Searcher of hearts (Psa 139:2; Jer 17:10). Nothing eludes his notice. There is warning in this thought for the wicked; and there is comfort for the righteous, because these may reflect that their unspoken prayers, and their secret self-denials, and their unfulfilled purposes, are all recognized by him. They are represented by our Lord (Mat 25:37-40) as being surprised at reward coming for acts which they thought little of or had quite forgotten. “God is not unfaithful to forget your work of faith and labour of love.”

Apply the words of the exhortation to the careless.A.R.

HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS

Amo 4:4, Amo 4:5

Worship abounding with abounding sin.

“Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning,” etc. ” keenest irony. The “The language of these verses,” says Henderson, “is that of the Israelites were addicted to the worship of the golden calf, and to that of idols, whereby they contracted guilt before Jehovah, and exposed themselves to his judgments; at the same time, they hypocritically professed to keep up the observance of certain feasts which had been appointed by Moses.” The subject that the text teaches isabounding worship with abounding sin. The sins of Israel, the frauds, violences, and nameless iniquities, are referred to in the preceding chapters. Crimes ran riot amongst them at this period; and yet how religious they seemed to be! “Amos has described how zealously the people of Israel went on pilgrimage to Bethel and Gilgal and Beersheba, those places of sacred associations; with what superabundant diligence they offered sacrifice and paid tithes; how they would rather do too much than too little, so that they even burnt upon the altar a portion of the leavened loaves of the praise offering, which were only intended for the sacrificial meals, although none but unleavened bread was allowed to be offered; and, lastly, how in their pure zeal for multiplying the works of piety, they so completely mistook their nature as to summon by a public proclamation to the presentation of free will offerings, the very peculiarity of which consisted in the fact that they had no other prompting than the will of the offerer” (Delitzsch). We offer two remarks on this subject.

I. Abounding worship often IMPLIES ABOUNDING SIN. This is the case when the worship is:

1. Selfish. More than half the worship of England is purely selfish. Men crowd churches, attend to religious ceremonies, and contribute to religious institutions purely with the idea of avoiding hell and getting to a happier world than this. They do not serve God for naught. Selfishness, which is bad everywhere, is never worse than when engaged in religion.

2. Formal. When religion is attended to as a matter of form, when sentiments are expressed without conviction, services rendered without self-sacrifice, the insincerity is an insult to Omniscience. “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Abounding worship is no proof of abounding virtue and abounding godliness. Often, alas! the more worship in a community, the more corruption.

II. Abounding worship often SPRINGS FROM ABOUNDING SIN. It may spring from:

1. A desire to conceal sin. Sin is an ugly thing; it is hideous to the eye of conscience. Hence efforts on all hands to conceal. Nations endeavour to conceal the terrible abominations of infernal wars by employing the ministers of religion in connection with their fiendish work. The greatest villains have often sought to conceal their villanies by worship.

2. A desire to compensate for evils. Great brewers build churches and endow religious institutions in order to compensate in some measure for the enormous evil connected with their damning trade.

3. A desire to appear good. The more corrupt a man is, the stronger his desire to appear otherwise; the more devil in a man, the more anxious he is to look like an angel.

CONCLUSION. Do not judge the character of a nation by the number of its churches, the multitude of its worshippers, or the amount of its contributions, or efforts to proselytize men to its faith.D.T.

Amo 4:6-11

God’s government of the world a chastising government.

“And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places” etc. In these verses the Almighty describes the various corrective measures which he had employed for effecting a moral reformation in the character of the Israelites. At the end of each chastising measure which he describes, he marks their obstinate impenitence with the expression, “Yet have ye not returned unto me.” As if he had said, “The grand end of all my dealings is to bring you in sympathy, heart, and life back to me.” The subject of the verses is thisGod’s government of the world is a chasing government; and three remarks are here suggested.

I. The chastisements employed are often OVERWHELMINGLY TERRIFIC.

1. He sometimes employs blind nature. Here is famine. “I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places.” The transgressors under the Law God had threatened with famine (Deu 28:48). The Divine government has often employed famine as a ruthless and resistless messenger to chasten mankind. In the days of Elisha the demon wielded his black sceptre for seven long years (2Ki 8:1). The second is drought. “I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied.” Rainindispensable to the life of the worldcomes not by accident or Mind necessity, but by the Divine will. “He watereth the hills from his chambers.” To show that the rain is entirely at the disposal of the Almighty, it came upon one field and one city, and not upon another. Hence the inhabitants of the places where it rained not had to go great distances for water, and yet “were not satisfied.” This is a terrible chastisement. The third is blight. “I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens, and your vineyards, and your fig trees, and your olive tress increased, the palmerworm devoured them.” A malignant atmosphere combined with devouring reptiles to destroy the produce of the land. The fourth is pestilence and the sword. “I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils.” The allusion, perhaps, is to the pestilence with which God visited Egypt (Exo 9:1-35.). The pestilence is God’s destroying angel. Thus by blind nature God has often chastised mankind. He makes the stars in their courses fight against Sisera. Nature is a rod in his chastening hand; and what a rod it is! At his pleasure, by a touch, he can wake tempests that shall shake the globe, earthquakes that shall engulf cities, etc. Yes, whatever materialistic scientists may say, nature is nothing more than a rod in the hand of its Maker. The fifth is fire. “I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning.”

2. He sometimes employs human wickedness. The sword is mentioned here. “Your young men have I slain with the sword.” War, unlike famine, drought, pestilence, and fire, is human, devilish. It is the work of free agents, under the influence of infernal evil. But God employs it; he does not originate it, he does not sanction it, he does not inspire it; but he permits it and controls it for purposes of chastisement. Thus all things are at the use of his chastising governmentmatter and mind, angels and fiends, heaven and hell.

II. The chastisements employed are ever DESIGNED FOR MORAL RESTORATION. After each judgment described we have the words, “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.” “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.” “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.” This is the burden and design of the whole. Note:

1. Men are alienated from the lord. They are estranged in thought, sympathy, and purpose. Like the prodigal, they are in a far country, away from their Father.

2. Their alienation is the cause of all their misery. Estrangement from God means distance, not only from virtue, but from freedom, light, progress, dignity, blessedness. Hence the benevolence of all these chastisements. They are to restore souls. “Lo all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring him back from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of the living” (Job 33:29, Job 33:30). To every unconverted man God can say, “I have chastised you in this way and in that way, on this occasion and on that, but ‘yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.'”

III. The chastisements employed often FAIL IN THEIR GRAND DESIGN. “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.” This shows

(1) the force of human depravity, and

(2) the force of human freedom.

Almighty goodness does not force us into goodness. Almighty love does not dragoon us into goodness. He treats us as free agents and responsible beings.D.T.

Amo 4:12, Amo 4:13

Preparation for meeting God.

“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel,” etc. “All the means that had been employed to reform the Israelites having proved ineffectual, they are here summoned to prepare for the final judgment, which was to put an end to their national existence. To this judgment reference is emphatically made in the terms , ‘thus;’ and , ‘this.’ There is a brief resumption of the sentence delivered in Amo 4:2 and Amo 4:3.” We raise three observations from these words.

I. MAN MUST HAVE A CONSCIOUS MEETING WITH GOD. “Prepare to meet thy God.” I shall see God,” says Job: “whom I shall see for myself, and not another.” Yes, we shall all see God. All men ought ever and everywhere to see him, for he is the great Object in the horizon, nearer to them infinitely than aught besides. But they do not. Their spiritual eye is so closed that they see him not; they are utterly unconscious of his presence. But see him they must one day. All must be Brought into conscious contact with him, and in his presence they will feel the greatest things in the universe melt into nothing- The atheist who denies his existence shall see God; the worldling who ignores his existence shall see God; the theologian who misrepresents his existence shall see God. We must all see God.

II. THIS CONSCIOUS MEETING WITH GOD REQUIRES ON OUR PART PREPARATION.

1. To meet him; reconciliation is needed. Practically we are at enmity with him. How shall an enemy stand in his presence? Who does not feel uneasy and even distressed when he confronts a man he hates, although the man may have no disposition and no power whatever to injure him? How will the soul with enmity in its heart then confront him? “I beseech you then in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”

2. To meet him, moral purity is necessary. How will a consciously corrupt soul feel in the presence of absolute holiness? How are the flames of hell kindled? By the rays of Divine holiness falling on corrupt spirits.

“Eternal Light, eternal Light,

How pure the soul must be,

When, placed within thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight

Can live and look on thee!”

III. THE PROCEDURE OF GOD IS AN ARGUMENT FOR THIS PREPARATION.

1. His procedure is terribly judicial “Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” He was approaching the sinner in judgment, moving towards him judicially. He was coming towards the Israelites as an Avenger. And so he is ever coming towards wicked men. Prepare, therefore, to meet him. He is coming as a Judgeslowly it may be, but surely and terribly.

2. His procedure is overwhelming grand. “Lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The Lord, The God of hosts, is his Name.” This magnificent description of Jehovah is given in order to urge the call to preparation.

CONCLUSION. The one mighty, loud, unceasing voice of God to man through all nature, history, and special revelation is, “Prepare to meet thy God.”D.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Amo 4:1. Ye kine of Bashan See the note on Psa 22:12 and Eze 39:18. After having testified in the preceding chapter against the sumptuous palaces, the luxury and extravagance of Samaria, the prophet here attacks the covetousness, softness, and violence of the powerful women of this city; who abused their authority over their husbands, and employed their credit and power, like other Jezebels, to oppress the poor, and to perform all acts of cruelty and injustice. These women are represented in the next verse under the metaphor of fishes, wantoning in the streams, as they did in the midst of lascivious delights; but soon to be drawn out, and thrown aside.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Amos 4

2. Punishment must come, since despite all Chastisements the People will not amend.

1 Hear1 this word, ye kine of Bashan,

Who are upon the mountain of Samaria,
Who oppress the poor,
Who crush the needy,
Who say to their lords,
Bring hither that we may drink.

2 The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by his holiness,

Behold days are coming upon you,
When men will drag2you away with hooks

And the remnant3 of you with fish-hooks.

3 And through breaches4 in the wall ye shall go out, every one before her5

And be cast forth6 to Harmon7 saith Jehovah.

4 Go to Bethel and sin,

To Gilgal,8 and sin still more !

Bring every morning your sacrifices,
Every three days your tithes.

5 Offer9 a praise-offering of what is leavened,

Call out for voluntary offerings, proclaim them !
For this liketh you,10 O sons of Israel,

Saith the Lord, Jehovah.

6 And I, even I,11 have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,

And want of bread in all your places;
And ye have not returned unto me, saith Jehovah.

7 And I, even I, have withheld the rain from you,

When there were yet three months to the harvest,
And have caused it to rain upon one city,
And cause it not to rain12 upon another.

One field is rained upon,
And the field upon which it does not rain, withers.

8 And two, three cities stagger to one city

To drink water, and are not satisfied;
And ye have not returned unto me, saith Jehovah.

9 I have smitten you with blight and with mildew;

And the multitude13 of your gardens and your vineyards,

And of your fig trees and olive trees, the locust devoured;
And ye have not returned to me, saith Jehovah.

10 I have sent pestilence among you in the manner of Egypt,14

I have slain your young men with the sword,
Together with the booty15 of your horses,

And caused the stench16 of your camps to ascend even into your noses,

And ye have not returned unto me, saith Jehovah17.

11 I have overthrown among you,

As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And ye were like a brand plucked out of the burning;
And still ye have not returned unto me.

12 Therefore thus will I do to thee, O Israel.

Because I will do this to thee,
Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

13 For, behold, He that formeth the mountains and createth the wind.

And declareth to man what is his thought,
Who maketh dawn darkness,
And goeth over the high places of the earth,
Jehovah, God of hosts, is his name.

EXGETICAL AND CRITICAL.

1. Amo 4:1-3. Hear this, etc. Plundering and destruction had been threatened; here carrying away is added. They who are threatened are the same as in chap. 3. The comparison to kine of Bashan. i.e., strong, well-fed well agrees with the description of their extortions and their luxurious life in that chapter. They are compared to cows rather than bulls, manifestly because the latter figure would be too dignified for such persons as are intended. Perhaps their effeminacy is also hinted. But it is certainly wrong to understand the expression as meaning specifically the women of Samaria. For nothing characteristic of women is said of the great in general. Nor is the phrase who say to their lords, any objection to this view; for cows have their lords, and the term here means the king and the princes under whom the other great men are ranked. So the Targum, Jerome, Calvin, Maurer, and others.

Amo 4:2. The threat is introduced by an oath Jehovah swears by his holiness, for this perfection must desire the punishment of such an unholy life, Your remnant, what has not been dragged away with hooks. To understand this as meaning posterity, would require us to consider two generations as included in the punishment threatened, which is a thought foreign to the context.

The breaches in the walls, are those made at the capture of the city. [There will be no need to resort to the gates, for egress will be possible in every directionC.] As to the much disputed Harmon, all the ancients and most of the moderns take it as a proper name,Armenia, Rimmon, Hermon, etc. Kimchi, followed by Gesenius, Winer, Henderson, resolves the word by a change of its first letter into the term meaning palace or citadel, and renders will be cast down as to the palace, i. e., from it. Dr. Van Dyck in the New Arabic Bible, also takes it as appellative, and renders to the citadel.

2. Amo 4:4-5. Go to Bethel, etc. You will not arrest this judgment by your idolatrous worship, eagerly as you may pursue that worship. Such eagerness is only an enlargement of your sins. This thought is expressed in a manner bitterly ironical by a summons to greater zeal. Gilgal was, like Bethel, a seat of idol worship (cf. on Hos 4:15). The whole passage is hyperbolical. Even if you offered slain offerings every morning and tithe every three days, it would only increase your guilt.

To the same effect in Amo 4:5 they are told, instead of being content with unleavened cakes, to offer also upon the altar even the leavened loaves which were not required by law to be consumed (Lev 7:13-14). And so with the free-will offerings. Instead of leaving these to spontaneous impulses, they in their exaggerated zeal called out for them, published them. The words, for this liketh you, make a mock of this zeal. But the mock is subsequently turned into earnest. For men surely should not persist in such love and zeal for idolworship, after God had so often punished them for it.

3. Amo 4:6-11. All punishment hitherto had been in vain. This is shown in five instances, each concluding with the sorrowful refrain, and yet ye have not returned unto me, which strikingly display the love of Jehovah, who visits and punishes his people only to prevent the necessity of severer punishment.

(a.) Amo 4:6. And I also, etc. To what they did, the prophet sets in opposition what Jehovah did. Cleanness of teeth, because they had nothing to eat.

(b.) Amo 4:7-8. Withheld the rain when, etc. The latter rain is meant. As this fell in February and March, while the harvest occurred in May and June, the interval was reckoned in round numbers at three months. [This is utterly ruinous to the hopes of the farmer. A little earlier or a little later would not be so fatal, but drouth three months before harvest is entirely destructive. The Land and the Book, 2:66.] The withholding of rain is stated as partial, in order to show more distinctly that it was a divine ordering.

(c.) Amo 4:9. The third chastisement was a bad harvest, arising from a blight upon the cereal grains and the destruction of fruits by locusts.

(d.) Amo 4:10. The fourth chastisement was pestilence and war. For the grievous sufferings of Israel in the latter, see 2Ki 8:12; 2Ki 13:3; 2Ki 13:7.

(e.) Amo 4:11. I overthrew, etc. This manifestly does not indicate a new chastisement in addition to the foregoing, but sums them all up in a single utterance. The comparison of the doom of Ephraim to that of Sodom and Gomorrah, is a general indication of the greatness of their punishment (cf. Isa 1:9). The way in which the destruction of the cities of the plain is spoken of, plainly refers to Gen 19:29, where occurs the word overthrow, which became the standing phrase to describe this fearful fate Deu 29:22; Isa 1:7; Isa 13:19; Jer 49:18; Jer 50:40). (Baur.) As a brand. The emphasis does not lie on the actual escape, but on i he fact that it was so narrow. The phrase vividly depicts the severity of their chastisements itherto; so much the more inexcusable are they or not having returned to the Lord.

4. Amo 4:12-13. Therefore thus will I, etc. Thus, but how is not said. Thus, is therefore to be regarded as a general threat, which is so much the more severe, because it is not stated what shall come, so that there is everything to fear. The punishment is indeed generally indicated in this chapter, as also in chapter 3. But the chief point of the chapter is to recall the past hard-heartedness of Israel, not to describe their punishment, since there are only brief references to the judgment already mentioned, the full description of which is resumed in chap. 5. As yet it is only a threat: hence the summons, Prepare, etc., i. e., not to meet your doom, but to avert it by true repentance (cf. Amo 5:4; Amo 5:6). To give the greater emphasis to this command, Amo 4:13 depicts God as the Almighty and Omniscient who creates prosperity and adversity. (Keil.) His thought does not mean mans thought, but Gods own, which He makes known by the prophets, i. e., his purpose to punish. [It seems more natural, as it is more in accordance with the uniform usage of the word to refer it to man. As Pusey says, To man, a sinner, far more impressive than all majesty of creative power is the thought that God knows his inmost soul. He declareth unto man his meditation, before he puts it into words.] Treads upon the high places = rules over all, even the highest of earth. Finally the whole is confirmed by the lofty title of God as God of Hosts.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. This discourse (Amo 4:1-3) strikes at those who are in authority and practice violence at court and elsewhere. In them, unrighteousness in act concurs with great looseness in speech. The more violently men deal in matters of office and government, the more viciously do they proceed among their fellows, trying to stifle all humane feeling for others need and all complaints at the wrong that is done. But the more frivolous their talk, the more earnest is God in his counsel and oath against them; and as they have done much for the sake of advancing and enriching their posterity, so the judgment of God strikes them with their posterity. (Rieger.)

2. Since the prophet here attacks so severely the heads of the state, we are to consider that if a modern preacher were to do the same, it would be regarded as an insult and a calumny. But if a preacher out of a proper zeal should at times handle somewhat harshly acknowledged public offenders who can be reached in no other way, this is by no means to be deemed an unbecoming insult, for the same reproach would apply to the prophets, to our Lord Himself, and to his Apostles, all of whom often uttered severe language. When in any such case the rebuke aims only at the benefit of the persons concerned, it is not an impropriety or an outrage, but a work of love demanded by the preachers office, which is to censure the impenitent. This must he done not only upon the lowly but upon the lofty, and indeed the more upon the latter because thev do so much more harm when they act amiss. (Wart. Bi.) It is a natural inference that such a thing should be done not in passion nor personal provocation, but really from a holy zeal against sin. But clear as the matter is so far, the more difficult is it in practice. One can only say, Let each man approve himself to God as to his inward feeling. The fear of man should not close the mouth to an open testimony against the high. But it docs not follow that an open mouth is always a token of zeal for Gods honor. Least of all is such a thing found in a mere copying of others, even though they be prophets. Nor should the difference between prophets and the preachers of our day be obliterated. With the courage to bear testimony must be united the courage to suffer on account of such testimony (cf. at chap. 3. Doct. and Eth. 2).

3. They who shamelessly transgress the simplest moral duties, develop along with this course a powerful religious zeal and cannot do enough in worship. An apparent contradiction, yet one confirmed a hundred times by experience; moral corruption and religious bigotry amalgamated! Yet is it altogether natural; the religious form covers over the moral nakedness and quiets the conscience; but this is certainly a horrible delusion. That it was a false worship in which the Israelites were so zealous, enhances their guilt, for it was an apostasy from Jehovah. But even a religiosity which is formally correct, may be used as a cover for wickedness, and be blended with moral corruption. Thus it is well to remember that religious zeal in itself is no proof that all is well.

4. God tries all means before proceeding to extremities. If benefits are not recognized, He sends chastisements. These in the first instance aim not at destruction, but at opening the eyes through the perception of the divine wrath so that men may repent and seek God. They are therefore as much tokens of grace as proofs of wrath. But if this aim is not reached, the forbearance of God ceases, and a decisive judgment steps forth. But this last is something extorted from God, it is against his real disposition; only with reluctance does He resolve upon it. He waits long in the hope that there will be a change and so the last step be unnecessary. Most clearly does the sorrowful love of God shine out from the vivid delineation of the prophet. National calamities, according to our chapter, are to be viewed as chastisements from God. This view does not conflict with the existence of natural causes, but recognizes God as the being in whose service these act. It sees in the course of the world, not the blind mechanism of a clock, but the work of a personal intelligent will, and considers the laws of that course as the thoughts of this will, which rules and governs the whole, the domain of the physical as well as that of the moral and spiritual, and naturally does not leave these to run on merely side by side, but puts them in constant and intimate relation and alternation with each other, so that physical life finds its highest aim in the loftier domain of moral and spiritual life. National calamities are only a lower degree of the revelation of Gods wrath. Heavy as they may be, they endanger only the material conditions of a nations life, and that in a superficial way from which there may be a recovery, but they do not imperil its essential being, which consists in its political independence and freedom. That a nation is determined to maintain and guard this, that it considers the loss of it the last punishment from Gods hand, comes forth very clearly as the prophets view: A nation therefore should defend this against the attack of a foreign foe. But it is equally clear that where the inner conditions, piety and righteousness, no longer exist, there all pains to preserve independence are vain. God gives the power and victory to the foes. What enemies do, that God himself does through them (cf. Amo 2:13; Amo 3:15). Here also there is no denial of the nearer causality, that of the human will. But while man is doing only his own will, he at the same time does the will of God, acts as his instrument, and serves his aims, which are the highest, the only absolute ones.

5. With a short but lofty delineation of Gods transcendent greatness and almighty power, the prophet concludes the chapter, showing that Jehovah is one who speaks with emphasis and can execute his threatenings. It is as beautiful poetically as it is profound theologically. It exhibits an elevation and depth in the conception of God, which permits a very definite conviction as to the strength and clearness of the divine manifestation made to Israel. As thus controlling all things, God is called the God of Hosts. Observe how fond Amos is of this phrase in the vehement outpouring of indignation in the chaps. 36, cf. Amo 3:13, Amo 4:13, Amo 5:16; Amo 5:27, Amo 6:8; Amo 6:14. Here Jehovah appears as One who towers above all creaturely existences, who rules the highest spheres of might, against whom therefore nothing can avail, around whom everything stands ready to execute his will. He is not the national God of Israel alone, but the God of the world. Hence He is not merely a natural force which builds and again destroys, but a personal God who acts according to his own thought, which He makes known to men. And as such a personal, self-conscious, self-active being, He stands in constant relations with his personal creatures.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

[Amo 4:1. Who oppress the poor. He upbraids them not for fierceness, but for a more delicate and wanton unfeelingness, the fruit of luxury, fullness of head, a life of sense, which destroy all tenderness, dull the mind, deaden the spiritual sense. They did not directly oppress, perhaps did not know that it was done; they sought only that their own thirst for luxury and self-indulgence should be gratified, and knew not, as those at ease often know not now, that their luxuries are continually watered by the tears of the poor, tears shed almost unknown except by the Maker of both. But He counts willful ignorance no excuse. (Pusey.)

Amo 4:2. Behold, days are coming. Gods day and eternity are ever coming. They are holding on their steady course. Men put out of their minds what will come. Therefore God so often in his notices of woe brings to mind that those days are ever coming; they are not a thing which shall be only; in Gods purpose they already are, and with one uniform, steady noiseless tread are coming upon the sinner. (Ibid.)

Amo 4:4. Go to Bethel and sin, etc. Words uttered in bitter irony and indignation, as Ezekiel says (Eze 20:39), Go ye, serve every one his idols, and our Lord, Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers (Mat 23:32). It is a characteristic of idolatry and schism, to profess extraordinary zeal for Gods worship and go beyond the letter and spirit of his law by arbitrary will-worship and self-idolizing fanaticism. (Wordsworth.)

Amo 4:5. Call out for voluntary offerings, etc. The profuseness of idolaters in the service of their false gods may shame our strait-handedness in the service of the true and living God. (M. Henry.)]

Amo 4:6 ff. Have given you cleanness of teeth, etc. Before, we had a thoughtful appeal to Gods mercies; now his chastisements are enumerated. These are the two chief evidences of Gods approach to a people, a community, a family, or even an individual, in love or in sorrow, and what fruits one or the other has borne (Rieger). [And ye have not returned unto me. By repeating this sorrowful ejaculation four times (Amo 4:6; Amo 4:9-11), God emphatically declares the loving design of his chastisement of Israel. (Wordsworth.)

Amo 4:7-8. The preaching of the Gospel is as rain; God sometimes blesses one place with it more than another; some countries, some cities are like Gideons fleece, wet with this dew while the ground around is dry; all withers where this rain is wanting. But it were well if people were but as wise for their souls as they are for their bodies, and, when they have not this rain near them, would go and seek it where it is to be had. If they seek aright, they shall not seek in vain. (M. Henry.)]

Amo 4:9. Of what avail are judgments? Men now are as little influenced by them as Israel of old. They do not believe they are punishments, much less that they are sent for the causes assigned. They deem them accidental, or else invent other causes, and even ascribe droughts, floods, hail, caterpillars, etc., to witchcraft and sorcery, in the face of the Scripture which expressly attributes such plagues to God. (Wurt. Bible.) [Ordinarily, God makes his sun to arise upon the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust, but He does not enslave himself to his own laws. There are variations, and in his Word He reveals to us the meaning of his daily variations in the workings of nature. (Pusey.)

Amo 4:10. After the manner of Egypt. Israel, having sinned like Egypt, was to be punished like Egypt. One of the threatenings in Deuteronomy in case of disobedience was (Deu 28:27), The Lord shall smite thee with the botch of Egypt. (Ibid.)

Amo 4:11. I have overthrown, etc. The earthquake is reserved to the last as the most special visitation, It is at all times the more terrible, because unseen, unannounced, instantaneous, complete. The ground under a mans feet seems no longer secure, his shelter is his destruction; mens houses become their graves. War, pestilence, and famine seldom break in at once. The earthquake at once buries it may be, thousands, each stiffened (if it were so), in that his last deed of evil; each household with its own form of misery; each in its separate vault,dead, dying, crushed, imprisoned. (Ibid.)

Amo 4:12. Thus will I do unto thee. God having said this is silent as to what He will do; that so Israel hanging in suspense as having before him each sort of punishmentwhich are the more terrible because he imagines them one by one,may indeed repent, that God inflict not what He threatens. (Jerome.)]

Amo 4:13. He that formeth the mountains, etc. This noble description of God on one hand arouses the conscience to appreciate his threatenings and renounce all vain confidence, and on the other encourages the heart to come again into communion with such a God by sincere conversion. (Rieger.) [If He be such a God as He is here described to be, it is folly to contend with Him, and our duty and interest to make our peace with Him; it is good having Him our friend, and bad having Him our enemy. (M. Henry.)]

Footnotes:

[1]Amo 4:1. for , because the verb stands first. Cf. Isa 32:11.

[2]Amo 4:2. is Piel, as in 1Ki 9:11. Greens Grammar, 164, 2. pleonastic, like the Greek , in direct address.

[3]Amo 4:2. is not posterity (Frst, Henderson), but remnant, all even to the very last. Cf. Hengstenberg, Christol., i. 367.]

[4]Amo 4:3. is accusative of place.

[5]Amo 4:3., i.e., without turning to the right or the left. Cf. Jos 6:5-20.

[6]Amo 4:3. ,is simply the fall form of the pronoun, added here to obtain a similarity of sound with the preceding verb. The Hiphil form is found in all the MSS. save one, and is defended by Hitzig, Ewald, etc., but as it is very harsh, it is better, with the LXX., Syr., Sym., Vulgate, and Arabic, to take it as Hophal (Jerome, Frst, Keil, etc.).

[7]Amo 4:3.. This hapax legom. is not yet satisfactorily explained, although almost every possible interpretation has been given. The final letter appears to be local, and in that case the word indicates the place into which the fugitives are cast. But where that place is none can say; we have only conjectures, for which see Keil and Henderson in loc.

[8]Amo 4:4.Gilgal is in the accusative after go understood from the preceding clause. Every three days, is the literal rendering adopted by Ibn Esra, Rosenmller, Maurer, Keil, etc. Kimchi gives it as E. V., and is followed by Henderson. The LXX., Vulgate, and Luther agree with Ibn Esra.

[9]Amo 4:5., infin. absol. used for the imper.

[10]Amo 4:5.For this liketh you. This fine archaism seems preferable to the marginal equivalent of the E. V, So ye love.]

[11]Amo 4:6.The first personal pronoun, when separately expressed in Hebrew, is always emphatic; hence the repetition in the version, I, even I.]

[12]Amo 4:7.. The imperfects from here on are used as the historical present to give life to the description.

[13]Amo 4:9., infin. const. used as a substantive = multitude.

[14]Amo 4:10.In the manner of Egypt, because pestilence is epidemic in Egypt (Isa 10:24-26).

[15]Amo 4:10. is usually explained: together with the carrying away of your horses, so that even your horses were carried away. But Keil renders it concrete = the booty, so that even the horses that were captured, perished.

[16]Amo 4:10even into your nostrils, like as a memorial of their sins (Hitzig).

[17]Amo 4:13., may be, who turns the dawn into darkness, or, by asyndeton, who makes dawn, darkness. i.e., both. [The latter is preferred by Calvin, is expressed in the LXX., and is said by Henderson to be the reading of more than twenty of Kenmcotts MSS.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

Contents

The Lord is still pleading with Israel, and most solemn pleading it is. The Lord showeth also, how ineffectual hitherto his punishments to reform had proved.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Under the similitude of the fat bulls of Bashan the Prophet shews how Israel had oppressed the poor and lean among them. And under the figure of fishermen, he sets forth how in the end they that oppressed should be dragged away. The Reader will observe from hence, what is always connected together, haughtiness and cruelty to men, where the heart is rebelling against God.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Moral Degradation

Amo 4

“Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink” ( Amo 4:1 ).

David speaks of bulls “bulls of Bashan.” Amos speaks of “kine”; another word, with subtler meanings, which cannot be expressed in terms. The whole people had sunk into sensuality. To say they were distinguished by effeminacy is to expose a word innocent in itself to false interpretations. The whole society spoken to by the reproachful prophet was sunk in the worst forms of selfishness and baseness. This farm servant does not choose his words with any view to consulting the taste of his hearers. He must get at their attention. When a man is determined to arrest the attention of the public he must not be too particular in the use of terms, or the use of words only that are permitted in the court of perverted and fickle taste. There are prophets who are speaking to the taste of the age, and the taste of the age takes no heed of their mincing words. They are not prophets, therefore. They have on the official robe, and they stand upon the official floor, but they are not prophets, because they do not use words that burn their way into the attention of the heart and the judgment. This farm servant, this field hand, comes crashingly down amid the corruptions of his day, and looking upon the wealthiest men lounging in their divans of ivory, nicely cornered where no draughts can reach them, and calling for more drink, he says, “Ye kine of Bashan ” ye filthy women, men “hear this ” It was well for Amos that he was not a farmer, but only a labourer. He would have been evicted. Poverty can be independent, skill can be courageous; a man who has a living in his fingers has no favours to ask; it is only the gentleman who cannot make his own living who has to beg some other people to let him live. Amos did not say, Gentlemen, nobles, aristocrats, feudal lords; he said, “Ye kine of Bashan.” He addressed them as if they had gathered in a stable which itself had not been cleansed for a century, the very air of which reeked with pestilence. We must not send dainty men to do rough work; instruments must be adapted to the function which is demanded of them. There are those who cannot listen to speakers whose voices rise above the level of a whisper. By all means let such people have such gospel as they can receive; but an age marked by avarice, cupidity, oppressiveness, self-indulgence, and every form of evil, must listen to voices often grating, crashing, thunder-like, and carrying with no uncertain emphasis the express and direct judgment of God.

What is the charge against these fallen ones? They “oppress the poor,” they “crush the needy.” Yet, reading between the lines, and in the light of the day in which this history was written, it is perfectly possible that all this oppression and crushing was done secondarily, so that the men who were guilty of it did not personally and immediately know what they were doing. Does that relieve them of responsibility? Not one whit. The men in question curtained themselves in their divans, lounged at ease, dreamed the devil’s nightmare, enjoyed themselves in all the range and gamut of evil aspiration, and allowed others to crush the needy. There are those who find it convenient not to see all that they are doing; there is a sense of grim comfort about drawing the curtain around one, and letting all manner of oppression and crushing and evildoing be conducted without our personal cognisance of the ghastly facts. This is the charge against the once-called people of God. Is it an ancient charge? Is it a reminiscence that requires a very skilful historian to recall in all its particularity and applicableness? Verily this is the iniquity of to-day. The senior partner does not know what the junior partner is doing; can the senior partner therefore preside over a Christian assembly, and talk pious twaddle, without being responsible for what his more energetic coadjutor is doing? Let him answer the question before he touches the altar in prayer, before he puts to his lips the blood of sacrament. Are they guiltless who leave a church, a country, a family, and so long as they can reap profit enough for their own advantage, care nothing how that profit is extorted from those who are oppressed? If the throne of God is holy, there is a dark day of answering for all such traitors and all such unfaithful souls. It is convenient to have some inner chamber, in which seniority can rest, and whence it can call for more drink, more luxury, more gold, no matter at what cost; but God’s fire will find its way into that innermost chamber, and burn it Blessed be the name of the Judge, for he is interested in the poor; the case of the needy is his. Wherever there is oppression he hates it, and when men seek to sanctify robbery he calls it robbery, and throws it into hell. We need some blunt Amos to talk to us in our mother tongue. The moment he becomes rhetorical he becomes insincere; yet he must create a ritual of his own, noble, massive, resonant, marching through his audience as if by right intellectual, moral, divine right. You are bound to know how your servants are living. You are called upon by the God of Amos to find out how much you are giving to the least little boy in your establishment. If you are giving a thousand a year for the conversion of people you never saw, and are starving your own apprentices and employes and servants at home, you are bad. If thou say, “I knew it not,” God will condemn thee out of thine own mouth. Why read reports of things five thousand miles away, and not know that a man in your own employment is at this moment dying of consumption, has a wife and four or five little children, and hardly a coal in the grate, and not much bread in the cupboard? You are bound to stop your carriage at his door, and save him from destroying hunger. That may make no impression in the public halls of the kingdom, but it will be written in the Book of Life, and in the other book, one day to be read aloud by the Judge, the inconsumable record written in heaven. What Amos dare tell us these things? Lord, send him! He will be crucified, but thou wilt receive him to glory.

“The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness” ( Amo 4:2 ).

Then it is a moral controversy. Nothing short of the holiness of God is pledged and involved in this argument. God does not swear by his majesty, but by his character. It is because he is holy he is going to take this action. Whenever holiness is interested in a controversy, know that the most obstinate and persistent force known to human nature is engaged in the strenuous contention. Always be afraid of an opponent who is working along the line of a noble character. The religious man is the most determined opponent of evil. The political economist is a calculator, an arranger; he thinks that perhaps the operation of evil had better be suspended, because it interferes with the adjustment of the comings and goings, exports and imports, and internal statistics. He will give way under pressure. Holiness never gives way. Fire will not give in, and the fire of the divine heart is enlisted against all men who oppress the poor and crush the needy. Find a man who is a politician, who operates only from political considerations, and he will be here to-day and there tomorrow; he will listen to know what is being said; he will calculate and arrange and adjust, and see how balances run, and listen to the eloquence of averages. Find a man whose conscience is alive, whose very mind has become a moral organ, whose whole soul is committed to the cause of right, and he will never yield; he cannot be changed, he is a representative of an eternal principle and an unchangeable standard. What we need is moral conviction. We have intelligence of a certain kind in plenty. We want the conscience to be enlisted, intelligently, thoroughly, passionately. When conscience takes up the cause of truth, that cause will be heard of in many languages, will be seen in many aspects, will be confronted in unexpected places. Conscience has been lost. The Church is without conviction; and a creed without conviction is a corpse. The Lord is not so arrayed against wrongdoing that we have to appease his passion; he is so arrayed against evil that we have to satisfy a moral judgment. God will have that which is right. Until the right is done nothing is done. In vain we decorate the walls if the foundations are destroyed. The Lord will have nothing done to the walls until the foundations are put in course. Decoration is nothing to him who appointed the heavens, and flushed the summer with colour, and made all nature an infinite loveliness. He does not look for our paint. He admires our solidity, massiveness, rectitude. We serve a holy Master: “Be ye holy as your Father in heaven is holy.”

The farm servant now begins to speak in a tone of irony. It is wonderful how all these farm servants and others became suddenly and completely educated in the very highest style of human eloquence. These burning, blasting utterances might, so far as their rhetorical structure is concerned, have been fabricated by trained heads. The Lord will educate his own ministers, and abundantly qualify those whom he has honoured. God never sends his servants abroad empty-handed; he will have them stand still, and be his instruments through whom he may thunder judgment, or through whom he may whisper benediction. When will men let the Lord alone? When will the Church allow some scope to inspiration, and some opportunity for divine providence to vindicate itself? When will the Church learn to be reverently decent? We do not make one another; God makes us all. Now we shall hear irony that might have been spoken by Elijah.

“Come to Beth-el, and transgress [You are quite equal to it; come and dance on the church-floor, come and turn the sacrament board into a festival of rioting]: at Gilgal multiply transgression [Around the altar weave the web of iniquity, and carry on your madness under the sky of God]: and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years: and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings” ( Amo 4:4-5 ).

What a partial programme! how well it reads, and yet how rotten it is at the heart of it! A sacrifice every morning, tithes after three years, sacrifice of thanksgiving, proclaim and publish the free offerings! There is one thing wanting in all that elegant programme, and for want of that one thing the whole arrangement dies in the air like a gilded bubble. What is omitted from this rehearsal? The sin offering, the trespass offering. They will come with sacrifices every morning as donors to God; they will come with service and sacrifices of thanksgiving with leaven; they will throw money into the treasury, and announce the sum in plain figures Where is penitence? Where is contrition? Where is heart-wringing? Where is the tearing conscience, the presence of tormenting agony in the innermost life? Most worship is partial; many will have a little partial religion. Some attention has to be paid to custom, to the habit, wont, and use of life; some mean coin must at least be thrown into the treasury, and thrown in with some ostentation; hymns must be sung, and fault must be found with the music, and judgment must be pronounced upon the rabbi, the priest, the teacher for the time being, and for a certain period there must be an odour of sanctity about what we say and do. All this trickery is possible; but it never reaches the heaven of God. Such doing does not amount to conduct; it does not go beyond the boundary of calculation and selfish adjustment. Not the sweetest song is accepted if its sacrifice be but a song. The publican, brokenhearted, crushed, wounded in the soul, crying, God be merciful to me a sinner! sings in his sob, praises God loudly and sweetly in the very utterance that is choked; when he has experienced the mercy he will rise like a liberated bird, and sing at the gate of heaven. Beware of formality, of partial worship, of doing in the church only those things we like. We like to sing; we like to hear some particular voice that charms or rouses, that soothes or encourages us; we like to sit in certain places, and, so far as our partialities go, what can be more decorous and more beautiful than our conduct in the sanctuary? Whereas the Lord, looking upon all these perfunctory attentions and sapless, bloodless sacrifices, says, I am weary to bear them: go and deal thy bread to the hungry, and lift up the life thou hast crushed, and be reconciled to thine enemy: do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God; and then thy poorest song shall mingle without discord with the music of angels. When we do what we like to do we are not worshipping God. Unless there be a touch of the agony of the Christ, what we do is unacceptable to God.

Here you have punctuality; here you have thanksgiving; here you have music, and yet the Lord turns it into ironic taunt: “Come to Beth-el, and trangress: at Gilgal multiply transgression: and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years”: be very punctual in your payments; after you have done it all, go home with the charge that you have been found liars before God. When will Amos come to tread us down in the divine wrath, and raise us up when we have confessed our sins and sought the divine forgiveness? To call us who have been ministers, office-bearers, heads of parishes, and leaders in sanctuaries men who have been found liars before God, how rough the speech, how violent the incrimination! Surely this cannot be a true impeachment. Men who talk so cannot be saved. Men should ask, Is it true? Have I omitted from my programme the sin offering, the trespass offering, the sign of personal criminality? Am I only a decorator of my external life, or am I seeking to be purified at the wellhead, cleansed at the font of being?

Now the Lord promises to inflict judgment and punishment upon his people. He will give them “cleanness of teeth” in all their places, because they shall have nothing to eat in all their places; and he proceeds to say that all his policy of punishment has failed. He says, after he has told them what he has done in case after case, “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” ( Amo 4:6 ); “But they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” ( Amo 4:8 ); “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” ( Amo 4:9 ); “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” ( Amo 4:10 ); “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” ( Amo 4:11 ). Mere punishment, even when exercised by the divine Being, can do nothing permanently and really curative. Here you have references to Sodom and Gomorrah and Egypt, to all the plagues that fell upon the people, and yet after all they stood before God with obdurate hearts. It is not in punishment to regenerate society. You cannot subdue a nation even by divine punishment. For God has tried it and has failed. Why should men hope to succeed where omnipotence has succumbed? Something more than punishment must be attempted; there must be education; there must be opportunity created for reasoning; there must be a spirit of judgment not on the penal side only, but on the side of rational debate and consideration.

Then comes a symbolic word. Amo 4:12 is a picture: “Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel.” How? There is no answer. The speaker here strikes an attitude; the attitude is that of an uplifted hand, “Therefore thus.” There are many things that cannot be written. The Lord himself calls attention to figures in the sky, to signs in the expressive clouds, to events that build themselves up into pillars one side all fire, the other delicate and feathery as a cloud. The Lord shows himself apocalyptically, and only because we are blind we allow him to pass by without recognition and grateful hallelujah. Lord, that we might receive our sight! Thou art always near us, but we do not see thee; we are the victims of the body, we are subdued by our own flesh. The flesh warreth against the spirit, and the spirit often shows feeble fight against the flesh. Take not thy Holy Spirit from us. Thou art near, within touch, thou art nearer to us than we can ever be to ourselves, Lo, God is here, and I knew it not. See the action of providence; note the significance of events; read the signs of the times; standing in the sun is One who says, “Therefore thus.” He that hath ears to hear, let him hear; he that hath eyes to see, let him see; these sights are not given to the eyes of the body, they are lavished upon the vision of the pure heart.

“… And because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel” ( Amo 4:12 ).

How often have these words been turned into words of terror; how many noble discourses have been preached from this text which had no relation whatever to its meaning! This is the voice of love. All punishment has failed; threatened hell has become a familiarity that men listen to and let pass on; eternal fire, eternal brimstone have become figures in rhetoric tropes in poetry what now is to be done? Something larger, nobler “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” “Prepare:” there is forewarning. When God forewarns he means to give us every opportunity of repentance; if he were not determined upon giving us every opportunity he would plunge upon us without warning, and carry us away as a flood in the nighttime. The very word “prepare” so used in this relation is itself a gospel term. “Prepare to meet thy God” still “thy God.” Men give up God, but does God give them up? They forget that there is a double relation. There be atheists and agnostics and non-theists and secularists who have made up their mind to renounce the whole idea of God, but God has not made up his mind to renounce them. Christ’s Cross still stands; Calvary is just where it ever was; the great evangelic thought of redemption by the blood of Christ is the music of the universe, is the security of things eternal. So God will not renounce us, or cast us off, or allow us to be cut down, until he has pleaded with us, and we have to cut our way from him; and at last even he will say in the words of his Son, blessed, eternal Saviour, I have lost none but the son of perdition; I would have saved him too, but he would not be saved. Imagine not that God is moved by your fickle changefulness. You may have renounced God, but God has not renounced you. Men sometimes say that they have been obliged to give up Christianity; and we find it is not Christianity at all they have given up, but some church creed, some metaphysical, bewildering, superstitious nonsense that they have given up, and thank God they have given it up. All these things ought to be raked together, and burned!

Prayer

Almighty God, thy throne is established in the heavens, and thou thyself reignest calmly in Zion. Thou dwellest in peace; thou dost sit above the circle of the earth; thou lookest upon all the children of men as they come and go, and behold, as compared with thine own eternity, they are as shadows that abide not. We rest in thy care, we stand in thy strength. Thou art the Ancient of Days, and the Eternal King: blessed are they who have a place in thy house; they will be still praising thee; in the darkness they will see the Lord, far away they will know his coming, and near at hand they will hear his voice. We bless thee for all this consciousness of thy nearness, thy love, thy care, thy mighty defence; may we so grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as to be no longer tossed about, wearied and worn and distracted by all the tumults of time. May we rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty, and dwell in the tabernacle of eternity; then shall we not see when fear cometh, the cloud will be no frown, the gathered storm will fall in blessing upon our garden, our heritage shall then be fruitful, and our song unto the Lord shall every morning be new. Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

VI

THE BOOK OF AMOS PART 2

Amo 3:1-9:15

Helps commended: (1) “Bible Commentary,” (2) “Pulpit Commentary,” (3) Pusey’s Minor Prophets, (4) “Benson’s Commentary.”

The section, Amo 3:1-6:14 , consists of three parts, or three distinct addresses, each commencing with the words, “Hear this word.”

The first address consists, in particular, of the verdict and sentence of Jehovah against all Israel, and is divided as follows: (1) a principle stated (Amo 3:1-8 ); (2) a reason assigned (Amo 3:9-12 ); (3) a sentence announced (Amo 3:13-15 ).

The principle stated in Amo 3:1-8 is that an effect proves a cause. This principle is enforced by seven illustrative questions, viz: (1) communion proves agreement; (2) the lion’s roar proves the prey; (3) the cry of the young lion proves the prey possessed; (4) the fall of the bird proves the bait; (5) the springing of the snare proves the bird to be taken; (6) the sounding of the trumpet proves the alarm; (7) calamity in the city proves Jehovah. The application of all this is made by the prophet) bringing in his text, as follows: “The lion [Jehovah] hath roared; therefore I fear. The Lord hath spoken, therefore I prophesy.”

In Amo 3:9-12 we hear the prophet giving a special invitation to the Philistines and Egyptians, Israel’s inveterate enemies, to assemble in Samaria to witness the great wickedness and destruction of Israel because they did not do right, storing up violence and robbery in their palaces, and whose tumults and oppressions abounded toward the people. The judgment to follow was to be like the work of the lion devouring his prey.

The sentence announced (Amo 3:13-15 ) is the complete destruction of Israel, and the thoroughness of its execution is indicated by the sentence of destruction against its objects and places of worship and the smiting of the habitations of the rulers, showing the complete desolation of their city, Samaria.

The second address consists, in particular, of an indictment and a summons of Jehovah, and its parts are as follows: (1) the king of Bashan threatened (Amo 4:1-3 ); (2) a sarcastic command (Amo 4:4-5 ) ; (3) a list of providences (Amo 4:6-11 ); (4) a summons to an account (Amo 4:12-13 ).

In Amo 4:1-3 we have Jehovah’s threat against the carousing and oppressive women. Bashan was famous for its flocks and herds. The proud and luxurious matrons of Israel are here described as like the cattle of Bashan, because the cattle of the pastures of Bashan were uncommonly large, wanton, and headstrong by reason of their full feeding. These women because of their luxuries were oppressing the poor and crushing the needy. How perverted their natures must have been from the true instincts of womanhood! But such is the effect of luxury without grace. How depraved and animal-like to say, “Bring and let us drink,” but such are the marks of a well-developed animal nature. No wonder that just here we should hear Jehovah’s oath and threat announced: “they shall take you away with hooks,” indicating their humiliation in contrast with their present luxury and pride. How true the proverb: “Pride goeth before a fall.”

In Amo 4:4-5 we have a sample of the prophet’s sarcasm, commanding the people to multiply their offerings in their transgression at Gilgal and Bethel, the two most prominent places of worship in Israel. At these places they worshiped the calf after the pattern of Jeroboam 1.

In Amo 4:6-11 there are mentioned five distinct providences of the Lord as follows: (2) a scarcity of food, or a famine, per- haps the famine of 2Ki 8:1 ; (2) a severe drought; (3) a blasting with mildew; (4) a pestilence; (5) a destruction of cities. The express purpose of all these was to turn the people unto Jehovah. This is an everlasting refutation of the contention that God’s providences do not come into the realm of the temporal. He sent the famine, he sent the drought, he sent the blasting and mildew, he sent the pestilence, and he overthrew the cities, and why not believe that he “is the same yesterday and today, yea and for ever” (Heb 13:8 )? A great text is found in Amo 4:11 , and also in Amo 4:12 .

In Amo 4:12-13 we have the summons to get ready to meet a powerful and angry God. He had exhausted his mercy and chastisements to bring them back but all these things had failed, after which he calls them to meet him in judgment. So we may say that God is now in Christ exhausting his mercy and visiting the world with chastisements and when all has failed, he says to the one who has rejected his mercy and treated lightly his visitation, “Prepare to meet thy God,” and it is appropriate to say that we may prepare to meet God in Christ, or we must meet him in judgment out of Christ, and out of Christ, “God is a consuming fire.”

The third address consists of repeated announcements of judgments, with appeals to turn and do good, and its parts are as follows: (1) a lamentation, an exhortation, and a hope for the remnant (Amo 5:1-15 ) ; (2) another lamentation, a woe, a disgust, and a judgment (Amo 5:16-27 ); (3) another woe, an abhorrence, and a certain judgment (Amo 8:1-14 ).

In Amo 5:1-15 we have a lamentation, an exhortation, and a hope expressed. The lamentation is that of the prophet himself, over the condition of Israel and the judgment already decreed. The exhortation is to repentance and to seek the true God. The hope is, that through repentance, a remnant of Israel may be saved. In Amo 5:16-27 we have another lamentation, a woe, a disgust, and a judgment. The lamentation in this instance is that of the people when Jehovah comes in judgment upon the land; the woe is pronounced upon the hypocrite who wishes for the day of Jehovah, for it will be to him an awful day; the disgust here is that of Jehovah at their feasts, offerings, and music, because of their sins, and the judgment denounced is their captivity, beyond Damascus, or their captivity by the Assyrians. In Amo 6:1-14 we have another woe, an abhorrence and a certain judgment. The woe in this passage is to the rich, luxurious oppressors who feel secure; the abhorrence is that of Jehovah for the excellency, or pride, of Jacob. As a result of it all there is denounced against Israel again her certain doom and the extent of it particularly noted.

Amo 7:1-9:10 consists of revelations for all Israel, conveyed by means of visions. The several parts of this section are as follows: (1) the locusts, (2) the fire, (3) the plumb line, (4) the basket of fruit, (5) Jehovah himself. In Amo 7:1-3 we have the prophet’s vision of the locusts which are represented as eating the grass of the land, the latter growth after the king’s mowing. This signified a threatened judgment, which is the threatened invasion of Pul (Tiglathpileser II) (2Ki 15:1-17 ff.), but it was restrained by the intercession of the prophet, at which Jehovah repented and judgment was arrested.

In Amo 7:4-6 we have the prophet’s vision of fire which is represented as devouring the deep and was making for the land. This signified a threatened judgment more severe than the other, which is the second invasion of Tiglath-pileser II, who conquered Gilead and the northern part of the kingdom and carried some of the people captive to Assyria (2Ki 15:29 ). This, too, was restrained by the intercession of the prophet, at which God repented and arrested the judgment.

In Amo 7:7-9 we have the prophet’s vision of the plumb line in the hand of Jehovah by which he signified that justice was to be meted out to Israel and that judgment was determined. So the prophet holds his peace and makes no more intercession. This judgment was irremediable and typified the final conquest by Shalmaneser.

Just after the vision of the plumb line there follows the incident of the interference of Amaziah, the priest of Bethel. This Amaziah was an imposter, and yet held the position of priest. He reported to Jeroboam what Amos was saying, advising his exile. He, moreover, attempted to appeal to the fear of Amos, and advised him to flee to Judah. The answer of Amos was full of dignity, born of the consciousness of the divine authority of his mission. He declared that he was no prophet, but that Jehovah had taken him and spoken to him; thus he had become a prophet in very deed. Then he prophesied against Amaziah declaring that God’s judgment would overtake him and Israel.

In Amo 8:1-14 we have the vision of a basket of ripe, summer fruit which indicates that the people were ripe for judgment and that judgment was imminent. Jehovah declared that the end had come; that he would not pass by them any more. This announcement was followed, on the part of the prophet, by an impassioned address to the money-makers, in which he declared the effect of their lust for gain, viz: they swallowed the needy and caused the poor to fail. He described the intensity of that lust, thus: the new moon and sabbath were irksome. Then follows a figurative description of judgment, which declared Jehovah’s perpetual consciousness of these things and his consequent retribution. The final issue of judgment the prophet declared to be a famine of the words of the Lord, as a result of which there would come eager and fruitless search, followed by the fainting of youth because of their thirst for a knowledge of God. All this finds fulfilment in the events which followed in the history of Israel. They were deprived of prophets and revelations after Amos and Hosea, and the captivity came according to this prophecy, during which they had no prophets in the strange land of their captivity. This is a foreshadowing of Israel’s condition today. She rejected the Messiah and for these two thousand years she has been without a prophet, priest or Urim and Thummim, no revelation from God to cheer their dark and gloomy hearts.

In Amo 9:1-10 we have the vision of God himself standing beside the altar which symbolizes judgment executed, though there was no symbol, or sign. We hear the manifesto of Jehovah himself. It is one of the most awe-inspiring visions of the whole Bible. The message proceeded in two phases: First, an announcement of judgment irrevocable and irresistible; secondly, a declaration of the procedure so reasonable and discriminative. Jehovah is seen standing by the altar, declaring the stroke of destruction to be inevitable, and all attempts at escape futile, because he has proceeded to action. While the judgment is to be reasonable and discriminative, the claims in which Israel had trusted were nothing. They became as the children of the Ethiopians. The Philistines and the Syrians had also been led by God. The eyes of Jehovah were on the sinful kingdom and the sifting process must go forward but no grain of wheat should perish.

In Amo 9:11-15 , we have a most consoling conclusion of this prophecy in sundry evangelical promises, after so many very severe and sharp menaces.

The phrase, “In that day,” refers to the time after the events previously mentioned had been fulfilled and extends into the messianic age. See Act 15:16 . But what does the prophet mean by raising up the tabernacle of David? The promise, doubtless, at least in the first place, was intended of the return of the Jews from the land of their captivity, their resettlement in Judea, rebuilding Jerusalem, and attaining to the height of power and glory which they enjoyed under the Maccabees. This restoration was an event so extraordinary, and the hope of it so necessary to be maintained in the minds of the Jewish people, in order to their support under the calamity of their seventy years of captivity, that God was pleased to foretell it by the mouth of all his prophets. This prophecy however must be extended to the days of the Messiah, and to the calling of the Gentiles to the knowledge of the true God, according to Act 15:16 . They did not possess the remnant of Edom until after their restoration in the days of Hyrcanus, when they made an entire conquest of Edom, but the statement which follows, viz: “and all the nations that are called by my name,” goes farther into the future and, at least, intimates the salvation of the Gentiles.

In Amo 9:13 we have the promise of the blessings of grace to come in the messianic age in which the reaping shall be so great that the reapers cannot get out of the way of the sowers. This we see fulfilled now sometimes in a small way but these times of harvest are but the firstfruits of the harvest which is to follow, especially, the harvest that is to follow in the millennium. The promise of Amo 9:14-15 will find its complete fulfilment at the return of the Jews to their own land and their conversion which will usher in the millennium and extend the glorious kingdom of our Lord.

QUESTIONS

1. Of what in general, does the section, Amo 3:1-6:14 consist and how does each part commence?

2. Of what, in particular, does the first address consist and what its parts?

3. What is the principle stated in Amo 3:13 , how illustrated and what the application?

4. In Amo 3:9-12 who were invited to witness Israel’s doom, what the reason assigned and what was to be the character of the judgment to come upon Israel?

5. What the sentence announced in Amo 3:13-15 , and how is the thoroughness of its execution indicated?

6. Of what, in particular, does the second address consist and what its parts?

7. What the force and application of “ye kine of Bashan” and what the threat against them?

8. What of the sarcastic command of Amo 4:4-5 ?

9. What the items of providence cited and what their purpose as expressed by the prophet in Amo 4:6-11 ?

10. What the summons of Amo 4:12-13 , and what application may be made of such texts in preaching?

11. Of what, in particular, does the third address consist, and what its

12. What the lamentation, what the exhortation and what the hope, of Amo 5:1-15 ?

13. What the lamentation, what the woe, what the disgust, and what. The judgment of Amo 5:16-27 ?

14. What the woe, what the abhorrence and what the certain judgment of Amo 6:1-14 ?

15. Of what, in general, does the section, Amo 7:1-9:10 , consist, and what are its several parts?

16. What is the vision of locusts and what its interpretation?

17. What the vision of fire and what its interpretation?

18. What the vision of the plumb line and what its interpretation?

19. What historical incident follows the vision of the plumb line and what the several points of the story in detail?

20. What the vision of the basket of fruit, what its interpretation and what the prophet’s explanation following?

21. What the vision of God himself and what its interpretation?

22. What, in general, the prophecy of Amo 9:11-15 ?

23. What the meaning of the phrase, “In that day”?

24. What does the prophet mean by raising up the tabernacle of David?

25. When did they possess the remnant of Edom?

26. What the meaning of Amo 9:13 ?

27. What the fulfilment of Amo 9:14-15 ?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Amo 4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that [are] in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

Ver. 1. Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan ] Obesae et bene pastae, ye fat bawsons (as we use to call them), ye that are

“ Boeotum in patria, crassoque sub aere natae. ”

Ye that have hearts as fat as grease, and delight not in God’s law, Psa 119:70 . Ye that cover your faces with fatness, Job 15:27 , till both your eyes stand out with it, Psa 73:7-8 (as fulness breeds forgetfulness, Deu 32:15 , the fed hawk forsakes his master), as untamed heifers fully fed, ye have been unruly and refractory, means of much mischief to my poor afflicted, as was Jezebel to Elijah, Herodias to the Baptist, Eudoxia, the empress, to Chrysostom, Theodora to Belisarius, that brave and noble captain, and others. Poor Tegedine suffered many years’ captivity in misery and irons, by the Turk, for one word in a sermon, which distasted a proud and petulant woman without the least cause. What cruel persecutions raised the Queen Mother of Scotland, about the beginning of the Reformation there! the Queen Mother of France, Katherine de Medicis, for 30 years together! Queen Mary here, being wholly possessed by the bishops, as Alexandra was by the Pharisees, of whom Josephus testifieth that she had the name, but they had all the power of the kingdom! Oh these kine of Bashan, these wanton and wicked women (for so I understand the text after the Jewish doctors Vatablus, Lyra, Lively, &c.), when once they get the reins in their hands there is no hoe with them; when once the devil gets passage, per costam ad cot (as Gregory), by the rib to the heart, what may he not effect? when the hen is suffered to crow, what hope is there of good? David complains of strong bulls of Bashan, Psa 22:12 , but those he might better deal with than with these cursed cows of Bashan that thrust with side and shoulder, and pushed the diseased with their horns, till they had scattered them abroad, Eze 34:21 .

That are in the mountains of Samaria ] Ladies of the court, accustomed to high titles, such as I, that am non aula sed caula natus et educatus, no courtier but carter rather, and used to call a spade a spade, care not to compliment.

Which oppress the poor, which crush the needy ] As did, much about the same time, Jezebel in Israel, and Athaliah in Judah; and (besides the above mentioned) Dame Alice Piercy, King Edward III’s concubine, an impudent woman; who so far wrought upon the king’s impotencies, and presumed on his favour, that she imprisoned Sir Peter Lamar, speaker in parliament, and intermeddled in courts of justice and other offices; where she herself would sit to effect her desires; which, though in all who are so exalted are ever excessive, yet in a woman most immoderate, as having less of discretion and more of greediness. I have spoken before of Diana Valentina, King Henry II of France’s mistress, to whom he had given all the confiscations of goods made in the kingdom for cause of heresy, whereby many poor Protestants were oppressed, and needy crushed and quashed to pieces; for a poor man in his house is like a snail in his shell; crush that, and you kill his heart.

Which say to their masters ] Or lords, that is, to their husbands; as Sarah called her husband lord, Gen 18:12 . She in obedience, but these in craft and counterfaisance; that they may the sooner subdue them, and have what they will of them.

Bring and let us drink ] q.d. Fan nobis potestatem in hos aut illos, saith Mercer: that is, Give us authority over such and such, that we may pick their bones, drink their tears, enrich and feast ourselves with their spoils, make no more scruple to undo them by force or forgery, than to eat a meal’s meat when huntry; or than the luxurious Italians (who have twenty distinct species of liquor, to please the gusto) do, to take off a cup of the most delicious, which they profanely call Lachrymae Christi. the tears of Christ.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Amo 4:1-3

1Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria,

Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy,

Who say to your husbands, Bring now, that we may drink!

2The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness,

Behold, the days are coming upon you

When they will take you away with meat hooks,

And the last of you with fish hooks.

3You will go out through breaches in the walls,

Each one straight before her,

And you will be cast to Harmon, declares the LORD.

Amo 4:1-13 Notice the structure of this chapter.

1. Amos addresses the wealthy women of Israel (i.e., all exploitative elements of Israeli society), Amo 4:1-3

2. YHWH’s sarcastic response to their religiosity, Amo 4:4-5

3. YHWH’s sending of the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 27-29, but they still will not repent, Amo 4:6-11

4. YHWH’s threat of personal, temporal visitation, Amo 4:12

5. Amos’ doxology to God as creator, and therefore, rightful judge, Amo 4:13

This brief outline shows the problem of how to analyze a prophet’s poetic message. It is difficult to tell when the prophet comments and when he quotes the message of YHWH given to him. The revelation is so overpowering that the words of the prophet are merged with the words of YHWH! Outlining the message is less significant than allowing the whole message to impact the reader’s consciousness!

Amo 4:1 Hear this word The VERB (BDB 1033, KB 1570) is a Qal IMPERATIVE (see note at Amo 3:1. The VERB is also used at Amo 5:1). This prophetic formula is seen several times in Amos (e.g., Amo 3:1; Amo 4:1; Amo 5:1). This is God’s message to His people. Covenant violations result in covenant judgments (cf. Deuteronomy 27-29).

Cows of Bashan This is Amos’ rural reference to the elegant society women who abused the poor for their own luxury. Bashan was an area northwest of the Sea of Galilee from the mountains of Herman to the Yarmuk River. It was famous for its beautiful cattle (i.e., the wives of the wealthy). This may not have been a negative statement, but a metaphor of well kept and well fed, pampered cattle. Being pampered has turned into demands gained at the expense of the poor (BDB 195)! On the other hand, it may refer to fattened cattle, ready to be slaughtered! Amos uses several rural metaphors from his personal experience as a sheep herder.

There is still another possibility, that these refer to cultic sexual partners.

1. not called wives

2. said to be on the mountain of Samaria (possible reference to the raised altar at Bethel)

3. their men not called husbands, but lords (Amo 4:1 c)

4. cows seen as gods of fertility and strength in Egypt and early Israel (cf. Exodus 32). They also became a symbol for Ba’al (i.e., the golden calves of Jeroboam I at Dan and Bethel).

5. cultic sexual acts may be alluded to in Amo 2:7-8. God swearing by His own holiness may refer to Amo 2:7 d.

on the mountain of Samaria This refers to the well fortified capital of Israel, which Omri built on the top of a mesa. It had steep cliffs and only one natural entrance.

Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy These two Qal PARTICIPLES (BDB 798, KB 897 and BDB 954, KB 1285) are parallel and describe the actions of the wealthy women. YHWH is uniquely (i.e., compared to other ancient Near Eastern law codes) concerned about the plight of these people (especially Deuteronomy, the orphan and the widow. . .the alien, cf. Deu 10:18; Deu 14:29; Deu 16:11; Deu 24:14; Deu 24:17; Deu 24:19; Deu 26:12-13; Deu 27:19). This then is another allusion to the Mosaic Covenant. The prophets did not invent or introduce a new ethical system, but reemphasized the Mosaic covenant requirements (cf. Jer 7:6) with their blessings and curses (i.e., Deuteronomy 27-29)!

say to your husband This is not the formal term for husband. It is a rare ancient form which meant lord (BDB 10); here used in the sense of husband (e.g., Gen 18:12; Jdg 19:26-27). Irony is being expressed; the lords are being commanded!

Bring now, that we may drink This phrase has two VERBS of command (BDB 97, KB 112, Hiphal IMPERATIVE and BDB 1059, KB 1667, Qal COHORTATIVE). These women had been indulging in luxury to the point that alcoholism and greed were the normal way of life. Their motto would have been more and more for me at any cost!

Amo 4:2 the Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness The VERB (BDB 989, KB 1396) is a Niphal PERFECT. This is a rare and serious statement that speaks of God swearing by Himself (cf. Amo 6:8; Psa 89:35). YHWH is an ethical God. Loving and just relationships are required, not only with Him, but with other covenant partners. True biblical faith has both a horizontal aspect (God) and a vertical aspect (others).

the days are coming This is a reference to judgment day. See full note at Amo 2:16. It is referred to as (1) in that day, Amo 2:16; Amo 8:3; Amo 8:9; Amo 8:13; Amo 9:11 and (2) the day of the Lord in Amo 5:18; Amo 5:20. This motif is common in the latter prophets. Israel viewed YHWH’s visitation as a day of God’s blessing, but Amos reveals it as a day of wrath and judgment.

NASBmeat with hooks. . .fish hooks

NKJVfishhooks. . .fish hooks

NRSVhooks. . .fish hooks

TEVhooks. . .a fish on a hook

NJB,

Young’s Lit.hooks. . .fish-hooks

JPSOAin baskets. . .in fish baskets

The first term (BDB 856 I, KB 1036) for hooks is found only here in the OT. It seems to be related to the Hebrew root for thorn, spike, or spear. Apparently these fancy society women and their children will have a hook placed in their lower lip by Assyrian soldiers and they will be marched out of the city naked (LXX) in single file, tied to one another as a train of unruly cattle.

The second term (BDB 186, KB 215) relates to fishing gear of some type. Because of the paralleling, hooks seems best. Jeremiah (cf. Jer 16:16) uses fishing as a metaphor for judgment. The question one asks of this verse is, Is it metaphorical or literal? Assyria did use hooks or rings in the lower lip to tie refugees together during deportation marches as an intimidation factor (cf. 2Ch 33:11 of Assyrians and Hab 1:15 of Babylonians).

The REB translates both of these terms differently. The first as shields, which is similar to the way the ancient versions translated the term.

1. LXX – weapons

2. Peshitta – weapons

The second term is translated as fish-baskets (cf. NET Bible). The LXX has boiling caldrons. Because the Hebrew roots are so rare, the meaning is uncertain and similar roots and cognates are used to try to fit the historical and literary context. The main point is a violent and humiliating deportation!

For me, since the context addresses the cows of Bashan and since Amos has a rural background, the terms should probably relate to cattle herding. It is possible that Amos changes metaphors, but because the Hebrew terms are rare, then prod and hook for controlling and moving cattle, seem best.

and the last of you The word last (BDB 31) can refer to

1. every last one of you (cf. Amo 1:8; Amo 8:10; Amo 9:1)

2. a small remnant

3. descendants or posterity

The context implies #1.

Amo 4:3 straight before The phrase straight before is a metaphor for the complete destruction of the protective city wall. The population was tied together in single file and exiled to a distant location to the east.

NASBcast to Harmon

NKJVcast into Harmon

NRSVflung out into Harmon

TEVthrown out (word omitted)

NJBherded away toward Hermon

NABcast into the mire

JPSOAflung on the refuse heap

REBthrown on a dung hill

This VERB (BDB 1020, KB 1527, Hiphil PERFECT) often has the connotation of God casting a sinner from His presence (cf. 2Ki 17:20; 2Ki 24:20; Psa 51:11; Psa 71:9; Psa 102:10; Jer 7:15). However, its use as a positive covenant promise is found in 2Ki 13:23. Although the immediate context of Amos refers to Assyrian exile, the term itself has the implication of divine wrath. Assyria exiled Israel because of their sin and YHWH’s judgment, not Assyria’s innate power!

There have been several theories as to the meaning/wording of this phrase.

1. It is a place name of unknown location. The LXX calls it the mountain of Rimmon or Romman.

2. It is a misspelling of Mount Hermon (cf. NJB and UBS, Translator’s Handbook, p. 234) and, therefore, a parallel to the later phrase beyond Damascus, Amo 5:27, which meant on the way to exile in Assyria.

3. The JPSOA and the REB have emendated the Hebrew text to a similar Hebrew term (BDB 199) dung heap (cf. Isa 25:10), which in this context would refer to the place of disposing of the dead bodies (the hooks then would be for dragging away the dead bodies). Their translation reads and flung on the refuse heap.

4. An Aramaic Targum and some later Syrian translations have beyond the mountains of Armenia, which also parallels Amo 5:27.

5. It is possible to divide the Hebrew text differently and get cast out, O mountain of oppression (cf. NIV STUDY BIBLE footnote, p. 1352).

declares the LORD This recurrent phrase, Amo 1:5; Amo 1:8; Amo 1:15; Amo 2:3; Amo 2:11; Amo 2:16; Amo 3:10; Amo 3:13-14; Amo 4:3; Amo 4:5-6; Amo 4:8; Amo 4:10-11; Amo 5:17, shows whose authority, power and prestige stand behind these statements.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Hear . . . ye. Masculine

kine = heifers: the women. Compare Psa 22:22 (masculine), Eze 39:18 (masculine)

mountain = hill country.

oppress. Hebrew. ashak, as in Amo 3:9 (feminine) Reference to Pentateuch (Lev 19:13. Deu 24:14). Compare 2Sa 12:3, 2Sa 12:4.

the poor = exhausted ones. Hebrew. dal (masculine) See note on “poverty”, Pro 6:11

the needy = needy ones. Hebrew ‘ebyan (masculine) See note “poverty” Pro 6:11.

say (feminine)

their (masculine)

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 4

Then the Lord says,

Hear this word, ye cows of Bashan ( Amo 4:1 ),

They worshiped the calf so God calls them a bunch of cows. But because they worshiped the calf, He speaks disdainfully concerning them.

which are on the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor ( Amo 4:1 ),

Again, the oppression of the poor must have been great because God makes continual reference to it.

who crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink ( Amo 4:1 ).

So there is that disparity between the very wealthy and the extreme poor. That kind of disparity that is a curse and a plague to many nations where they really do not take care of the poor with whom God is very interested.

The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks ( Amo 4:2 ).

This literally happened. The Assyrians were extremely cruel people. They were so cruel that history does record of many cities when surrounded by the Assyrian army, the inhabitants would commit mass suicide much as Masada, rather than to be captured by the Assyrians, because they feared them. Because the Assyrians were accustomed to mutilating their captives: cutting off their ears, mutilating their bodies, mutilating their faces. One of the things the Assyrians did with their captives is that they would put fishhooks through their lips to drag them back to Assyria, or through their noses, or through their ears, so that you’d have to keep marching. You try to slow down and that thing begins to pull on your nose, or on your lip or on your ear. And here is the prophecy, “You’re gonna be led away with fishhooks.” So it was. The Assyrians, when they captured Samaria, attached to the people these fishhooks and drug them away, or led them away captive to Assyria. “The Lord God hath sworn by His holiness, that lo, the day shall come upon you that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.”

And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD. Come to Bethel ( Amo 4:3-4 ),

This place where Jacob first met God and called it Bethel, the house of God. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” But they had made it a place of idolatrous worship, the center of their idolatrous worship in the Northern Kingdom. “Come to Bethel,”

and transgress; at Gilgal [another place of pagan worship] multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years: And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord GOD ( Amo 4:4-5 ).

Now God here speaks of the judgment that He had brought against them, and the purpose of these judgments was to cause them to turn to God. God oftentimes uses what we call judgments or chastisements, in order to turn us from our path of destruction. “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth” ( Heb 12:6 ).

Now, as long as you’re a child you don’t understand that. It’s not until you become a parent that you understand it. I thought my dad was just feeding me the biggest line when he would say, “Son, this hurts me more than it hurts you.” I did not believe that. I thought my dad was just putting me on, until I became a dad and I understood exactly what he meant. The hurt that you feel when it is necessary to punish your child, but you know you must for their own sake and for their own good chastise them, or else they could destroy themselves. But you don’t want to inflict pain, but you know that you’ve got to somehow teach them the danger of their activities. So you are forced to chastise them, though it is an extremely painful thing to do. God, for our benefit, chastises us, and for Him it’s a painful process. God says, “Turn! I don’t want to meet you in judgment. I would rather meet you in mercy. I delight in mercy, not in judgment.” I know that as a parent. I always look for any excuse not to spank them. “Say you’re sorry, please say you’re sorry.” I was a softie. I would let them talk me out of it, with a very stern warning, “Next time…” And God doesn’t enjoy chastising His children, but it is for our benefit and our good in order that we might turn to Him.

So God brought various chastisements against the land. Oh, how we misunderstand God. Whenever a chastisement or judgment comes, somehow in our minds we picture God is angry with us, as I often pictured my dad angry with me, because I did not understand him. After being chastised, I would often go in my room and I’d begin to cry, “Nobody loves me. I don’t even think my dog loves me anymore. Nobody loves me.” Then I’d wish I were dead, because they would all feel sorry then if I were dead, you know. So you think about them standing around your casket crying like everything. The emotional traumas of a child.

When in the Garden of Eden after Adam had sinned and the Lord came down in the cool of the day to walk with him, Adam hid himself from the presence of the Lord, for he realized that he was naked. God said, “Adam, where art thou?” That was not the cry of an arresting policeman, but the sob of a heartbroken Father. But so many times we read it and we think, “Oh man, here he is. Gonna wring his neck, ‘Where are you!'” No. You’ve got to read that and hear the sob in the voice, “Adam, what have you done?” As God could see the effect of Adam’s transgression upon the whole human race, you and me included. What we have suffered, and what mankind has suffered for the action of Adam. “Adam, where are you?” Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and the purpose is always to turn us to God from the path of self-destruction. God knows to continue that path is to destroy ourselves. So God speaks of those things.

I’ve given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, want of bread in all of your places: and yet you did not return to me ( Amo 4:6 ),

He had allowed food shortages to develop, yet the people wouldn’t turn.

So I withheld the rain ( Amo 4:7 ),

He began erratic weather patterns.

when there was yet three months until harvest: I caused it to rain on one city, and not to rain upon another: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereon it did not rain withered. There were two or three cities wandering into one city, looking for water; but they were not satisfied: [A drought in the land.] and yet [God said] you didn’t return to me. So I have smitten you then with a blasting mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, then the palmerworm [the locusts] devoured them ( Amo 4:7-9 ):

The Medfly, the white fly, and yet the Lord said, “You have not returned unto Me.”

So I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt [that is, the viral infections and all]: and your young men I have slain with the sword, and I’ve taken away your horses; and I’ve made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: and yet you have not returned unto me, saith the LORD. So I’ve overthrown some of you, even as Sodom and Gomorrah, [fire, earthquakes] the firebrand plucked out of the burning: and yet you have not returned unto me, saith the LORD. Therefore ( Amo 4:10-12 )

Because they had not hearkened to these warning judgments of God, because they had not turned away from their evil deeds.

Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel ( Amo 4:12 ).

This is not meeting God in friendly terms, but meeting God to face His judgment. Heavy, heavy duty. “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” It is necessary and important that each of us make preparation, because each of us ultimately, one day are gonna stand before God. “And I saw all of the dead small and great standing before the great white throne judgment of God” ( Rev 20:11-12 ). All of the dead. Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And every man was judged according to the things which were written in the book. “For it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment” ( Heb 9:27 ). No one can escape it. Inevitably, inescapably, one day each of you are gonna stand before God, and that will be a very awesome experience, because you’ll be standing before the very Creator of the universe.

For, lo, he that formed the mountains ( Amo 4:13 ),

God said, “Let the dry land appear.”

and created the wind, and declared unto man what is his thoughts, and makes the morning darkness, and treads upon the high places of the earth, Yahweh, The God of hosts, is his name ( Amo 4:13 ).

Prepare to meet Yahweh, the God of hosts, the Creator of the universe. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Amo 4:1-5

REASON CALLS FOR REPENTANCE-

GODS HOLINESS DEMANDS PUNISHMENT FOR EVIL

TEXT: Amo 4:1-5

Gods holy nature, which they knew but refused to live up to, warns them of the impending judgment upon their unholiness.

Amo 4:1 . . . YE KINE OF BASHAN . . . THAT SAY UNTO THEIR LORDS, BRING, AND LET US DRINK, Most commentators feel that Amos is referring to the sensuous women of Israel when he calls them cows of Bashan. Bashan was noted for its fat, sleek, cattle well-fed on Bashans luxurious pasture lands (cf. Deu 32:14; Mic 7:14; Numbers 32). These indulgent women were pampered by their husbands (lord) who in turn had to oppress the poor and crush the needy to supply their wives with the means of debauchery, (cf. Amo 6:1-7). Compare Isa 3:16 ff; Isa 32:9-13 for further description of the wantonness of the women of Israel. There are many cows of Bashan today in the world. Sensuous women who tempt their husbands to evil scheming in order that they may have the means to continue in their libertine living.

Zerr: Amo 4:1. According to Moffatts translation these kine were the wives of the nation’s men who practiced oppression and injustice against the poor for their own selfishness. Their masters were their husbands who were bidden to join with them in providing luxuries of wine at the expense of the poor.

Amo 4:2-3 THE LORD . . . HATH SWORN BY HIS HOLINESS . . . THEY SHALL TAKE YOU AWAY WITH HOOKS . . . YE SHALL CAST YOURSELVES INTO HARMON . . . These poor and needy have no recourse for justice. They are exploited even by the judges who should stand for justice. But the Lord, because He is holy, righteous, just, merciful, rises up as their Vindicator. The Perfect Holiness of Jehovah cannot tolerate evil (Psa 5:4-5; Psa 11:5), especially in a people whose call and blessing was that they should be a holy people! The rich of Israel were making no attempt to be holy in their living. We must be holy if we wish to be in communion with God (cf. Rom 6:19; Heb 12:14; Isa 6:3; Col 3:12; 1Pe 1:15-16; 1Pe 2:5; 2Pe 3:11, etc.). We like the way John wrote it, Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous, (1Jn 3:7). There is the imputed holiness God gives us through what Christ accomplished on our behalf; on the other hand there is a holiness of living and thinking which we ourselves must work-motivated and energized, of course, by that holiness of His which He freely bestows upon us through the Gospel.

Zerr: Amo 4:2. There is virtually no difference in the meaning of hook and fishhook. Each of them may mean a hook in the ordinary sense of the word, or it may refer to a thorn from a tree; again they may have specific reference to a metal ring that was originally made for the control of a vicious animal hy running it through his nose. This is the origin of the expression “leading one around by the nose” when speaking of someone who humbly does what a domineering person demands. In view of the indefinite uses and meanings of the word, we should take our verse to denote that the evil characters of Israel were to be treated with the cruelty and humiliation they deserved. Amo 4:3. Go out at the breaches refers to the protecting wall around the capital city that was to be pierced, and the inhabitants forced to leave the city by way of these breaches or gaps. Cast them into the palace is explained in the margin to mean that the inhabitants of the palace will be forced to discard the things belonging to it.

Because of their unholiness God would allow their enemy (the Assyrians) to come and violently jerk them out of their luxurious fish-bowl like a man who hooks a fish jerks it out of the water. They will be violently torn from their pleasant surroundings and caused to flounder and thresh in agony as a fish out of water. Amos is not referring to rings literally placed in the ears and noses of slaves, as was the custom then, but he is simply describing the sudden and awful change of circumstances that are about to come upon these debauched rich.

The gates of their cities will be so utterly destroyed and piled high with debris from wars destructive forces and their walls so completely torn down that the people will be marched off to captivity through the great gaping holes in the walls instead of the gates. These people of Israel, because of their sins, brought upon themselves this captivity. They are said to have cast themselves into this foreign land Harmon (which most translators believe is the territory beyond Mt. Hermon, or Damascus and beyond.)

Amo 4:4-5 COME TO BETH-EL, AND TRANSGRESS; TO GILGAL, AND MULTIPLY TRANSGRESSION; . . . SACRIFICE EVERY MORNING . . . TITHES EVERY THREE DAYS . . . SACRIFICE THAT WHICH IS LEAVENED . . . PROCLAIM FREEWILL-OFFERINGS . . . FOR THIS PLEASETH YOU . . . Amos uses the figure of speech called irony here to show Israel the folly of her sins. Irony is a kind of ridicule which exposes the errors or faults of others by seeming to adopt, approve, or defend them . . . Other examples of the use of irony in the Bible are Job 12:2; 1Ki 18:27; Ecc 11:9; Jdg 10:14; 1Ki 22:15; 1Co 4:8. Amos was not approving or authorizing the people to sin! He as much as says, Go ahead and do the sins you are doing, you are only multiplying Gods displeasure with you in so doing! They were presuming upon the forbearance and patience of God . . . and by their hard and impenitent heart storing up wrath for themselves . . . (cf. Rom 2:4-5).

Zerr: Amo 4:4. Bethel was one of the cities where an idol god was erected (1Ki 12:29) by the first king of Israel, and Gilgal was the place where the first king of Judah committed his serious offence (1Sa 10:8; 1Sa 13:8-10). Both parts of the people of the Jewish nation had been guilty of much transgression. Come to Bethel, etc., sounds as if the Lord was bidding the people to continue in their sin. We know that is not the case, hut it has the force of saying, “You have gone so far in your corrupt practices that you will not change them now until you are given the deserved chastisement.” Amo 4:5. The last part of the preceding verse and beginning of this describes some of the rites authorized by the law of Moses. The prophet is condemning these people indirectly, which raises the question of why it is so if the law provided for such services. The explanation is in the first part of the preceding verse, where the practice of idolatry is included with the things set out, by the law. Such a mixture was always displeasing to God and he rejected their entire religious life because of such an impure combination. The reader should see the long note offered with the comments on Isa 1:10. For this liketh you is an accusation that the people not only practiced the things named, hut they did It because they liked to do so; their heart was in it.

They had so perverted true religion of Jehovah they thought that by their superabundance of offerings they could fool God into thinking they were righteous. They did not stop with offering sacrifices of unleavened cakes upon the altar; to make sure they offered an abundance they even offered some of the leavened cakes (forbidden by the Mosaic law) as well. Not only this but the offerings which were supposed to be motivated out of a purely spontaneous impulse (freewill-offerings) (cf. Lev 22:18 ff; Deu 12:6) they forced from people by making laws regarding freewill offerings! This was entirely the wrong attitude toward the Holy One of Israel, for He looks not on the outward man but upon the heart! Isaiah just a few short years later brought scathing denunciation against such conduct (Isa 1:1 ff). Israel is less sensible than the ass or the ox! They do not know God! But this is not because God has not revealed Himself-not because they have no opportunity to know Him-not because He is unknowable! No; they love to have it so! This type of religion pleases them. It soothes their consciences. Men who do evil, hate the light and love the darkness, because their deeds are evil and if they should come to the light their deeds would be exposed-then they would see how utterly vain and foolish their deeds are (cf. Joh 3:18-21). Any man who thinks God is pleased with a trust in forms and rituals is foolish. Of course, there are certain specific forms of doctrine which we are obliged, by the very nature God Himself (holy, loving, trustworthy, omnipotent) to perform. But our faith is not in the act or rite itself but in the Person who commanded it! Again, if we refuse to do the thing which God has clearly commanded in the New Testament, it simply shows we do not trust the Person who commanded it-we trust our own wisdom more! On the other hand, a mere perfunctory repetition of rituals does not necessarily mean we trust God the Person either. Sooner or later, just how much we trust Him, love Him and want to be like Him shows up in our daily living! This was true of Israel then, and it is true of all men now. For a list of Old Testament saints who trusted God and what that trust led them to do, see Hebrews, the eleventh chapter.

Questions

1. What does the phrase kine of Bashan describe?

2. Where did their lords get the drink demanded by these cows of Bashan?

3. Why does the Lord swear by His holiness that they shall be judged?

4. Why would they go out at the breaches?

5. To what extent had these people perverted the worship of God?

6. Why is God not pleased with mere repetition of religious ritual?

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The second discourse consists of Jehovah’s summons to the people.

It commences with a severe and terrible indictment of the women. He addressed them as “Ye kine of Bashan,” which reveals the degradation of womanhood to mere animalism. The prophet described their doings, declaring that they oppressed the poor and crushed the needy, and said unto their lords, “Bring and let us drink.” Their doom would be that they would be taken away with hooks, that is, in shame and helplessness, and in the presence of judgment would take refuge in wild flight. He then uttered the final summons to the people. In this call there was a piece of stinging satire. They were to come to Bethel to transgress, to Gilgal to multiply transgression. Their sacrifices they were to offer every morning instead of once a year, their tithe every third day instead of every third year, their sacrifice was to be leavened; they were to make free-will offerings and publish them.

Jehovah then described His patience and their perversity. He had spoken to them by famine, by drought, by blasting and mildew, by pestilence and sword, by earthquake. After each description, Jehovah declared, “Yet have ye not returned to Me.” All this culminated in a great call, “Prepare to meet thy God.”

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Calamities Are Gods Warnings

Amo 4:1-11

Speaking after the imagery of his vocation, Amos the herdsman compares the rich and powerful of Samaria, who were living in luxury and wantonness, to the kine of Bashan, a breed of cattle notorious for strength and stubbornness. They broke through hedges, threw down fences, trespassed on neighboring pastures, and gored lesser cattle. The judges and magistrates were in cruel collusion with the masters who oppressed the serfs, and were willing to condone breaches of the law for drink. Sacrifices and tithes were rigorously maintained, but the entire religious system was rotten.

Already heavy judgment had fallen upon the degenerate people. There had been famine, the intermission of the rainy seasons, blasting and mildew, pestilence and murrain-but all in vain. That God was behind these phenomena was obvious from the fact that rain showers had fallen in one place and not in another. There had been a method in Gods dealings that indicated a personal agency. The worst cities had suffered the most. But the people had refused to lay it to heart. Note the sorrowful refrain-yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. It may be that some reader of these lines may find herein a clue to the mysterious succession of strokes that have befallen himself and his household.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 4

Yet Have Ye Not Returned!

In this chapter they are reminded of the various means whereby God had been speaking, with a view to recalling them to Himself; but the sad result had been that they pursued their ways of sin regardless of warning or punishment. They despised the chastisement of the Lord.

It is probably the great women of Israel who are addressed in vers. 1 to 3; for in place of kine of Bashan, the feminine form is used in the original. Luxurious, insolent, and self-pleasing, these haughty dames oppressed the poor and crushed the needy, that they might minister to their own carnal desires. Indifferent to the sorrows their ill-gotten pleasures entailed on others, they feasted and rejoiced; forgetting that the Holy One of Israel was looking on. He had sworn by His holiness to visit upon them their sins, taking them away in the midst of their folly, as the angler hooks the greedy fish that fancies not there is danger lurking in the bait so temptingly displayed.

Verses 4 and 5 have been variously understood; some seeing therein a call to repentance seriously addressed to the consciences of the people. In this case they consider the sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, to be according to the word of God, as set forth in Lev 7:13, where leavened bread accompanied the sacrifice of thanksgiving as the offerers acknowledgment of his own personal unworthiness.

But a thank-offering was only in place when the people were in a right state before God. To call them to the schismatic altar of Bethel, there to bring a thank-offering, when they needed a sin-offering, would surely be contrary to the mind of God.

I understand the passage, therefore, to be one of solemn irony, after the manner of Elijahs taunts to the priests of Baal. In fact, it would seem as though the prophet were saying, Bring a sacrifice of leaven as a thank-offering, for so liketh you, O ye children of Israel! There is no thought of the leaven here accompanying a slain victim or a presentation of first-fruits; but the leaven is the offering which they are ironically called to bring. The whole passage is a sad commentary on the pitifully low state of Israel, whose whole system of worship was but iniquity and transgression, while yet they prided themselves on their pomp and ritual.

Does not He who gazes down upon the pretentiousness of a guiltier Christendom regard it with even greater abhorrence? Where conscience is active it will surely lead to departure from iniquity of so glaring a character.

That there was no thought in the mind of God of accepting a sacrifice offered at Bethel or Gilgal is plain from ch. 5:5. All that circled around these centres of apostasy was abhorrent to Him who had set His name in Jerusalem; though there, alas, it had also been profaned.

Because of what we have been considering, He had sent a grievous famine upon them, giving them cleanness of teeth in all their cities, and want of bread in all places; but there had been no evidence of repentance, and He had to say, Yet have ye not returned unto Me! (ver. 6). The rain too He had withheld, and that in such a way as to lead to inquiry and exercise, had conscience been at all active, giving rain to one city and withholding it from another; but again comes the solemn refrain, Yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord (vers. 7, 8); and with blasting and mildew He had smitten them, so that their scanty crop was ruined ere it reached perfection; and if the orchards, vineyards and gardens seemed to do well, the palmer worm (the locust in its most voracious form) was sent to destroy them. But there had been no awakening-conscience remained dormant. Yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord (ver. 9).

With pestilence too He had visited them, after the manner of Egypt; the putrid carcases of their goodliest sons, together with their horses slain in battle, polluting the air so that they breathed in disease and death. But none seem to have discerned who it was who afflicted them, and so they returned not unto Him (ver. 10).

A great physical catastrophe, possibly an earthquake, with an accompanying conflagration, had added to their woes. He had overthrown some of them after the fashion of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, so that the survivors were as firebrands plucked out of the burning: yet had they not returned unto Him (ver. 11). Failing to discern His hand in all that had befallen them, they sought only to escape the rod, hearing it not, nor yet Him who had appointed it. Such is ever the way of man untouched by divine grace. Shutting his eyes to the most palpable evidences of Gods dealing, he pursues his careless way till the pit closes upon him.20

Because of their utter indifference, there remained only one thing more: they must meet Him in judgment whose warnings and acts of discipline they had despised. Therefore … prepare to meet thy God, O Israel! (ver. 12).

For though they knew Him not, yet He who formed the mountains and created the winds, declaring unto man his secret thoughts and making the morning darkness, treading on earths high places, was Jehovah, the mighty God of hosts (ver. 13).

Him they must meet-but how? And you too, my reader, have this before you, if still unsaved. Think well how you will stand in that great day of His wrath!

For the believer walking carelessly, this word also has an application. Taking his own way, he may despise the chastisement of the Lord, and fail to hearken to His reproving voice. But not for long can he so continue. Sooner or later God must be met, and all be solemnly gone into in His presence. Oh, then, keep short accounts with Him who knows the secrets of all hearts!

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Amo 4:12

Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel”-i.e. prepare thyself, if penitent, to meet Him with supplications, prayers, and tears; but if still hardened and impenitent, to encounter His just vengeance and fiery indignation. This warning is no less applicable or necessary for us than it was for Israel. As Christians, as immortal spirits redeemed by the blood of Jesus the Son of God, placed here for a little space on our passage and trial for eternity; preparation is our business, and our only business; preparation, that is, for the great changes which are drawing on upon us, and of which we must all soon be witnesses; but whether in joy or in sorrow, in hope or in despair, it is left to ourselves to determine. Religious preparation implies in it at least these three things: (1) Serious forethought; (2) actual search and inquiry; (3) a resolute course of practice suitable to what appears to be the truth of our condition with respect to the future.

I. Serious forethought. As the great distinguishing mark which at present separates us from the beasts that perish, is the power of exercising reason and reflection, so is this power in nothing more wonderfully shown than in our being capable of looking forward, and ascertaining with a considerable degree of certainty, what will be the consequences of our conduct, both on this side the grave and beyond it. If a person does not live in constant forethought and anxiety about his eternal state, he must somehow or other be going wrong.

II. This forethought and anxiety, if it be sincere, and at all proportionate to the importance of the subject, will lead us to search also and inquire what our prospects really are; what promises and threatenings are before us to be fulfilled in eternity; and in what degree our conduct at present may produce effects to be felt, for good or evil hereafter, forever. It is quite necessary that time should be spent and attention bestowed, in closely examining what may be called the accounts of our souls.

III. We must resolutely maintain a course of practice suitable to the prospect that is before us. As the blood of Christ Jesus is all our hope and dependence, so His will must be all our rule and guidance. And take we good heed lest, while we profess faith in His blood, we forget or neglect His will.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times,” vol. i., p. 287.

That man has still to learn the real lesson of life, who has not yet been taught to read it, in all its chapters of joy and sorrow, as one great preparation for another world. But between us and that coming state, there lies an event, of which it is impossible to over-estimate the importance and the dignity. For in passing out of this world into another, we must, every one of us, meet God.

I. What the exact character of that meeting shall be, I shall not commit the rash act of endeavouring to unfold. (1) It is likely that at that moment the whole of the past life will re-live and stand out in its clearness; just as pictures which are fading. are sometimes, by certain processes, restored, in a moment, to their original brightness. (2) In that interview with God, the past and the future will come together: the past, to its crisis; the future to its doom.

II. Our view of God, at least our first view of God, will be of the Godhead as it is in Christ. And if in Christ it must be in human form. Christ has never laid aside His body. Never divide the thought of the God you are going to meet, from that of the Man Christ Jesus; but let Jesus in all His exalted manhood, Jesus in all the perfections of His work, be present to you by the eye of faith, whenever you hear the words said, “Prepare to meet thy God.”

III. Notice the propriety and the wisdom of the exact words which the Holy Spirit has selected. It is “thy God”-thine own God-whom you are to be ready to meet. For it is He who made you. God-the sinner’s God-it is He who has given Himself for you, He in whom all Heaven is thine. And do you only feel him thine-make Him thine by a strong act of appropriating faith-then do not doubt that you will be able to meet Him as thine, and it will leave you nothing else to contemplate. If you can say the last words, you need not be afraid of the first words: “Prepare to meet thy God.”

IV. If you would meet God well when you come to die, it must not be the first time. You must have met Him very often before, while you are living down on the earth. By “meeting God,” here, I understand two things: (1) To go forth, to respond, with your whole heart, to those approaches, which God is continually making, by His Spirit, to your soul; (2) to have as much intercourse as you can with God, in your own retirement, in thought, prayer, and sacred study of the Bible. Put yourself in frequent converse with the grandnesses of an unseen world. These things will be the rehearsing of that greater meeting which is to come; the practising of that high part which you are one day to take.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 195.

An appeal to justice.

I. Justice is a primary element of human thought; but justice presupposes another idea-the idea of right. Justice is the virtue which takes care of the rights of other beings-which not merely avoids interference with these rights, but gives them what they claim; and the right of a being is the claim which it can make in virtue of the law of its nature. Human justice is the assertion of the rights of man; and that phrase, or an equivalent, has been a power again and again in human history.

II. The power of the idea of justice as between man and man is seen chiefly in this, that the present does not satisfy it. There is no room for it in the world at any existing moment, and those who are keen about it, and anxious that its claims should be respected, are obliged to look forward. Read Amos; read him from this point of view. He is so full of the future, because the idea of justice which he possesses, which inspires him, makes him so dissatisfied with the present. In various ways he summons Israel to the work of social and moral regeneration. He bids Israel arise in awe and prepare to meet his God.

III. But there are other rights towards which justice has duties-other rights than the rights of man. The most eloquent defenders of human rights have not seldom forgotten that there are such rights as the rights of God. God has His rights, too, as man has his, and to be just is to satisfy all rights whatever; the rights of man, assuredly, but also not less certainly, the rights of Him from whom all human rights are gifts-the rights of the self-existent and perfect Being who made us.

And this, too, was felt by Amos, for Amos is the prophet of an absolute and adequate justice, not merely of a justice between man and man, but also of justice as between man and God. In the eyes of Amos the accumulating injustice of Israel towards God was ever making it more and more inevitable that Israel and God should meet in judgment. He knew, as we Christians should know, that the ever-swelling tide of mental and moral rebellion against the Ruler of the universe is by a law which cannot fail to assert itself, bringing His judgment, whether temporal or final, nearer and nearer.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1074.

I. Amos is specially the poor man’s prophet, for he was a poor man himself; not a courtier like Isaiah, or a priest like Jeremiah, or a sage like Daniel; but a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit in Tekoa, near Bethlehem, where Amos was born. What was the secret of this inspired herdsman’s strength? He believed and preached the kingdom of God and His righteousness: the simple but infinite difference between right and wrong, and the certain doom of wrong, if wrong was persisted in.

II. In the time of Amos, the rich tyrants of Israel seem to have meant by the “day of the Lord” some vague hope that in those dark and threatening times He would interfere to save them, if they were attacked by foreign armies. But woe to you that desire the day of the Lord, says Amos the herdsman. You will find it very different from what you expect. There is a day of the Lord coming, he says, therefore prepare to meet your God. But you are unprepared, and you will find the day of the Lord very different from what you expect. It will be a day in which you will learn the righteousness of God. Because He is good, He will not permit you to be bad. The day of the Lord to you will be darkness and not light; not, as you dream, deliverance from the invaders, but ruin by the invaders, from which there will be no escape.

III. No wonder that the Israelites thought Amos a most troublesome and insolent person. No wonder that the smooth priest Amaziah begged him to begone and talk in that way somewhere else. The two could no more work together than fire and water. Amos wanted to make men repent of their sins, while Amaziah wanted only to make them easy in their minds; and no man can do both at once. When a man dares to preach like Amos, he is no more likely to be popular with the wicked world, than Amos was popular, or St. Paul was popular, or our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave both to Amos and to St. Paul their messages, was popular.

C. Kingsley, Good Words, 1876, p. 195.

I. Prudence,-what is it? Why need I ask the question? Looked at from an every day, from a popular, point of view, prudence is the first, perhaps, of all the virtues-the most needed for the well-being of human life. Prudence in man is not unlike the higher forms of instinct in the animals, only human prudence knows better what it is about than does animal instinct. Prudence in man does two things: it thinks, and it either acts or it decides to abstain from acting. It looks beyond the present moment. It is foresight with a practical object. And when prudence addresses itself to higher matters, it is as before, in this twofold character still thought, still action, only it commands a wider horizon. Its thought reaches away beyond the grave. It acts or it hesitates to act, with an eye to eternity. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in His teaching, continually appeals to that which, if exercised on a sufficient field, will secure to man his truest happiness.

II. Amos is the prophet and the apostle of prudence throughout his book. To Amos, a simple pious soul, caring chiefly or rather exclusively, about questions of truth or falsehood, and right and wrong, and caring little, or rather not at all, about the vulgar glitter of a God-forgetting civilization, it was clear that the state of things in Samaria could not last. While the sky was yet bright and the prospect fair, Amos hears the whispered mutterings of the yet distant tempest. There were past judgments to which he points as earnests of the future. “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” What had been might yet be-would yet be-aye, and more also. It was an appeal to prudence.

III. “Prepare for death,” surely this is the voice of prudence. The one thing certain about life is that we must leave it. The one thing certain about death is that we must die. Scripture says, experience echoes, it is appointed. “Prepare to meet thy God:” (1) In death; (2) in judgment.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1,060.

An appeal to Desire:-

I. Desire is meant, first of all, to keep man loyal to the Being who made him. God is the ultimate object of desire. He meant to be so. He gave us desire, that it might be so. Just as any small meteoric mass in the near neighbourhood of this earth cannot but draw near to it, in obedience to what we call the law of gravitation, so souls are impelled by desire or love of God, and freely as moral beings, yet incessantly, to move towards Him as their centre of moral gravitation. But human nature, as we find it, is like a beautiful instrument in which everything has been more or less dislocated and put out of gear by some terrible shock; and thus desire in us fallen men, instead of concentrating itself upon God, lavishes itself like a spendthrift upon anything and everything that is not God. The object of religion is, if possible, to restore desire-this fund of motive force-to its true track, its true direction, and having restored it, to maintain it there.

II. “Prepare to meet thy God.” When desire is alienated from God, and is spent on created objects, as if they were adequate and satisfactory, these words cannot but carry with them a very solemn meaning. They mean, evidently, at least this: Prepare, O man, for a meeting which will show thee that thy life has been a vast mistake-that thou hast neglected and forgotten the one Being who is really worth its efforts.

III. In order to set desire free to return to its original direction, God has an agency at command in this His human world by which this work is effected. That agency is pain. Pain is the disappointment and the defeat of desire, arising either from the discovery that an object is worthless, or that it is vanishing.

The words of the text bid us wed desire to understanding, that true understanding of the real meaning and conditions of our existence, which God gives to those who keep His law with their whole heart. Desire and understanding are the parents of will. When will is supreme in a regenerate soul even the crooked places are made straight and the rough places plain, as of old across the desert for the passage of God, everything is welcomed because everything, either as an assistance or as a discipline, must further one purpose-that of reaching the supreme object of desire-the vision of God.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1,076.

An appeal to Reverence:-

I. Reverence is not in any sense a fictitious sort of virtue. Like all virtue that deserves the name, it is based on truth. The truth of some greatness which the soul acknowledges must be seriously felt if there is to be real reverence. The lesson of reverence is learned: (1) from the natural world around us; (2) from man himself.

II. Israel was irreverent, and Israel was to meet God in suffering. And therefore Amos says “Prepare.” And so, too, with us Christians, as to death and judgment. Is it not true, that in our ordinary lives, God, if I may say so, takes His chance amid a thousand objects of interest? The day is coming when we shall see Him. What must not that sight mean to those who come upon it suddenly, and without having given an hour of reverent thought to it in their whole lives? What should it not exact in the way of preparation from that instinct, that original instinct of reverence, which neither nature nor man, nor the blessings that we have in the Christian Church militant, nor anything short of the unveiled face of God Himself, will lastingly satisfy.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1,064.

I. What it will be to “meet our God,” no heart of man can conceive; for what thought of man can ever understand what God is? The sea and mountains speak of Him and of His power and greatness; and the sky above us, and the sun and stars, and storm and thunder: all these speak of Him when they appeal to the heart of man, and make him to be amazed and lost in admiration of them. Every corner of the world which He fills with His awful presence, and the heart of every man in which He is wonderfully present, speak of Him. But what must the Almighty God Himself be? and what must it be to meet Him and to appear before Him? Man cannot know Him, nor comprehend Him, excepting so far as He is taught by the Spirit of God; so far as man does know Him, he must love and fear Him more and more; they who do not fear Him above all things, know Him not, and most miserable are they. Who shall be prepared to meet this pure and holy, this all-knowing and all-powerful God? And yet of all things future none is so certain as this, that we must meet our God, and appear one by one before Him.

II. The thought of meeting God is in itself so awful that we might have been disposed to sit down in despair at the thought of it, were it not for the access to the Father which we have in Jesus Christ, who is Himself the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. He is now set before us as our perfect Example; as our High Priest, to intercede with God for us; as our King; but when He shall appear as our Judge, then we must remember that He will be seen not as man only-concealing, as it were, from our sight His Divine power and unspeakable Godhead; but He will appear as God also, in His own glory and in the glory of the Father, and with all the holy angels with Him.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times,” vol. vii., p. 225.

References: Amo 4:12.-J. Keble, Sermons from Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p. 209; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 923; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 361; W. Jay. Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 217. Amo 4:12, Amo 4:13.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 200. Amo 5:8.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 123; W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 312; G. Bainton, Ibid., vol. x., p. 190; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 85; J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 243. Amo 5:10.-J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 56; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 78. Amo 5:18, Amo 5:19.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 332. Amo 6:1.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 417. Amo 6:1-6.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 139. Amo 6:7-11.-Ibid., p. 140. Amo 6:12.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1470. Amo 6:12-14.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 141. Amo 7:7.-Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 327.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 4

The Second Discourse

1. Divine threatening and irony (Amo 4:1-5)

2. Yet have ye not returned unto Me (Amo 4:6-11)

3. Prepare to meet thy God (Amo 4:12-13)

Amo 4:1-5. The prophet addresses them as kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria. The cows of Bashan were noted for their sleek and well-fed condition, feeding on the choicest of pasture. The term is descriptive of Israels prosperous condition as well as their beastly character. They were selfish and cruel, for they oppressed the poor and crushed the needy. It seems that women are mostly here in view, which explains the fact that the comparison is with kine and not with bulls. They asked their masters to supply them means for debauchery. But what happens to dumb cattle would happen to them in their luxurious and selfish life. They would be taken with hooks and their posterity with fishhooks, and they would be taken away. The last sentence of Amo 3:3 is correctly translated Ye shall be cast away to Har (mountain) Monah. It has been surmised that this means Armenia.

Then follows a statement of bitter irony. Go to Bethel and sin; at Gilgal multiply transgression. Go on in your idolatry in these sacred places of your past history! In Bethel the Lord had revealed Himself to the progenitor Jacob; in Gilgal on the banks of the Jordan, the reproach of Egypt had been rolled away Jos 5:1-15, and these favored places were now the scenes of their wicked idolatries. It is also mockery when the prophet says, Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, for leaven always typifies sin.

Amo 4:6-11. The Lord had sent different chastisements upon them at different times. There had been famines, drought; yea, it had rained here and there, while lots of ground received rain others remained parched, so that they might recognize in it the hand of God. He smote them with mildew and blasting; the locusts came and devoured vegetation; there were frightful pestilences and other judgments, but they did not return unto Him. Five times in this paragraph we find the same statement, Yet have ye not returned unto Me. They were an impenitent nation and hardened their hearts as Pharaoh did. They were incorrigible, though they knew that through His mercy they were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning.

In the book of Revelation we read of a similar condition in the coming days when the Lord deals with the earth in the decreed and revealed judgments. It is written that the inhabitants of the earth, in spite of these judgments falling upon the earth, do not repent of their sins.

Amo 4:12-13. And now they were to come face to face with Himself as the judge.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

ye kine: By the “kine of Bashan,” some understand the proud, luxurious matrons of Israel; but it is probable the prophet speaks catachrestically, and means the wealthy, effeminate, and profligate rulers and nobles of Samaria. Deu 32:14, Deu 32:15, Psa 22:12, Jer 50:11, Jer 50:27, Eze 39:18

the mountain: Amo 6:1, 1Ki 16:24

which oppress: Amo 2:6, Amo 2:7, Amo 3:9, Amo 3:10, Amo 5:11, Amo 8:4-6, Exo 22:21-25, Deu 15:9-11, Psa 12:5, Psa 140:12, Pro 22:22, Pro 22:23, Pro 23:10, Pro 23:11, Ecc 4:1, Ecc 5:8, Isa 1:17-24, Isa 5:8, Isa 58:6, Jer 5:26-29, Jer 6:6, Jer 7:6, Eze 22:7, Eze 22:12, Eze 22:27, Eze 22:29, Mic 2:1-3, Mic 3:1-3, Zec 7:10, Zec 7:11, Mal 3:5, Jam 5:1-6

crush: Deu 28:33, Job 20:19,*marg. Jer 51:34

Bring: Amo 2:8, Joe 3:3

Reciprocal: Exo 3:9 – and I have Num 21:33 – Bashan Deu 24:14 – General 2Ki 18:10 – they took it Pro 22:7 – rich Pro 28:16 – prince Pro 30:14 – to devour Isa 3:5 – the people Isa 3:14 – ye have eaten Isa 5:17 – the waste Jer 5:5 – get me Jer 5:28 – waxen Jer 17:20 – General Eze 18:12 – oppressed Eze 34:16 – but I Hos 12:7 – he loveth Hos 13:16 – Samaria Joe 1:2 – Hear Zep 3:1 – to the Luk 6:24 – woe Jam 2:6 – Do

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Amo 4:1. According to Moffatts translation these ktne were the wives of the nation’s men who practiced oppression and injustice against the poor for their own selfishness. Their masters were their husbands who were bidden to join with them in providing luxuries of wine at the expense of the poor.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Amo 4:1. Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan Bashan was famous for its flocks and herds, Deu 32:14; Eze 39:18. The proud and luxurious matrons of Israel may be here described. In this sense the words are understood by Grotius, and some other commentators. Thus rich, proud, and tyrannical men are compared, Psa 22:13, to the bulls of Bashan; because cattle fed in the pastures of Bashan, which were remarkably rich, were more than commonly large, and wanton, or headstrong, by reason of their full feeding. Which say to their masters To their husbands; Bring, and let us drink From these expressions we may infer the dissoluteness and intemperance of the women. And it may be observed here also, that even the women are accused of oppressing the poor, and crushing the needy; from whence we may gather to how great a height cruelty, oppression, and insolence were grown among them, since even the women were guilty of these vices. Some, however, think that the description contained in this verse is not to be confined to the matrons, but that the rich, luxurious, and profligate rulers and nobles are also and even especially intended; and that these might be represented as kine rather than bulls, in order to reprove their effeminacy and cowardice when assaulted by their enemies; while at the same time they crushed and trampled on their unresisting brethren, and sold them for slaves, saying to the masters who bought them, Bring, and let us drink. Having made the iniquitous bargain, perhaps, on low terms, they required from the purchaser to be treated with wine. This is Mr. Scotts view of the passage.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Amo 4:1. Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan. The strong bulls of Bashan are celebrated in scripture. Psa 22:13. Vacc pingues, fat cows, haughty women, abandoned to luxurious ease, and who, equally with their husbands, oppressed the poor to indulge in feasts and wine.

Amo 4:2. The Lord God hath swornthat he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fish hooks. The Chaldaic has your daughters. This language is both natural and impressive. The Philistines cover their seas with fishing smacks, and the Egyptians their river with anglers. It was equally proper for Ezekiel to menace the same offenders with Chaldean hunters, whose princes, according to Xenophon, were famed for hunting the boar. In one of those excursions, Belshazzar, in a moment of anger, pierced his friends. Cyropdia. The nets which providence would cast upon them should so entangle them, as to leave no hope of escape through the meshes or breaches.

Amo 4:4. Come to Bethel and transgress. Bethel was the place where Messiah the God of Abraham appeared to Jacob. Genesis 28.At Gilgal multiply transgression. Near this place, while the Hebrews were recovering from circumcision, Jehovah the Angel appeared to Joshua: Jos 5:13; Jos 5:15. These sacred places, which had been consecrated by the divine presence, were now polluted with Baals altars. Such were the grievous and daring sins committed by this idolatrous people. The Lord therefore, by way of contempt, bids them sin on, and be bold in transgression. He bids them bring the tithe of the third year into their cities, an extra-tithing for the levite and the poor, though the word extra is not mentioned. Deu 14:26. The levites had nine tenths of the whole tithe of the nation, and the priests one tenth, as stated by Dr. Lightfoot.

Amo 4:7. Three months to the harvest. The Lord denied them the latter rain, as described in Deu 11:14. This was the rain which caused the corn to grow and flourish for a luxuriant harvest. He adds, I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another. The locality of the rain designated a particular providence.

Amo 4:10. Pestilence, after the manner of Egypt. When the waters of the Nile retired, it was often a sickly time, owing to the vegetable decomposition of the wreck which was left behind.

REFLECTIONS.

Isaiah had twice given hard strokes at the haughty women of Jerusalem, dressed in purple, scarlet, gold, and gems; and here Amos is understood as doing the same against the women of Samaria. Yet by oppressing the poor, and crushing the needy, the words apply with more propriety to the rulers. It is however a fact, that extravagance occasions oppression; and oppression draws down the vengeance of heaven. The Lord ever lives the widows husband, and the orphans friend; and he accounts it the glory of his justice to oppress the oppressor.

When wicked men scorn the restraints of temperance and piety, the divine justice with holy scorn bids them glut themselves in the riot of crime. Come ye, transgress at Gilgal; insult that covenant ground, with the foulest breaches of the covenant. So when their fathers loathed the manna, he gave them flesh in his anger, and death followed the feast. Solomon also bids the prodigal that scorns reform, to walk in the sight of his eyes, and in the desire of his heart. Whenever this is the case, it is an awful omen that the wicked approach the vortex of destruction.

The prophet makes a transition to a review of providence towards Israel from the time of their apostasy, and he opens a scene of tragedy the most sublime and instructive that can be conceived. The combatants are God and Israel; and it is awful to add, that both the parties are determined not to yield. Israel is resolved to keep his idols, his feasts, his sins; and God has sworn by his holiness, by his holy name, that they shall all die in their sins, or be led away in chains as fish are drawn from the water by a hook. Who would not tremble for the issue? Who would not lament the consequences of such infatuation?

Feeling as a father, the Lord begins the contest with grace, and grace of an extraordinary kind. When the form and the spirit of religion were almost lost, he raised up Elijah and Elisha, whose ministry resembled the opening of the gospel. He aided their sermons by a sevenfold scale of visitations which tended to restrain wickedness, and to prolong the existence of the nation. He confounded the infidel who denied a providence, by an unheard of variation in the rains. One time he repressed voluptuousness by famine; and at another, by blasting and mildew. The pestilence next raged in the country, mocked at medicine, and gave up the wicked to the empire of death. Fire also fell repeatedly from heaven, and consumed them. Locusts likewise augmented their scarcity, while the sword with encreasing strokes of carnage made their number small. Oh ye mountains of Israel, covered with idols, how unlike the days of David and Solomon, when an obedient people inherited covenant mercies. Still the Lords hand is uplifted: still his anger is not turned away: still he awaits but with lingering and weeping over Ephraim; he awaits to let the Assyrian give the finishing stroke. Thus when every resource of mercy is exhausted, justice must do its strange work.

Sinner, inconsiderate sinner, thou art already on the stage in contest with thy Maker. He is dealing with thee as with Israel. Mercy, entreaty, and the rod are hitherto thy lot. Thou art far advanced in the career of defeat and ruin. Destruction awaits thy next presumptuous sin. Therefore, seeing the day, the awful day is at hand, I would say once for all, Prepare to meet thy God. This God, who yet for a moment suspends the blow, made the mountains, created the wind, and treadeth on the high places of the earth: thou hast no chance, no hope to escape out of his hands. Oh yield, yield to his longsuffering grace and mercy, and thou shalt yet be happy. Yield, oh yield, and let not an incorrigible temper be worse than all thy other crimes.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Amo 4:1-3. The Women of Samaria.Like Isaiah (Isa 31:6-9), Amos turns to denounce the extravagant and wicked frivolity of the women of the upper classes. He is not necessarily charging them with responsibility for the sins of the men; from those to whom much has been given (by Divine favour) much is required. The idle and pampered women of Samaria are described as kine of Bashan (cf. Deu 32:14, Psa 22:12), or, as we should say, prize cows. They gratify their fads and fancies at the expense of the poor, since extravagance always involves injustice. The prophet may not intend to charge them with drunkenness, but rather, as Ehrlich suggests, with inducing their husbands to rob and wrong their poor neighbours in order without much trouble to procure the water which they demand. The punishment is to come by war, and in war it is the women who suffer most. Amo 4:2 f. is very difficult, owing probably to textual corruption, but the general meaning is clear. The women who have strutted about so proudly and chosen their steps so fastidiously will one and all (even the last of them) be dragged along by means of hooks through the first breach that occurs in the wall, and will be hastened (lit. thrown or hurled) to Harmon.

Amo 4:2. Translate even the last of you with fish-hooks. Fish-hooks may, of course, mean hooks like fish-hooks. The allusion may be to the Assyrian practice of leading captives by hooks or rings.

Amo 4:3. The form for cast yourselves is irregular. A slight change gives, ye shall be cast.Harmon has not been identified; perhaps Armenia (har-minni, cf. Jer 51:27) was originally intended.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

4:1 Hear this word, ye {a} kine of Bashan, that [are] in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, {b} Bring, and let us drink.

(a) Thus he calls the princes and governors, who being overwhelmed with the great abundance of God’s benefits, forgot God, and therefore he calls them by the name of beasts and not of men.

(b) They encourage those who have authority over the people to oppress them, so that they may have profit by it.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Economic exploitation 4:1-3

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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. Psa 22:12; Jer 50:19; Eze 39:18; Mic 7:14). These women, along with their men, were oppressing (threatening) the poor and crushing (harassing) the needy. The women 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 (cf. Deu 28:56-57; Isa 32:9-13).

"What is luxury? The word ’luxury’ comes from a Latin word that means ’excessive.’ It originally referred to plants that grow abundantly (our English word ’luxurious’), but then it came to refer to people who have an abundance of money, time, and comfort, which they use for themselves as they live in aimless leisure. Whenever you are offered ’deluxe service,’ that’s the same Latin word: service above and beyond what you really need." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 352.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

5

CIVILIZATION AND JUDGMENT

Amo 3:1-15 – Amo 4:3

WE now enter the Second Section of the Book of Amos: chapters 3-6. It is a collection of various oracles of denunciation, grouped partly by the recurrence of the formula “Hear this word,” which stands at the head of our present chapters 3, 4, and 5, which are therefore probably due to it; partly by two cries of “Woe” at Amo 5:18 and Amo 6:1; and also by the fact that each of the groups thus started leads up to an emphatic, though not at first detailed, prediction of the nations doom. {Amo 3:13-15; Amo 4:3; Amo 4:12; Amo 5:16-17; Amo 5:26-27; Amo 6:14} Within these divisions lie a number of short indictments, sentences of judgment, and the like, which have no further logical connection than is supplied by their general sameness of subject, and a perceptible increase of articulateness from beginning to end of the Section. The sins of Israel are more detailed, and the judgment of war, coming from the North, advances gradually till we discern the unmistakable ranks of Assyria. But there are various parentheses and interruptions, which cause the student of the text no little difficulty. Some of these, however, may be only apparent: it will always be a question whether their want of immediate connection with what precedes them is not due to the loss of several words from the text rather than to their own intrusion into it. Of others it is true that they are obviously out of place as they lie; their removal brings together verses which evidently belong to each other. Even such parentheses, however, may be from Amos himself. It is only where a verse, besides interrupting the argument, seems to reflect a historical situation later than the prophets day, that we can be sure it is not his own. And in all this textual criticism we must keep in mind that the obscurity of the present text of a verse, so far from being an adequate proof of its subsequent insertion, may be the very token of its antiquity, scribes or translators of later date having been unable to understand it. To reject a verse, only because we do not see the connection, would surely be as arbitrary as the opposite habit of those who, missing a connection, invent one, and then exhibit their artificial joint as evidence of the integrity of the whole passage. In fact we must avoid all headstrong surgery, for to a great extent we work in the dark.

The general subject of the Section may be indicated by the title: Religion and Civilization. A vigorous community, wealthy, cultured, and honestly religious, are, at a time of settled peace and growing power, threatened, in the name of the God of justice, with their complete political overthrow. Their civilization is counted for nothing; their religion, on which they base their confidence, is denounced as false and unavailing. These two subjects are not, and could not have been, separated by the prophet in any one of his oracles. But in the first, the briefest, and most summary of these, chapters 3-4:3, it is mainly with the doom of the civil structure of Israels life that Amos deals; and it will be more convenient for us to take them first, with all due reference to the echoes of them in later parts of the Section. From Amo 4:4-6. it is the Religion and its false peace which he assaults; and we shall take that in the next chapter. First, then, Civilization and Judgment (Amo 3:1-15; Amo 4:1-3); second, The False Peace of Ritual (Amo 4:4-6).

These few brief oracles open upon the same note as that in which the previous Section closed-that the crimes of Israel are greater than those of the heathen; and that the peoples peculiar relation to God means, not their security, but their greater judgment. It is then affirmed that Israels wealth and social life are so sapped by luxury and injustice that the nation must perish. And, as in every luxurious community the women deserve especial blame, the last of the group of oracles is reserved for them. {Amo 4:1-3}

“Hear this word, which Jehovah hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt”

– Judah as well as North Israel, so that we see the vanity of a criticism which would cast out of the Book of Amos as unauthentic every reference to Judah. “Only you have I known of all the families of the ground”-not world, but “ground,” purposely chosen to stamp the meanness and mortality of them all-“therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.”

This famous text has been called by various writers “the keynote,” “the license,” and “the charter” of prophecy. But the names are too petty for what is not less than the fulmination of an element. It is a peal of thunder we hear. It is, in a moment, the explosion and discharge of the full storm of prophecy. As when from a burst cloud the streams immediately below rise suddenly and all their banks are overflowed, so the prophecies that follow surge and rise clear of the old limits of Israels faith by the unconfined, unmeasured flood of heavens justice that breaks forth by this single verse. Now, once for all, are submerged the lines of custom and tradition within which the course of religion has hitherto flowed; and, as it were, the surface of the world is altered. It is a crisis which has happened more than once again in history: when helpless man has felt the absolute relentlessness of the moral issues of life; their renunciation of the past, however much they have helped to form it; their sacrifice of every development however costly, and of every hope however pure; their deafness to prayer, their indifference to penitence; when no faith saves a Church, no courage a people, no culture or prestige even the most exalted order of men; but at the bare hands of a judgment, uncouth of voice and often unconscious of a Divine mission, the results of a great civilization are for its sins swept remorselessly away.

Before the storm bursts, we learn by its lightnings some truths from the old life that is to be destroyed. “You only have I known of all the families of the ground: therefore will I visit your iniquities upon you.” Religion is no insurance against judgment, no mere atonement and escape from consequences. Escape! Religion is only opportunity-the greatest moral opportunity which men have, and which if they violate nothing remains for them but a certain fearful looking forward unto judgment. You only have I known; and because you did not take the moral advantage of My intercourse, because you felt it only as privilege and pride, pardon for the past and security for the future, therefore doom the more inexorable awaits you.

Then as if the people had interrupted him with the question, What sign do you give us that this judgment is near?-Amos goes aside into that noble digression (Amo 3:3-8) on the harmony between the prophets word and the imminent events of the time, which we have already studied. From this apologia, Amo 3:9 returns to the note of Amo 3:1-2 and develops it. Not only is Israels responsibility greater than that of other peoples. Her crimes themselves are more heinous. “Make proclamation over the palaces in Ashdod”-if we are not to read Assyria here, then the name of Ashdod has perhaps been selected from all other heathen names because of its similarity to the Hebrew word for that “violence” with which Amos is charging the people-“and over the palaces of the land of Egypt, and say, Gather upon the Mount of Samaria and see! Confusions manifold in the midst of her; violence to her very core! Yea, they know not how to do uprightness, saith Jehovah, who store up wrong and violence in their palaces.”

“To their crimes,” said the satirist of the Romans, “they owe their gardens, palaces, stables, and fine old plate.” And William Langland declared of the rich English of his day:-“For toke thei on trewly they tymbred not so height Ne boughte non burgages be ye full certayne.”

“Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Siege and Blockade of the Land. And they shall bring down from off thee thy fortresses, and plundered shall be thy palaces.” Yet this shall be no ordinary, tide of Eastern war, to ebb like the Syrian as it flowed, and leave the nation to rally on their land again. For Assyria devours the peoples. “Thus saith Jehovah: As the shepherd saveth from the mouth of the lion a pair of shinbones or a bit of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be saved-they who sit in Samaria in the corner of the diwan and on a couch.” The description, as will be seen from the note below, is obscure. Some think it is intended to satirize a novel and affected fashion of sitting adopted by the rich. Much more probably it means that carnal security in the luxuries of civilization which Amos threatens more than once in similar phrases. The corner of the diwan is in Eastern houses the seat of honor. To this desert shepherd, with only the hard ground to rest on, the couches and ivory-mounted diwans of the rich must have seemed the very symbols of extravagance. But the pampered bodies that loll their lazy lengths upon them shall be left like the crumbs of a lions meal-“two shin-bones and the bit of an ear!” Their whole civilization shall perish with them. “Hearken and testify against the house of Israel-oracle of the Lord Jehovah, God of Hosts”-those addressed are still the heathen summoned in Amo 3:14-15. “For on the day when I visit the crimes of Israel upon him, I shall then make visitation upon the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar,” which men grasp in their last despair, “shall be smitten and fall to the earth. And I will strike the winter-house upon the summer-house, and the ivory houses Shall perish, yea, swept away shall be houses many-oracle of Jehovah.”

But the luxury of no civilization can be measured without its women, and to the women of Samaria Amos now turns with the most scornful of all his words. “Hear this word”-this for you-“kine of Bashan that are in the mount of Samaria, that oppress the poor, that crush the needy, that say to their lords, Bring, and let us drink. Sworn hath the Lord Jehovah by His holiness, lo, days are coming when there shall be a taking away of you with hooks, and of the last of you with fish-hooks.” They put hooks in the nostrils of unruly cattle, and the figure is often applied to human captives; but so many should these cattle of Samaria be that for the “last of them fish-hooks” must be used. “Yea, by the breaches” in the wall of the stormed city “shall ye go out, every one headlong, and ye shall be cast oracle of Jehovah.” It is a cowherds rough picture of women: a troop of kine-heavy, heedless animals, trampling in their anxiety for food upon every frail and lowly object in the way. But there is a prophets insight into character. Not of Jezebels, or Messalinas, or Lady Macbeths is it spoken, but of the ordinary matrons of Samaria. Thoughtlessness and luxury are able to make brutes out of women of gentle nurture, with homes and a religion.

Such are these three or four short oracles of Amos. They are probably among his earliest-the first peremptory challenges of prophecy to, that great stronghold which before forty years she is to see thrown down in obedience to her word. As yet, however, there seems to be nothing to justify the menaces of Amos. Fair and stable rises the structure of Israels life. A nation, who know themselves elect; who in politics are prosperous and in religion proof to every doubt, build high their palaces, see the skies above them unclouded, and bask in their pride, heavens favorites without an ear. This man, solitary and sudden from his desert, springs upon them in the name of God and their poor. Straighter word never came from Deity: “Jehovah hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” The insight of it, the justice of it, are alike convincing. Yet at first it appears as if it were sped on the personal and very human passion of its herald. For Amos not only uses the deserts cruelties-the lions to the sheep-to figure Gods impending judgment upon His people, but he enforces the latter with all a desert-bred mans horror of cities and civilization. It is their costly furniture, their lavish and complex building, on which he sees the storm break. We seem to hear again that frequent phrase of the previous section: “the fire shall devour the palaces thereof.” The palaces, he says, are simply storehouses of oppression; the palaces will be plundered. Here, as throughout his book, couches and diwans draw forth the scorn of a man accustomed to the simple furniture of the tent. But observe his especial hatred of houses. Four times in one verse he smites them: “winter-house on summer-house and the ivory houses shall perish-yea, houses manifold, saith the Lord.” So in another oracle of the same section: “Houses of ashlar ye have built, and ye shall not inhabit them; vineyards of delight have ye planted, and ye shall not drink of their wine.” {Amo 5:11} And in another: “I loathe the pride of Jacob, and his palaces I hate; and I will give up a city and all that is in it For, lo, the Lord is about to command, and He will smite the great house into ruins and the small house into splinters.” {Amo 6:8; Amo 6:11} No wonder that such a prophet found war with its breached walls insufficient, and welcomed, as the full ally of his word, the earthquake itself.

Yet all this is no mere desert razzia in the name of the Lord, a nomads hatred of cities and the culture of settled men. It is not a temper; it is a vision of history. In the only argument which these early oracles contain, Amos claims to have events on the side of his word. “Shall the lion roar and not be catching” something? Neither does the prophet speak till he knows that God is ready to act. History accepted this claim. Amos spoke about 755. In 734 Tiglath-Pileser swept Gilead and Galilee; in 724 Shalmaneser overran the rest of Northern Israel: “siege and blockade of the whole land!” For three years the Mount of Samaria was invested, and then taken; the houses overthrown, the rich and the delicate led away captive. It happened as Amos foretold; for it was not the shepherds rage within him that spoke. He had “seen the Lord standing, and He said, Smite.”

But this assault of a desert nomad upon the structure of a nations life raises many echoes in history and some questions in our own minds today. Again and again have civilizations far more powerful than Israels been threatened by the desert in the name of God, and in good faith it has been proclaimed by the prophets of Christianity and other religions that Gods kingdom cannot come on earth till the wealth, the culture, the civil order, which men have taken centuries to build, have been swept away by some great political convulsion. Today Christianity herself suffers the same assaults, and is told by many, the high life and honest intention of whom cannot be doubted, that till the civilization which she has so much helped to create is destroyed, there is no hope for the purity or the progress of the race. And Christianity, too, has doubts within herself. What is the world which our Master refused in the Mount of Temptation, and so often and so sternly told us that it must perish?-how much of our wealth, of our culture, of our politics, of the whole fabric of our society? No thoughtful and religious man, when confronted with civilization, not in its ideal, but in one of those forms which give it its very name, the life of a large city, can fail to ask, How much of this deserves the judgment of God? How much must be overthrown, before His will is done on earth? All these questions rise in the ears and the heart of a generation, which more than any other has been brought face to face with the ruins of empires and civilizations, which have endured longer, and in their day seemed more stable, than her own.

In face of the confused thinking and fanatic speech which have risen on all such topics, it seems to me that the Hebrew prophets supply us with four cardinal rules.

First, of course, they insist that it is the moral question upon which the fate of a civilization is, decided. By what means has the system grown? Is justice observed in essence as well as form? Is there freedom, or is the prophet silenced? Does luxury or self-denial prevail? Do the rich make life hard for the poor? Is childhood sheltered and is innocence respected? By these, claim the prophets, a nation stands or falls; and history has proved the claim on wider worlds than they dreamt of.

But by themselves moral reasons are never enough to justify a prediction of speedy doom upon any system or society. None of the prophets began to foretell the fall of Israel till they read, with keener eyes than their contemporaries, the signs of it in current history. And this, I take it, was the point which made a notable difference between them, and one who like them scourged the social wrongs of his civilization, yet never spoke a word of its fall. Juvenal nowhere calls down judgments, except upon individuals. In his time there were no signs of the decline of the empire, even though, as he marks, there was a flight from the capital of the virtue which was to keep the empire alive. But the prophets had political proof of the nearness of Gods judgment, and they spoke in the power of its coincidence with the moral corruption of their people.

Again, if conscience and history (both of them, to the prophets, being witnesses of God) thus combine to announce the early doom of a civilization, neither the religion that may-have helped to build it, nor any remnant virtue in it, nor its ancient value to God, can avail to save. We are tempted to judge that the long and costly development of ages is cruelly thrown away by the convulsion and collapse of an empire; it feels impious to think that the patience, the providence, the millennial discipline of the Almighty are to be in a moment abandoned to some rude and savage force. But we are wrong. “You only have I known of all the families of the ground,” yet I must “visit upon you your iniquities.” Nothing is too costly for justice. And God finds some other way of conserving the real results of the past.

Again, it is a corollary of all this, that the sentence upon civilization must often seem to come by voices that are insane, and its execution by means that are criminal. Of course, when civilization is arraigned as a whole, and its overthrow demanded, there may be nothing behind the attack but jealousy or greed, the fanaticism of ignorant men or the madness of disordered lives. But this is not necessarily the case. For God has often in history chosen the outsider as the herald of doom, and sent the barbarian as its instrument. By the statesmen and patriots of Israel, Amos must have been regarded as a mere savage, with a savages hate of civilization. But we know what he answered when Amaziah called him rebel. And it was not only for its suddenness that the apostles said the “day of the Lord should come as a thief,” but also because of its methods. For over and over again has doom been pronounced, and pronounced truly, by men who in the eyes of civilization were criminals and monsters.

Now apply these four principles to the question of ourselves. It will scarcely be denied that our civilization tolerates, and in part lives by, the existence of vices which, as we all admit, ruined the ancient empires. Are the political possibilities of overthrow also present? That there exist among us means of new historic convulsions is a thing hard for us to admit. But the signs cannot be hid. When we see the jealousies of the Christian peoples, and their enormous preparations for battle; the arsenals of Europe which a few sparks, may blow up; the millions of soldiers one mans word may mobilize; when we imagine the opportunities which a general war would furnish to the discontented masses of the European proletariat-we must surely acknowledge the existence of forces capable of inflicting calamities, so severe as to affect not merely this nationality or that type of culture, but the very vigor and progress of civilization herself; and all this without our looking beyond Christendom, or taking into account the rise of the yellow races to a consciousness of their approach to equality with ourselves. If, then, in the eyes of the Divine justice Christendom merits judgment, -if life continue to be left so hard to the poor; if innocence be still an impossibility for so much of the childhood of the Christian nations; if with so many of the leaders of civilization prurience be lifted to the level of an art, and licentiousness followed as a cult; if we continue to pour the evils of our civilization upon the barbarian, and “the vices of our young nobles,” to paraphrase Juvenal, “are aped in” Hindustan, -then let us know that the means of a judgment more awful than any which has yet scourged a delinquent civilization are extant and actual among us. And if one should reply, that our Christianity makes all the difference, that God cannot undo the development of nineteen centuries, or cannot overthrow the peoples of His Son, -let us remember that God does justice at whatever cost; that as He did not spare Israel at the hands of Assyria, so He did not spare Christianity in the East when the barbarians of the desert found her careless and corrupt. “You only have I known of all the families of the ground, therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.”

THE PROBLEM THAT AMOS LEFT

AMOS was a preacher of righteousness almost wholly in its judicial and punitive offices. Exposing the moral conditions of society in his day, emphasizing on the one hand its obduracy and on the other the intolerableness of it, he asserted that nothing could avert the inevitable doom-neither Israels devotion to Jehovah nor Jehovahs interest in Israel. “You alone have I known of all the families of the ground: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.” The visitation was to take place in war and in the captivity of the people. This is practically the whole message of the prophet Amos.

That he added to it the promise of restoration which now closes his book, we have seen to be extremely improbable. Yet even if that promise is his own, Amos does not tell us how the restoration is to be brought about. With Wonderful insight and patience he has traced the captivity of Israel to moral causes. But he does not show what moral change in the exiles is to justify their restoration, or by what means such a moral change is to be effected. We are left to infer the conditions and the means of redemption from the principles which Amos enforced while there yet seemed time to pray for the doomed people: “Seek the Lord and ye shall live.” (Amo 5:4) According to this, the moral renewal of Israel must precede their restoration; but the prophet seems to make no great effort to effect the renewal. In short Amos illustrates the easily-forgotten truth that a preacher to the conscience is not necessarily a preacher of repentance.

Of the great antitheses between which religion moves, Law and Love, Amos had therefore been the prophet of Law. But we must not imagine that the association of Love with the Deity was strange to him. This could not be to any Israelite who remembered the past of his people-the romance of their origins and early struggles for freedom. Israel had always felt the grace of their God; and unless we be wrong about the date of the great poem in the end of Deuteronomy, they had lately celebrated that grace in lines of exquisite beauty and tenderness:-

“He found him in a desert land, In a waste and a howling wilderness. He compassed him about, cared for him, Kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirreth up his nest, Fluttereth over his young, Spreadeth his wings, taketh them, Beareth them up on his pinions-So Jehovah alone led him.”

The patience of the Lord with their waywardness and their stubbornness had been the ethical influence on Israels life at a time when they had probably neither code of law nor system of doctrine. “Thy gentleness,” as an early Psalmist says for his people, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” {Psa 18:1-50} Amos is not unaware of this ancient grace of Jehovah. But he speaks of it in a fashion which shows that he feels it to be exhausted and without hope for his generation “I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorites. And I raised up of your sons for prophets and of your young men for Nazarites.” {Amo 2:10} But this can now only fill the cup of the nations sin. “You alone have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.” {Amo 3:2} Jehovahs ancient Love but strengthens now the justice and the impetus of His Law.

We perceive, then, the problem which Amos left to prophecy. It was not to discover Love in the Deity whom he had so absolutely identified with Law. The Love of God needed no discovery among a people with the Deliverance, the Exodus, the Wilderness, and the Gift of the Land in their memories. But the problem was to prove in God so great and new a mercy as was capable of matching that Law, which the abuse of His millennial gentleness now only the more fully justified. There was needed a prophet to arise with as keen a conscience of Law as Amos himself, and yet affirm that Love was greater still; to admit that Israel were doomed, and yet promise their redemption by processes as reasonable and as ethical as those by which the doom had been rendered inevitable. The prophet of Conscience had to be followed by the prophet of Repentance.

Such a one was found in Hosea, the son of Beeri, a citizen and probably a priest of Northern Israel, whose very name, Salvation, the synonym of Joshua and of Jesus, breathed the larger hope, which it was his glory to bear to his people. Before we see how for this task Hosea was equipped with the love and sympathy which Amos lacked, let us do two things. Let us appreciate the magnitude of the task itself, set to him first of prophets; and let us remind ourselves that, greatly as he achieved it, the task was not one which could be achieved even by him once for all, but that it presents itself to religion again and again in the course of her development.

For the first of these duties, it is enough to recall how much all subsequent prophecy derives from Hosea. We shall not exaggerate if we say that there is no truth uttered by later prophets about the Divine Grace, which we do not find in germ in him. Isaiah of Jerusalem was a greater statesman and a more powerful writer, but he had not Hoseas tenderness and insight into motive and character. Hoseas marvelous sympathy both with the people and with God is sufficient to foreshadow every grief, every hope, every gospel, which make the Books of Jeremiah and the great Prophet of the Exile exhaustless in their spiritual value for mankind. These others explored the kingdom of God: it was Hosea who took it by storm. {Mat 11:12} He is the first prophet of Grace, Israels earliest Evangelist; yet with as keen a sense of law, and of the inevitableness of ethical discipline, as Amos himself.

But the task which Hosea accomplished was not one that could be accomplished once for all. The interest of his book is not merely historical. For so often as a generation is shocked out of its old religious ideals, as Amos shocked Israel, by a realism and a discovery of law, which have no respect for ideals, however ancient and however dear to the human heart, but work their own pitiless way to doom inevitable; so often must the Book of Hosea have a practical value for living men. At such a crisis we stand today. The older Evangelical assurance, the older Evangelical ideals have to some extent been rendered impossible by the realism to which the sciences, both physical and historical, have most healthily recalled us, and by their wonderful revelation of Law working through nature and society without respect to our creeds and pious hopes. The question presses: Is it still possible to believe in repentance and conversion, still possible to preach the power of God to save, whether the individual or society, from the forces of heredity and of habit? We can at least learn how Hosea mastered the very similar problem which Amos left to him, and how, with a moral realism no less stern than his predecessor and a moral standard every whit as high, he proclaimed Love to be the ultimate element in religion; not only because it moves man to a repentance and God to a redemption more sovereign than any law; but because if neglected or abused, whether as love of man or love of God, it enforces a doom still more inexorable than that required by violated truth or by outraged justice. Love our Savior, Love our almighty and unfailing Father, but, just because of this, Love our most awful Judge-we turn to the life and the message in which this eternal theme was first unfolded.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary