Amos 4:3

Israel reproved for their oppression, Amo 4:1-3; idolatry, Amo 4:4, Amo 4:5; and for their impenitence under the chastising hand of God, Amo 4:6-11. The omniscience and uncontrollable power of God, Amo 4:12, Amo 4:13. 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. Verse 2 He will take you away with hooks - Two modes of fishing are here alluded to: 1. Angling with rod, line, and baited hook. 2. That with the gaff, eel-spear, harpoon, or such like; the first used in catching small fish, by which the common people may be here represented; the second, for catching large fish, such as leave the sea, and come up the rivers to deposit their spawn; or such as are caught in the sea, as sharks, whales, dolphins, and even the hippopotamus, to which the more powerful and opulent inhabitants may be likened. But as the words in the text are generally feminine, it has been supposed that the prophecy is against the proud, powerful, voluptuous women. I rather think that the prophet speaks catachrestically; and means men of effeminate manners and idle lives. They are not the bulls of Bashan, but the cows; having little of the manly character remaining. Some understand the latter word as meaning a sort of basket or wicker fish-nets. Verse 3 And ye shall go out at the breaches - Probably the metaphor is here kept up. They shall be caught by the hooks, or by the nets; and though they may make breaches in the latter by their flouncing when caught, they shall be taken out at these very breaches; and cast, not in the palace, but into a reservoir, to be kept awhile, and afterwards be taken out to be destroyed. Samaria itself is the net; your adversaries shall besiege it, and make breaches in its walls. At those breaches ye shall endeavor to make your escape, but ye shall be caught and led into captivity, where most of you shall be destroyed. See Houbigant on this passage. Verse 4 Come to Beth-el and transgress - Spoken ironically. Go on to worship your calves at Beth-el; and multiply your transgressions at Gilgal; the very place where I rolled away the reproach of your fathers, by admitting them there into my covenant by circumcision. A place that should have ever been sacred to me; but you have now desecrated it by enormous idolatries. Let your morning and evening sacrifices be offered still to your senseless gods; and continue to support your present vicious priesthood by the regular triennial tithes which should have been employed in my service; and: - Verse 5 Over a sacrifice of thanksgiving - To the senseless metal, and the unfeeling stock and stone images, from which ye never did, and never could receive any help. Proceed yet farther, and bring free-will offerings; testify superabundant gratitude to your wooden and metallic gods, to whom ye are under such immense imaginary obligations! Proclaim and publish these offerings, and set forth the perfections of the objects of your worship; and see what they can do for you, when I, Jehovah, shall send drought, and blasting, and famine, and pestilence, and the sword among you. Verse 6 Cleanness of teeth - Scarcity of bread, as immediately explained. Ye shall have no trouble in cleaning your teeth, for ye shall have nothing to eat. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord - This reprehension is repeated live times in this chapter; and in it are strongly implied God's longsuffering, his various modes of fatherly chastisement, the ingratitude of the people, and their obstinate wickedness. The famine mentioned here is supposed to be that which is spoken of 2Kgs 8:1; but it is most likely to have been that mentioned by Joel, chaps. 1 and 2. Verse 7 When there were yet three months to the harvest - St. Jerome says, from the end of April, when the latter rain falls, until harvest, there are three months, May, June, and July, in which no rain falls in Judea. The rain, therefore, that God had withheld from them, was that which was usual in the spring months, particularly in April. I caused it to rain upon one city - To prove to them that this rain did not come fortuitously or of necessity, God was pleased to make these most evident distinctions. One city had rain and could fill all its tanks or cisterns, while a neighboring city had none. One farm or field was well watered, and abundant in its crops, while one contiguous to it had not a shower. In these instances a particular providence was most evident. "And yet, they did not return to the Lord." Verse 9 I have smitten you with blasting and mildew - He sent blasting and mildew on the crops, and the locust on the gardens, vineyards, and fields; and this in such a way as to show it was a Divine judgment. They saw this; "yet they did not return to the Lord!" Verse 10 I have sent - the pestilence - After the blasting and the mildew, the pestilence came; and it acted among them as one of the plagues of Egypt. Besides this, he had suffered their enemies to attack and prevail against them; alluding to the time in which the Syrians besieged Samaria, and reduced it to the most extreme necessity, when the head of an ass was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five; and mothers ate the flesh of their children that had died through hunger, 2Kgs 6:25. And the people were miraculously relieved by the total slaughter of the Syrians by the unseen hand of God, 2Kgs 7:1, etc. And yet, after all those signal judgments, and singular mercies, "they did not return unto the Lord!" Verse 11 I have overthrown some of you - In the destruction of your cities I have shown my judgments as signally as I did in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; and those of you that did escape were as "brands plucked out of the fire;" if not consumed, yet much scorched. And as the judgment was evidently from my hand, so was the deliverance; "and yet ye have not returned unto me, saith the Lord." Verse 12 Therefore thus will I do unto thee - I will continue my judgments, I will fight against you; and, because I am thus determined: - Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel - This is a military phrase, and is to be understood as a challenge to come out to battle. As if the Lord had said, I will attack you immediately. Throw yourselves into a posture of defense, summon your idols to your help: and try how far your strength, and that of your gods, will avail you against the unconquerable arm of the Lord of hosts! This verse has been often painfully misapplied by public teachers; it has no particular relation to the day of judgment, nor to the hour of death. These constructions are impositions on the text. Verse 13 He that formeth the mountains - Here is a powerful description of the majesty of God. He formed the earth; he created the wind; he knows the inmost thoughts of the heart; he is the Creator of darkness and light; he steps from mountain to mountain, and has all things under his feet! Who is he who hath done and can do all these things? Jehovah Elohim Tsebaoth, that is his name. 1. The self-existing, eternal, and independent Being. 2. The God who is in covenant with mankind. 3. The universal Commander of all the hosts of earth and heaven. This name is farther illustrated in the following chapter. These words are full of instruction, and may be a subject of profitable meditation to every serious mind. Introduction

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, v. 2, 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 xli. 1, 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 ( v. 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 .