Amos 4:1

There is a continuation in this chapter of the general thought and movement of the last, consisting of denunciations and exhortations of Israel. First, there is a powerful blast against the idle, sinful and oppressive rich "in the mountain of Samaria" (Amos 4:1-3), then, a sarcastic and ironical "call to worship" at Bethel and Gilgal (Amos 4:4,5), and next, a dramatic reminder by the prophet of the seven disasters God had sent upon Israel with the benign purpose of leading them to repentance (Amos 4:6-12). Some have considered these disasters as progressive in intensity and severity. "Amos has arranged them in climactic form."[1] Mays, however, wrote that:

"There is no perceptible development in the sections, no heightening of the disasters' intensity. Each is terrible in its own right, no worse than the previous one. The sequence gains its effect from repetition, the recollection of one disaster after another as though the narrative meant to exhaust the catalogue of human misery."[2]

Of particular interest is May's reference to "repetition," which we have already cited as one of the principal characteristics of this remarkable prophet; and the recurrence of a number of different names for God, the recurrence of identical phrases in his denunciations of the nations (Amos 1-2), and the dramatic repetitions of this section (Amos 1:5-12) are all alike genuine and inseparable from the authentic words of this prophecy. Of this chapter, Mays said:

"The sequence is not the work of a collector assembling units of similar form. The individual sections have no point as isolated sayings. The art of repetition is a feature of Amos' own style."[3]

Finally, there is a beautiful but brief doxology in Amos 4:13, a logically placed exclamation, concluding the terrible indictment and announced punishment of Israel.

Amos 4:1 -

Hear this, 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.

"Ye kine of Bashan ..." By far the majority of modern translators and commentators render this. "Ye cows of Bashan, "making it a reference exclusively to the "fat cat" women of Samaria. We shall accept this, but it should be noted that most of the older commentators did not go along with that view. Clarke wrote, "I think the prophet means men of effeminate and idle lives."[4] The word here is "cows," the feminine form of "kine" having no other meaning; but the uncertainty with regard to the meaning derives from the fact that the Hebrew text in this place uses a mixture of feminine and masculine gender words with some inevitable confusion as to what exactly is meant. The best explanation of this we have seen is this:

"Kine of Bashan ... is figurative for those luxurious nobles mentioned in Amos 3:9, etc. The feminine kine, or cows, not bulls, expresses their effeminacy. This accounts for masculine forms in the Hebrew being intermixed with feminine; the latter being figurative, the former the real persons meant."[5]

The fact which overrules the view thus expressed by Jamison derives from the last clause in which they say to "their lords":

"Bring, and let us drink ..." giving a situation which answers most properly to the assumption that the sinners condemned here are those wicked, dissolute and voluptuous women of Samaria who had only one imperative for their "lords," or "husbands," and that was, Bring! This means, "Get it; we don't care how!" The only thing that mattered to them was the procurement of the means to carry forward their luxurious parties.

"Cows of Bashan ..." Hammershaimb thought that such an expression could have been used in a complimentary fashion, saying that, "Oriental writers use the comparison with thoroughbred cows as a compliment to the women's beauty and opulence."[6] We dare not accept this view, however, as that of the prophet. If he had been giving a compliment, it seems incredible that he would have chosen a sleek fat beast as an appropriate comparison.

"And let us drink ..." Butler's terse paraphrase of this is, "You debauched women who nag your husbands to supply you with intoxicants."[7] Thus, the husbands of those women, "are induced to deal oppressively with the poor that they may procure the viands needed for their wives' debaucheries."[8] Due to the general character of the language employed here, their drinking, "may be understood to have included drinking, feasting, and wanton luxury of every kind."[9] Why was Amos so concerned with the actions of these idle and wicked women? McFadden was right in his declaration that:

"All of the Hebrew prophets knew that for the temper and quality of a civilization the women are greatly responsible. A country is largely what its women make it; if they are cruel or careless or unwomanly, the country is on the road to ruin."[10]

But these particular women so vigorously condemned by God's prophet had done what no animal could do, "They had made coarse pleasure the deliberate end of life."[11]

The great ladies of Samaria! What were they, really? Intent only upon pleasure, cruel and oppressive to subordinates, dominating and demanding of their husbands, competing endlessly with their contemporaries for preeminence in staging one debauchery after another, with never a thought of God, or of any fellow human, what were they? Just, "so many prime beasts from Bashan, sunk in a purely animal existence."[12]

"Bashan ..." Before leaving this verse, it should be remembered that Bashan was proverbially the home of fine pastures and fat cattle. "The bulls of Bashan" were mentioned by the Psalmist (Psalms 22:12). It was the land lying eastward from the sea of Galilee and somewhat to the north.

One other thing of interest is the way some have tried to downgrade Amos' denunciation of these sensual women with the assertion that:

"There is something about fashionable upper-class women that brings out the venom in a puritan. They epitomize for him the most offensive vices of society. Isaiah reacts to them much as Amos does (Isaiah 3:16-4:1)."[13]

How blind are they who can get nothing out of this passage of the Word of God except what they call "the venom" of a humble prophet! What a low concept such so-called "scholars" have of the word of the Lord, and how clearly their prejudice in favor of the "upper-class" appears in words which suggest approval of their wicked and dissolute conduct. Given such a glimpse of the writer's "soul" as afforded by the above quotation, one need not be troubled at all regarding his allegations against the Bible. It would be impossible for them to be otherwise than opposed to the truth.