Amos 4 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Amos 4

4:1   “Hear 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, that we may drink!’
2   The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness
    that, behold, the days are coming upon you,
  when they shall take you away with hooks,
    even the last of you with fishhooks.
3   And you shall go out through the breaches,
    each one straight ahead;
    and you shall be cast out into Harmon,”
      declares the LORD.
4   “Come to Bethel, and transgress;
    to Gilgal, and multiply transgression;
  bring your sacrifices every morning,
    your tithes every three days;
5   offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened,
    and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them;
    for so you love to do, O people of Israel!”
      declares the Lord GOD.

Israel Has Not Returned to the Lord

6   “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
    and lack of bread in all your places,
  yet you did not return to me,”
      declares the LORD.
7   “I also withheld the rain from you
    when there were yet three months to the harvest;
  I would send rain on one city,
    and send no rain on another city;
  one field would have rain,
    and the field on which it did not rain would wither;
8   so two or three cities would wander to another city
    to drink water, and would not be satisfied;
  yet you did not return to me,”
      declares the LORD.
9   “I struck you with blight and mildew;
    your many gardens and your vineyards,
    your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured;
  yet you did not return to me,”
      declares the LORD.
10   “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
    I killed your young men with the sword,
  and carried away your horses,¹
    and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;
  yet you did not return to me,”
      declares the LORD.
11   “I overthrew some of you,
    as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
    and you were as a brand² plucked out of the burning;
  yet you did not return to me,”
      declares the LORD.
12   “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
    because I will do this to you,
    prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
13   For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
    and declares to man what is his thought,
  who makes the morning darkness,
    and treads on the heights of the earth—
    the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!

Footnotes

[1] 4:10 Hebrew along with the captivity of your horses
[2] 4:11 That is, a burning stick

Commentary

v1: Words addressed to the guilty. Amos introduces the theme of the oppression of the poor. This was one means by which the rich became rich.

v2-3: Predicting the capture of Israel, and the city walls broken down. There is no reference to the people being killed of made slaves, but rather there will be relocated.

v4-5: Bethel and Gilgal, once places of blessing, but now centres of idolatry, 1 Kings 12.25-33. Here is a form of religion, but without power and truth.

v6-11: "Yet you have not returned to me," is the message from God, repeated throughout this section. The judgments He sent were intended to bring repentance, but Israel persistently refused to repent. Deut 28 is being fulfilled;

few people left, 3.12; Deut 28.62;
lack of bread, v6; Deut 28.33, 38-40, 48, 51;
rain withheld, v7-8; Deut 28.23-24;
locusts, v9; Deut 28.38, 42;
mildew, v9; Deut 28.22;
plagues like those of Egypt, v10; Deut 28.27, 60;
the fact that some avoided judgment is itself a warning, v11.

These words indicate divine sadness rather than anger; The Lord said that such things would happen when the people disobeyed.

v12: Introducing the next section; prophesies of judgment, and fresh calls to repentance. Final judgment, "Prepare to meet your God." It seems that the use of "God" and "Lord" are distinct here.

v13: The great God over all creation; the same God the people of Israel reject.