Amos 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.
This is week four of our study of the book of Amos. And, thus far, we have been introduced to the prophet Amos, who is actually not a prophet by trade, but is instead a shepherd from a place called Tekoa. Tekoa was about ten miles away from Jerusalem in the land of Judah, but Amos was actually sent by God out of Judah to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And, specifically, he was sent to prophesy to the wealthy cultural elites of the day. At this time, under the reign of Jeroboam II, Israel was experiencing a time of prosperity. Their borders had been extended and there were many very-wealthy at this time. However, there was also a great deal of poverty, and the Scripture does present it as a culture where the rich were getting richer on the backs of the poor.
God sent Amos to boldly declare his word to the people, and here is what we have seen thus far.
- We saw a set of eight oracles or groups of prophecy that were presented in a poetic form. Most of these poems dealt with other nations around Israel. In fact, interestingly, if you connected the dots of the places that Amos mentioned, they actually form a circle. But, in the dead center of the circle is Israel. And, it is Israel, not the other nations, that is the true target of Amos’ prophecy.
- Four charges were levied against Israel in that eighth prophecy, and all of them dealt with the way that the rich and powerful had treated other people, namely the poor. And, we said, we can sum that up by saying that Israel had broken the “shema” or the great commandment to love God and love their neighbors as themselves.
- Now, we are in what could be called section two of Amos, and we’re in a series of these sort of monologues. Rather than employing the poetic form of chapters 1-2, Amos is now presenting these extended statements against Israel, but what we said last week was that each of these monologues begins with the Hebrew word, shema, which is the word “listen.” It’s why the great commandment is often called the shema, but it begins “hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” But, now, because the people haven’t listened to God’s command, they have to listen to what God is going to do to them because of their disobedience.
- Finally, last week, in chapter three, the tone employed a kind of judicial language, as if the prosecution was bringing its case against Israel. Rhetorical questions were used to point to God’s anger. Amos said, “the Lion is roaring,” and other nations were metaphorically called to come and be witness to Israel’s sin. And, the question we asked was, “how do we love God?” Or, “what does it mean to love God?” And, what we said was that the Biblical answer to that question really doesn’t revolve around how we feel about God, but really revolves around obedience. So, God isn’t just looking for us to feel affectionate or grateful or warmly toward him, but rather, his desire is that we would do what he tells us to do. So, we said that God is not interested in your affection if it is devoid of obedient action, just like you are probably not interested in the affection of your spouse if they are a serial adulterer. His desire is that we would be loyal to him as our king. And that is the direct opposite of what Israel had done.
Today, however, as we get into chapter four, Amos enters into his second monologue and this time, rather than using judicial language, he employs sarcasm, which is something of a trademark for him among the minor prophets. Let’s look at verse one:
“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!’
Amos again calls the people to “shema” or listen, but this time he directs his words at who he calls the cows of Bashan, who say to their husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ And, this is that sarcasm I was talking about. Amos is directing his words at the wealthy women of Israel who were living in luxury, yet who oppress the poor and crush the needy. Bashan was a region that had lush farmlands, and it was known for its well-fed livestock. So, Amos, here is basically saying, “listen up you fat cows.” These are like the real housewives of Samaria who are just laying around eating and drinking and living lives of luxury without giving a single care for the poor and needy.
So, that’s who’s in Amos’ sights here at the beginning and what comes next is not good:
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.
Obviously, this is a word of impending doom and the doom is not metaphorical; it is literal. But, at the same time, Amos employs this metaphorical language of people being taken away with fishhooks. And, many scholars believe that the imagery here is almost like these people are being fattened up for the slaughter, but, that’s not God’s doing, they are doing it to themselves. But, another image here could be that of a net that is lowered into the water and comes up with this overflowing catch of fish. And, there are so many fish that they are all put on these huge hooks so that they can be harvested and carried. In the same way, a net of judgement is going to be lowered over Israel and the whole nation will in a sense be harvested. Scary stuff!
Also, just as a note, here at the end of verse three, it mentions the people being cast out into Harmon. Interestingly, this is the only place in the Bible where Harmon is mentioned, and scholars have no clue what place is being talked about here. So, this is somewhat mysterious, but it is also somewhat fitting because the people would ultimately be scattered to the wind and their place would be unknown.
From there Amos continues using his sarcasm to describe the pagan worship that these women or the people in general were engaging in. Verses 4-5 – He says, come to Bethel; come to Gilgal and just multiply transgression by transgression. Offer your sacrifices of thanksgiving to these gods who have done nothing for you. Come on.
Now, imagine that you are one of these people who are hearing all of this. It’s quite possible a question that you would have might be, if all this is true, why hasn’t God tried to get our attention? Why hasn’t he told us about this before? Look at verse six:
“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,
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 brand 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!
His name isn’t Baal. It isn’t Asheroth. It is Yahweh.
So, what do you mean, “why did I not try to get your attention?” Look at all of these opportunities that I gave you to wake up?
Now, in this instance, Amos is describing negative ways through which the Lord sought the people. Drought and pestilence. But, notice the purpose wasn’t punishment; the purpose was grace. The Lord has also used positive situations and blessings in order to call people to himself. Remember, they had expanded their borders. He had brought wealth and prosperity back. But, there does seem to be something significant in Scripture about the way the Lord uses hardship and crisis. Because it is in the midst of hardship and crisis that you have to make more of a conscious decision on whether or not you are going to double-down on following yourself, or other idols, or if you are going to instead repent and turn to God. We cannot underestimate the importance of crisis, hardship and failure in our lives. Think about the Apostle Peter who denied Christ three times. He failed miserably as a disciple, and yet we can’t doubt that that experience was pivotal to him becoming who he became.
Now, while all of the broken things of our world exist because of sin and because of the fall, and are not necessarily things we should hope for or pray for, the Lord can still use them for his glory. So, a natural question is, does God still do things like this today? And, listen, I believe the answer is yes, but I want to be careful that we have a Biblical picture of God in all of this, because there are few things more important in your spiritual life than the mental picture that you have of God. If your picture of God is that he is nothing but vengeful, and he is just waiting for you to mess up so that he can punish you, you have an unbiblical picture of God. If your picture is that God is holy and that all sin is an affront to him, but despite that, his great love for us compels him to not only send his Son Jesus to die so that we could be free from the penalty of our sin, but also to give us countless opportunities to turn to him in faith, then you have a more Biblical picture of God. He is long-suffering and abundant in mercy. And that is exactly what he had done with Israel, he had given them opportunity after opportunity over hundreds of years. But, notice, the “opportunities” that Amos is talking about were those negative experiences.
So, how do you know if God is using an experience in your life to get your attention? I want to give you a tool today that I came across many years ago that has always been helpful to me, and it is called a Kairos Circle. This comes from a pastor and writer named Mike Breen, and it is a cycle of repentance and belief.
