Cows of Bashan
1 Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!” 2 The Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness, “Behold, the days shall come on you that they will take you away with hooks, and the last of you with fish hooks. 3 You will go out at the breaks in the wall, everyone straight before her; and you will cast yourselves into Harmon,” says Yahweh. 4 “Go to Bethel, and sin; to Gilgal, and sin more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days, 5 offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim free will offerings and brag about them; for this pleases you, you children of Israel,” says the Lord Yahweh.
The women of the capital are addressed directly, and then the shrines they support are given a command that sounds like invitation.
The address is deliberately rude. Cows of Bashan — Bashan being the fat grazing land east of the Jordan famous for prime cattle, so the insult carries luxury inside it. And the charge is not vanity: they oppress the poor and crush the needy, and their instruction to their husbands is a single word, bring.
That is the passage's precision. The demand is domestic and the cost is somebody else's. Amos does not accuse them of running the courts or rigging the scales; he accuses them of requiring a standard of living that the rigging paid for.
The sentence in verses 2 and 3 is grim, and its details are contested — hooks, thorns, breaches in the wall, a place named Harmon that appears nowhere else. What is clear is the manner: out through gaps in a broken wall, single file, like driven livestock.
Then verses 4 and 5, and the tone shifts into something sharper than accusation. Go to Bethel and sin; to Gilgal and multiply sinning. It is a summons to worship, phrased as a summons to transgress, and the itinerary is the real shrines: sacrifices every morning, tithes every three days — more than the law required.
The closing clause names the motive without argument: for this pleases you. Worship at this pitch, funded that way, is described as a preference being indulged. The offerings are freewill in exactly the sense the word allows.
settled What this mark means