Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Amos · About this commentary
Cows of Bashan
Amos 4:1-5
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!” · WEB
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.
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