The Women of Samaria. Like Isaiah (Isaiah 31:6-9), Amos turns to denounce the extravagant and wicked frivolity of the women of the upper classes. He is not necessarily charging them with responsibility for the sins of the men; from those to whom much has been given (by Divine favour) much is required. The idle and pampered women of Samaria are described as kine of Bashan (cf. Deuteronomy 32:14; Psalms 22:12), or, as we should say, prize cows. They gratify their fads and fancies at the expense of the poor, since extravagance always involves injustice. The prophet may not intend to charge them with drunkenness, but rather, as Ehrlich suggests, with inducing their husbands to rob and wrong their poor neighbours in order without much trouble to procure the water which they demand. The punishment is to come by war, and in war it is the women who suffer most. Amos 4:2 f. is very difficult, owing probably to textual corruption, but the general meaning is clear. The women who have strutted about so proudly and chosen their steps so fastidiously will one and all (even the last of them) be dragged along by means of hooks through the first breach that occurs in the wall, and will be hastened (lit. thrown or hurled) to Harmon.
Amos 4:2. Translate even the last of you with fish-hooks. Fish-hooks may, of course, mean hooks like fish-hooks. The allusion may be to the Assyrian practice of leading captives by hooks or rings.
Amos 4:3. The form for cast yourselves is irregular. A slight change gives, ye shall be cast. Harmon has not been identified; perhaps Armenia (har-minni, cf. Jeremiah 51:27) was originally intended.