CRITICAL NOTES.] Kine] Fat and wanton, yet effeminate and luxuriant; reproved not for fierceness, but unfeeling insolence and oppression. Say]
(1) Wives here intended, voluptuous women after the analogy of Isaiah 3:16; Isaiah 32:9-13. “The sin of these women consisted in the tyrannical oppression of the poor, whilst they asked their lords, i.e. their husbands, to procure them the means of debauchery” [Keil].
(2) Others, princely oppressors, who say to their king, with whom they indulge in drink, and whom they ask to seal the bargain with wine. Oppress] Lit. continually oppress. Crush] Heb. expresses vehemence.
Amos 4:2. Holiness] which binds him to punish (Psalms 89:35). Hooks] Invaders and spoilers compared to fishers (Jeremiah 16:16; Hebrews 1:14).
Amos 4:3. Breaches] of city walls broken by the enemy. Every] one before her, i.e. without looking to right or left (cf. Joshua 6:5; Joshua 6:20), as cows through a gap or fence. Cast] “The word may describe the headlong motion of the animal, and the desperate gestures of the hopeless” [pusey].
HOMILETICS
SAD PICTURES OF HUMAN LIFE.—Amos 4:1-3
Punishment is the leading thought in chap. 3, but in this sin is the prominent thought, and its consequences incidental to prove its exceeding sinfulness. Civil injustice and oppression were very common. The king and his ministers are spoken of in terms of contempt, for sharp rebuke often becomes an imperative duty.
I. Insolent abuse of prosperity. Bashan was a place of rich soil and pasturage (Micah 7:14; Jeremiah 50:19). Animals fed there were among the strongest and fattest (Deuteronomy 32:14). Bulls furnished a type of the mighty, fierce, and unfeeling men of earth; kine may indicate the luxury and effeminacy of men or women—a life of wantonness and brutish feeling. Amos points out the princes and judges as ringleaders in provocation and insolence. They grew fat and prosperous, abused their place and power, and made themselves base and contemptible. In their pleasure and grandeur they despised the herdman and the poor. They thought more highly of themselves than they ought to do. Like beasts, they found their enjoyments in self-indulgence and luxury. Men who wallow in riches and surfeit themselves in pleasure fatten themselves for slaughter. Those who live a brutish life will die a brutish death. Men in worldly honour, without true wisdom, are worse than beasts that perish. Their eminence is their peril, and their fall is disgraceful. “Man that is in honour and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.”
II. Might ruling over right. Men in prosperity and high rank often become extravagant and tyrannical. They lose the tenderness of their own, and have no sympathy with the nature of others. Might overcomes right.
1. In oppressing the poor. The poor are always with us to kindle our sympathies, teach our dependence, and fulfil the purpose of God. In true philanthropy there is present blessedness and godlike action. “Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.” The poor must be defended, provided for, and not oppressed. They are not of a lower grade than ourselves If we mock or oppress them we reproach God. “He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker.”
2. In crushing the needy. Society is a medium for illustrating the attributes of humanity, and building up the moral history of the world. It is composed of all classes, and bound together by all ties. He who is charitable to the needy exhibits moral likeness to God, and administers to the glory of Christ in heaven (Matthew 25:40). But when men gratify pride in selfishness, disregard the rights of the poor, and, like powerful cattle, trample the weak under-foot, it is a mark of an unfeeling heart and social corruption—a way to obliterate the moral character of society, and a prelude to Divine judgment. It is sad when men vent their wantonness where there is no power to resist. Not the wolf with the wolf, but the wolf with the defenceless lamb, “devouring the poor and needy from off the earth.” Yet they are found among the rulers of God’s own people, among the teachers of religion, and in the common ranks of life. “Judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy.”
III. Confederacy in wickedness. “Bring, and let us drink.” The wicked encourage and strengthen one another in sin. “Come on,” said Pharaoh, “let us deal wisely with them.” The king and his courtiers in Israel practised oppression themselves, abetted it and connived at it in others. A sinful course cannot long prosper. Articles of luxury are dearly bought by oppression. Proud combinations against the laws of humanity and the providence of God shall be broken as tow. The builders of Babel were confounded. The conspiracies of Voltaire and his infidel school have been overthrown. In our day all social compacts and private bargains in the cause of injustice will be crushed by the irresistible power of God. “Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.”
IV. Debauchery in social conduct. “Let us drink.” Men reap a poor harvest from cruelty and oppression when they spend it to gratify their lusts. Making merry at the cost of extortion will only mingle bitterness with wine. Tyrants to the poor are often slaves to their own passions. “Cruelty and sensuality are well matched. Inflamed passions crave for inflaming drink, and this again sets on fire the whole course of nature, and disposes to deeds of violence and shame. Nor must it be forgotten that men and women naturally mild and kind commit the most ferocious (otherwise unaccountable) acts under the influence of alcoholic drink, which exerts all the foreign tyranny of diabolical possession.”
V. Life terminating in great calamities. Consider the end of these proud oppressors. “So the days shall come upon you that he will take you away with hooks and your children with fish-hooks.” Led as an ox to the slaughter, taken as fish out of the water, neither power nor number can keep them from sudden and violent destruction.
1. Calamities fixed in time. The days hold on their steady course and advance closer and closer to the sinner. They are determined in God’s purpose and will be fitted in God’s providence.
2. Calamities with great sacrifice. From security they shall violently be taken away to a land of oppression. Their stores of violence would be cast away from their palaces. When life is at stake, treasures of gold are of no worth. “A thousand pounds for any one who will save my life,” cried a young lady in the wreck of the London. It is too late often, and none can flee away.
3. Calamities from which none can escape. They shall rush from one palace to another. Some think to be the meaning, cast themselves into one place after another and find no shelter. In wild confusion, without help and hope, they will run through the breach of the city, like a herd of cows through a fence.
4. Calamities entailed upon posterity. “Your children with fish-hooks.” People may survive in their descendants sometimes, but reckless must be that life which sweeps away posterity. Sinners entangle themselves in their own devices, and bring the judgments of God upon their families. Riches are small, and strong palaces are defenceless in the hour of death. Those who boast of wealth, and act in cruelty towards others, will be carried away without ransom and without hope.
“To the vile dust from whence they sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Amos 4:1. God’s intimate acquaintance with men.
1. He discerns their character. “Ye kine of Bashan.” Pride, wantonness, and effeminacy.
2. He detects their sins. Specifies one by one.
3. He knows their residence. “In the mountain of Samaria.” “God knows where men live. Let us seek to make our houses such as he will look on with pleasure” [Hall in loco]. “I know thy abode, and thy going out and thy coming in, and thy rage against me” (Isaiah 37:28).
Amos 4:2; Amos 3:1. Destruction inevitable. “Saith the Lord.”
2. Destruction by meanest instruments. Fish dragged by the hook, Herod destroyed by worms.
3. Destruction vindicated by God’s character. Holiness is offended by sin, and pledged to vindicate its own honour. “God swears by that holiness which they had profaned in themselves, and which they had caused to be profaned in others. God sware by himself. For he is the supreme uncreated Justice and Holiness. This justice each, in his degree, should imitate and maintain on earth, and these they had sacrilegiously violated and overthrown” [Pusey].
Amos 4:1-3. From the whole learn—
1. In proportion to the prosperity hero will be the misery of the wicked hereafter.
2. In proportion to their luxury here will be their poverty hereafter.
3. In proportion to their sins here, will be their punishment hereafter [Treasury of David].
“O luxury!
Bane of elated life, of affluent states,
What dreary change, what ruin is not thine?” [Dyer.]
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Amos 4:1. There is not a word in our language which expresses more detestable wickedness than oppression [Butler]. Mr Cecil says that he often “had a sleepless night from having seen an instance of cruelty in the day.”
“My ear is pain’d,
My heart is sick with every day’s report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.”