John Calvin Commentary Amos 4

The one who divided the chapters seems not to have carefully considered the Prophet’s argument, for he continues here his reproof of the rich, and he had been prophesying against the leading men in the kingdom of Israel. Indeed, we know how much ferocity there is in the rich when they become formidable to others through their power.

Therefore, the Prophet here scorns their arrogance: Hear, he says, this word; as if he said, “I see how it will be; for these great and pompous men will haughtily despise my threat, they will not consider themselves exposed to God’s judgment; and they will also think that they are being wronged. They will inquire, ‘Who am I?’ and ask, ‘How dares a shepherd attack them with such boldness?’” “Hear then, you cows; as if he said that he did not care for the greatness in which they prided themselves.

“What then is your wealth? It is simply fatness. Therefore, I make no more account of you than of cows; you have become fat; but your power will not terrify me; your riches will not deprive me of the freedom to treat you as I should and as God has commanded me.” Thus, we see that the Prophet here scorns the leading men of the kingdom, who wished to be considered sacred and untouchable.

The Prophet asks by what privilege they intended to excuse themselves from hearing the word of the Lord. If they pleaded their riches and their own authority, “These,” he says, “are fatness and grossness; you are at the same time cows, and I will regard you as cows; and I will not deal with you less freely than I do with my own cattle.” We now perceive the Prophet’s intention.

But he continues with his comparison: for though he here accuses the leaders of the kingdom of oppressing the innocent and distressing the poor, he still addresses them in the feminine gender, who dwell, he says, on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who consume the needy, who say, etc.

He does not consider them worthy of the name of men; and yet they wished to be seen as a class separate from the common people, as if they were some heroes or halfgods. The Prophet, contemptuously, calls them cows here; and he also withholds from them the name of men.

Bashan, we know, derived its name from fatness; it was a very rich mountain, celebrated for its pastures. Since the fertility of this mountain was well known among that people, the Prophet gave the name "cows of Bashan" to those fat and full men.

And it was right that they should be handled so roughly, because through fatness, as is usually the case, they had become dull. For when men abound in riches and become great in power, they forget themselves and despise God, because they think themselves beyond the reach of danger.

Since, then, this security makes the rich torpid, inattentive to any threats, and disobedient to God’s word, so that they regard all counsel as superfluous, the Prophet here rebukes them with greater harshness and addresses them reproachfully by the name of cows.

And when he says that they were on the mountain of Samaria, this is still ironical. For they might have made this objection: that they lived in the royal city, were watchful over the state of the whole nation, and that the kingdom depended on their counsel and vigilance. “I see how it is,” he says. “You are not on Mount Bashan, but on the Mount of Samaria. What is the difference between Samaria and Bashan?

For you are there intoxicated with your pleasures. Just as cows, when fattened, are burdened with their own weight and can hardly drag their own bodies along, so it is with you; such is your slowness through your gluttony. Samaria then, though it may seem to be a watchtower, is still no different from Mount Bashan. For you are not there so very concerned (as you pretend) for the public safety; but, on the contrary, you devour great riches; and as your greed is insatiable, the whole government is nothing else to you than fatness or a rich pasture.”

But the Prophet chiefly reproves them because they oppressed the poor and consumed the needy. Though the rich undoubtedly committed other wrongs, yet because they especially exercised cruelty towards the miserable and those who were destitute of all help, this is the reason why the Prophet here states expressly that the poor and the needy were oppressed by the rich.

And we also know that God promises special aid to the miserable when they find no help on earth, for it further incites God’s mercy when all cruelly rage against the distressed, when no one extends a helping hand to them or deigns to help them.

He adds, finally, what they say to their masters. I wonder why interpreters render this in the second person, "who say to your masters"; for the Prophet speaks here in the third person. They therefore seem to deliberately misrepresent the Prophet's real meaning.

And by "masters" they understand the king and his counselors, as if the Prophet here addressed his words to these leading men of the kingdom. Their rendering, then, is unsuitable. But the Prophet calls those "masters" who were exactors, to whom the poor were debtors.

The meaning is that the king’s counselors and judges colluded with the rich who plundered the poor; for when the rich brought a bribe, they immediately obtained from the judges what they required. Indeed, those who hunt for nothing but prey are to be bought for a price.

They said then to their masters, Bring and we shall drink; that is, “Only satisfy my greed, and I will award to you what you would demand. Provided then you bring me a bribe, do not worry, I will sell all the poor to you.”

We now comprehend the Prophet's design, for he sets forth here what kind of oppressions those were of which he had been complaining.

“You then oppress the poor—and how? Even by selling them to their creditors, and by selling them for a price.

Hence, when a reward is offered to you, this satisfies you. You inquire nothing about the justice of the cause, but instantly condemn the miserable and the innocent because they do not have the means to redeem themselves.

And the masters to whom they are debtors, who through your injustice hold them bound, pay the price. There is thus a mutual collusion between you.”

Here Amos declares what sort of punishment awaited those fat cattle, who, being well-fed, despised God and were sluggish in their fatness. He therefore says that the days were near when they would be taken away together with all that they had, and all their posterity, as by a hook of a fisherman.

But to give more effect to his pronouncement, he says that God had sworn by His sanctuary. The simple word of God should indeed have been sufficient; but as we do not easily embrace the promises of God, so also hypocrites and the reprobate are not easily terrified by His threats, but they scoff at, or at least regard as empty, what God's servants declare. It was then necessary that God should interpose this oath, so that complacent people might be more effectually aroused.

“The Lord then has sworn by His sanctuary.” It is singular that God should swear by His temple rather than by Himself; and this seems strange, for the Lord is accustomed to swear by Himself for this reason—because there is none greater by whom He can swear, as the Apostle says (Hebrews 6:13). God then seems to transfer the honor due to Himself to stones and wood, which appears by no means consistent.

But the name of the temple amounts to the same thing as the name of God. God then says that He had sworn by the sanctuary because He Himself is invisible, and the temple was His visible representation, by which He revealed Himself as visible; it was also a sign and symbol of religion, where the face of God shone forth.

God did not then divest Himself of His own glory so that He might adorn the temple with it; but He rather accommodated Himself here to the simple understanding of people, for He could not be known in Himself, but in a certain way appeared to them in the temple. Hence, He swore by the temple.

But the special reason, which interpreters have not pointed out, should be noted: that God, by swearing by His sanctuary, repudiated all the false forms of worship in which the Israelites gloried, as we have already seen.

The meaning is this—“God, who is rightly worshipped on Mount Zion and who seeks to be invoked there only, swears by Himself; and though holiness dwells in Him alone, He yet sets before you the symbol of His holiness, the sanctuary at Jerusalem. He therefore repudiates all your forms of worship and regards your temples as brothels.”

Thus, we see that this expression includes a contrast between the sanctuary, where the Jews rightly and legitimately worshipped God, and the false temples which Jeroboam built, as well as the high places where the Israelites imagined that they worshipped Him. Now we understand what is meant by the words that God swore by His sanctuary.

And He swore by His sanctuary that the days would come, indeed, were near, in which they would be taken away with hooks, or with shields. צנה, tsane, means in Hebrew 'to be cold'; but צנות, tsanut, denotes shields in that language, and sometimes fishing hooks. Some still think that the instrument by which the flesh is pulled off is intended, as though the Prophet were still alluding to his former comparison.

However, something entirely different seems to be meant here: namely, that these fat cows would be drawn out like a small fish by a hook, for afterwards he again mentions a thorn or a hook.

It is as though he had said, “You are indeed of great weight, and you are very heavy because of your fatness; but this your bulk will not prevent God from quickly taking you away, just as one draws out a fish with a hook.”

We see how well these two different comparisons harmonize: “You are now trusting in your own fatness, but God will draw you out as if you were of no weight at all. You shall therefore be dragged away by your enemies, not as fat cows but as small fish, and a hook will be sufficient to draw you away into remote lands.”

This change should have seriously affected the Israelites when they understood that they would be stripped of their fatness and wealth, and then taken away as though they were small fish—that a hook would be enough, and there would be no need for large wagons.

The Prophet now expresses, in different words, what the future calamity of that kingdom would be; but he still speaks of the rich and the chief men. For though he also threatened the common people and the multitude, it was not yet necessary to name them explicitly, since when God thunders against the chief men, terror surely ought to seize the humbler classes as well.

The Prophet then intentionally directs his discourse still to the judges and the king's counselors: You shall go forth at the breaches, every one of you. We see that he still continues the same mode of speaking, for he does not count those pompous and arrogant masters as men, but still represents them as cows. “Every one,” that is, every cow, he says, shall go forth through the breaches directly in front of it. We know how strictly the rich maintain their own ranks and also how difficult it is to approach them.

But the Prophet says here that their situation would be far different: “There will not be,” he says, “a triple wall or a triple gate to keep away all disturbances, as when you live in peace and quietness; but there will be breaches on every side, and every cow shall go forth through these breaches; indeed, she shall throw herself down from the very palace; neither the pleasures nor the indulgence in which you now live will exist among you any longer; no, by no means, but you will consider it enough to seek safety by flight.

Each of you will therefore rush headlong, as when a cow, stung by the gadfly or pricked by goads, runs madly away. And we know how impetuous is the flight of cows. So also it will happen to you, says the Prophet. We now perceive the meaning of the words.

Some take הרמונה, ermune, for Armenia, because the Israelites were led away into that distant country; and others take it for Mount Amanus; but there is no reason for this. I do not take it as some do, as meaning, “In the palace,” but, on the contrary, “From the palace,” or, from the high place. You shall then throw yourselves down from the palace; that is, “You shall no longer care for your pomp and your pleasures, but will think it enough to escape the danger of death, even with an impetuosity like that of beasts, as when cows run headlong without any thought about their course.”

It was not without reason that he repeated the name of God so often, for he intended to shake the Israelites out of their complacency, since the king's counselors and the judges, as we have already stated, were extremely secure and careless, for they were, in a manner, stupefied by their own fatness.

The Prophet here again pours contempt on the perverse confidence in which the Israelites had become hardened. They indeed thought that their worship was fully approved by God when they offered sacrifices in Bethel and Gilgal. But the Prophet here shows that the more diligently they labored in performing sacred things, the more grievously they offended God, and the heavier judgment they brought upon themselves.

“What do you obtain by wearying yourselves, when you so strictly offer sacrifices and omit nothing that is prescribed in the law of God? Only this—that you provoke God’s wrath more and more.” But he does not condemn the Israelites for thinking that they rendered a compensation, as hypocrites were accustomed to think, and were for this reason often reproved by the Prophets; rather, he denounces their forms of worship as vicious and false, and abominable before God.

The Prophets condemned sacrifices for two reasons:

1. Because hypocrites brought them before God as a compensation, so that they might escape the punishment they deserved, as though they paid God what they owed. Thus at Jerusalem, in the very temple, they profaned the name of God. They offered sacrifices according to what the law prescribed but disregarded the true and legitimate purpose, for they thought that God was pacified by the blood of beasts, by incense, and other external rites; it was therefore a preposterous abuse. For this reason, the Prophets often reproved them, because they imposed their sacrifices on God as a compensation, as though they were real expiations for cleansing away sins. This, as the Prophets declared, was extremely childish and foolish.

2. Amos now goes much farther. He does not blame the Israelites here for thinking that they fulfilled their duty to God by external rites, but denounces all their worship as degenerate and perverted, because they called on God in places where He had not commanded. God designed one altar only for His people, and there He wished sacrifices to be offered to Him; but the Israelites, at their own will, had built altars at Bethel and Gilgal. Therefore, the Prophet declares that all their profane forms of worship were nothing but abominations, however much the Israelites trusted in them for their safety.

This is the reason why he now says, Go to Bethel. It is the language of indignation; God indeed speaks ironically and at the same time manifests His high displeasure, as though He had said that they were wholly intractable and could not be restrained by any corrections, as we say in French, Fai du pis que to pouvras. So also God speaks in Ezekiel 20:39, Go, sacrifice to your idols. When He saw the people running headlong with so much stubbornness into idolatry and superstitions, He said, “Go,” as though He intended to inflame their minds.

It is indeed certain that God does not incite sinners, but He thus manifests His extreme indignation. After having tried to restrain men and seeing their ungovernable madness, He then says, “Go,” as though He said, “You are wholly irreclaimable; I accomplish nothing by My good advice. Hear, then, the devil, who will lead you where you are inclined to go: Go then to Bethel, and there transgress; go to Gilgal, and transgress there again; heap sins on sins.”

But how did they transgress at Bethel? Even by worshipping God. We here see how little the pretense of good intention avails with God, which hypocrites always bring forward. They imagine that, provided their purpose is to worship God, what they do cannot be disapproved. Thus they indulge in their own inventions and think that God receives His due, so that He cannot complain. But the Prophet declares all their worship to be nothing else than abomination and detestable wickedness, though the Israelites, trusting in it, thought themselves safe. “Add, then, to transgress in Gilgal; and offer your sacrifices in the morning; be thus diligent, that nothing may be objected to you, as to the outward form.”

After three years, that is, in the third year, “bring also your tenths”; for thus it was commanded, as we read in Deuteronomy 14:28. Though, then, the Israelites worshipped God apparently in the strictest manner, yet Amos declares that the whole was vain and of no worth, indeed, abominable before God, and that the more they wearied themselves, the more they kindled the wrath of God against themselves. The next verse is to the same purpose.

And burn incense with the leaven of thank offering. He speaks of peace offerings; sacrifices of thanksgiving were usually offered with leaven, but with other sacrifices they presented cakes and unleavened bread. It was lawful in peace offerings to offer leaven. However diligent, then, the Israelites were in performing these rites, the Prophet intimates that they were in no way approved by God because they had departed from the pure command of the law.

Some take leaven in a bad sense, as meaning a flawed and impure sacrifice, which the law required to be free from leaven; but this view does not seem suitable here. For nothing is condemned in the Israelites here except that they had departed from what the law prescribed: they had presumptuously changed the place of the temple and also raised up a new priesthood. They were in other things careful and diligent enough, but this falling away was the chief abomination. It could not then be that God would approve of such perversions, for obedience, as it is said elsewhere, is of more account before Him than all sacrifices (1 Samuel 15:22). Proclaim, He says, נדבות, nudabut, voluntary oblations. What He means is, “Though you not only offer sacrifices morning and evening as you have been commanded, though you not only present other sacrifices on festivals, but also add voluntary oblations to any extent, yet nothing pleases Me.”

Bring forth then, and proclaim voluntary offerings; that is, “Appoint solemn assemblies with great pomp; yet this would be nothing else than to add sin to sin. You are acting wickedly for this reason—because the very beginning is impious.”

But the last part of the verse must be noticed, For so it has pleased you, O children of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah. By saying that the Israelites loved to do these things, He condemns their presumption in devising new forms of worship at their own will, as though He said, “I require no sacrifices from you except those offered at Jerusalem; but you offer them to Me in a profane place.

Regard then your sacrifices as offered to yourselves, and not to Me.” We indeed know how hypocrites always make God a debtor to themselves; when they undertake any labor in their frivolous ceremonies, they think that God is bound to them. But God denies that this work was done for Him, for He had not commanded it in His law.

“It has thus pleased you,” He says, “Vous faites cela pour votre plaisir et bien mettez le sur vos comptes.” We then see what Amos meant here by saying, ‘It has so pleased you, O children of Israel:’ it is as if He had said, “You ought to have consulted Me, and simply to have obeyed My word, to have regarded what pleased Me, what I have commanded; but you have despised My word, neglected My law, and followed what pleased yourselves, and proceeded from your own fancies.

Since, then, your own will is your law, seek a recompense from yourselves, for I allow none of these things. What I require is implicit submission; I look for nothing else but obedience to My law. Since you do not render this, but act according to your own will, it is no worship of My name.”

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as You desire our life to be formed by the rule of Your law, and have revealed in it what pleases You, so that we may not wander in uncertainty but render You obedience—O grant, that we may wholly submit ourselves to You, and not only devote our life and all our labors to You, but also offer to You as a sacrifice our understanding and whatever prudence and reason we may possess, so that by spiritually serving You, we may truly glorify Your name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[Exposition continues from previous day's lecture]

But I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your borders; and ye turned not to me, saith Jehovah. God here expostulates with the people on account of their incurable perverseness, for He had tried to restore them to the right way, not only by His word but also by heavy punishments; yet He accomplished nothing. This hardness doubled the guilt of that people, as they could not be subdued by God’s chastisements.

The Prophet now says that the people had been punished with famine. I gave them, He says, cleanness of teeth. It is a figurative expression by which Amos means want, and he explains it himself by want of bread. The whole country then labored under want and a deficiency of provisions, though the land, as is well known, was very fruitful. Now since the purpose of punishment is to turn men to God and His service, it is evident when no fruit follows that the mind is hardened in evil. Therefore, the Prophet shows here that the Israelites were not only guilty but had also stubbornly resisted God, for their vices could not be corrected by any punishment.

I have said that another kind of punishment is recorded here by the Prophet; it is not, however, wholly different, for from where does the want we have noticed come, except through drought? For when God intends to deprive people of support, He shuts up heaven and makes it iron, so that it does not hear the earth, according to what we have noticed elsewhere.

Yet these words of the Prophet are not superfluous, for God intends for the punishment He inflicts on people to be more attentively considered. When people are reduced to want, they will indeed acknowledge it to be the curse of God, unless they are very stupid. But when a drought precedes, when the earth disappoints its cultivators, and then a want of food follows, more time is given to people to think of God’s displeasure.

This is the reason why the Prophet now distinctly speaks of rain being withheld, after having said that the people had previously been visited with a deficiency of provisions. It is as if he said, “You ought to have returned, at least after a long course of time, to a sound mind.

If God had been offended with you only for one day and had given tokens of His displeasure, the shortness of time might have been some excuse for you. But as the earth had become dry, as God had restrained rain, and as sterility consequently followed, and afterward want came, how great was your stupidity not to attend to so many and so successive tokens of God’s wrath?” We now perceive why the Prophet here connects drought with want of food—the cause with the effect: it was so that the stupidity of the people might therefore be more evident.

But he says that God had withheld rain from them, when three months still remained to the harvest. When it does not rain for a whole month, the earth becomes dry, and people become anxious, for it is an ill omen. But when two months pass without rain, people begin to be filled with apprehension and even dread. But if continual dryness lasts to the end of the third month, it is a sign of some great evil.

The Prophet, then, here shows that the Israelites had not been chastised in an ordinary way, and that they were very stupid, as they did not, during the whole three months, apply their minds to consider their sins, though God urged them, and though His wrath had been manifested for so long a time. So we now see that the hardness of the people is amplified by the consideration of time, since they were not awakened by such a portentous sign, When there were yet three months, he says, to the harvests I withheld rain from you.

Another circumstance follows: “God rained on one city, on another he did not rain; one part was watered, and no drop of rain fell on another.” This difference could not be ascribed to chance. Unless people resolved to be willfully mad and to reject all reason, they must surely have been constrained to confess that these were manifest signs of God’s wrath.

How did it happen that one place was rained upon and another remained dry? That two neighboring cities were treated so differently? Why was this, unless God appeared angry from heaven? The Prophet then here again condemns the obstinacy of the people: they did not see in this difference the wrath of God, which was nevertheless so very conspicuous. The meaning of the whole is that God shows He had to do with a people past recovery, for they were refractory and obstinate in their wickedness and could not bear the application of any remedy.