Amos: 'Hey, you cows up there in Samaria'

Chapters 3-5 in Amos all begin with the expression, "Hear this word . . . "

"What these are are sermon notes of messages Amos is delivering in the northern kingdom and this is the gist and summary of his message," explains Richard Jordan.

Amos 4 begins, [1] Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

[2] The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

"Chapter 4 takes no prisoners and if you go to verse 12, everybody who's around my age or older, you've heard some evangelistic message somewhere along the way on this verse:

[12] Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

"When I worked in the rescue mission back in the '60s, in a month that verse got preached . . . there were about three passages that got preached over and over in the evening evangelistic meetings (when guys would come in from local churches) and that was one of them. Another was Hebrews 2:3:

[3] How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;

"I always thought if I was going to preach a verse over and over and over I'd use Romans 5:8 or Colossians 1:14.

"The issue is that the judgment of God is on the way. Verse 13: [13] For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.

"Amos 4 is going to talk about, 'Here comes the judge!' 

"He starts out rude. 'Ye kine of Bashan.' Kine is a fancy word for a female cow. In the original Hebrew language the word is heifer. That's not a real polite way to talk about ladies. He's saying, 'Hey, you cows up there in Samaria . . .'

Verse 3: [3] And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.

"When it says 'kine,' Amos is using this more sophisticated term and it's still talking about a female cow, but he's doing it in a little more refined way and there's a reason for that.

Amos 3: [9] Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof.

[10] For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.

"What's happening in Samaria is they've just gone out and through hook and crook, and through sophisticated governmental scams, have robbed people and made themselves riches and they sit on beds and couches of ease.

"You'll see them described in Isaiah 3. Isaiah was a contemporary of Amos and he describes them.

"This is one of those passages people read sometime and they try and make fun of.

Isaiah 3: [16] Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:

[17] Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.
[18] In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon,
[19] The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,
[20] The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,
[21] The rings, and nose jewels,
[22] The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins,
[23] The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.
[24] And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
[25] Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.
[26] And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.

"They're trying to look dignified. They've got bells on their toes. They've got their hair all set up high and He's going to scald them bald and put a scab up there."

(to be continued. this is the piece I was working on last night when my computer troubles started. what is so amazing is the machine started taking a charge again today after it was dead as a door knob last night!!! I didn't actually find this out until after I went on a preliminary computer shopping expedition to Best Buy and Office Depot. both shops were loaded down with Lenovos. needless to say, I am very happy to have my laptop back, even as mysterious as it all has been, leaving me very skeptical.)