Amos 4 | “Hear This, O Cows of the Bashan”

The first five words of the chapter are enough to identify the intended audience of the prophecy. Amos addresses a well-fed and indulgent class — “Those who say to their masters, ‘Bring wine and let us drink’” — who trample upon the poor and the weak in society: “Those who oppress the poor, who break the poverty stricken.” The punishment that follows will focus precisely on these aspects: their economic prosperity will be taken away.

The chapter outlines five stages of warnings given to the people: lack of bread (v. 6), selective drought (v. 7), blight on crops (v. 9), plague (v. 10), and a catastrophe akin to the destruction of Sedom (v. 11). Each of these calamities ends with a recurring refrain of the chapter: “Yet you did not return to Me, says the Lord.” These escalating afflictions had a clear purpose — to serve as a warning sign and prompt the people to repent. But they failed to do so; they did not return to God.

Prof. Yonatan Grossman, in the attached article, points to a concentric structure (center-focused composition) in Sefer Amos, similar to the analysis we previously shared from Elad Spiegel. In his examination of Chapter 4, he highlights that a parallel prophecy appears in Chapter 8. There, too, a prophecy speaks of “hunger and thirst”: “I will cast hunger over the land: not hunger for bread nor thirst for water, but hunger to hear the words of the Lord. They will wander from sea to sea and from the north to the east to seek the word of the Lord, but they will not find it” (8:11-12; note the significant parallel between 8:12 and 4:8). This time, however, the hunger and thirst are for the word of God. This hunger and thirst will not be satisfied — an act of measure for measure. The people who received warnings through literal hunger and thirst and failed to return to God will, in turn, experience a hunger and thirst to return to Him, only to find that access to God is denied.