Today's reading touches on one of the "eternal questions" of religious life: the question of the moral component...
Today's reading touches on one of the "eternal questions" of religious life: the question of the moral component of religion. The situation described in the passage is quite clear: the inhabitants of the Northern, Israelite Kingdom evidently did not stint on sacrifices and therefore considered themselves devout people loved by God. Yet this in no way kept them from sinning by violating the commandments given by the God whom they worshiped and to whom they offered sacrifices (vv. 4-5). The essence of the problem is clear: God does not need the sacrifices of those who violate the commandments He has given. Sacrifice, as it was originally understood, was above all a form of communion with God, and it is clearly impossible to commune with God while not keeping His commandments.
But why is the human desire to reduce religious life to its external forms so persistent? The answer to this question may lie in the very essence of religion. In every age, human beings have had what is usually called a religious feeling. They have also always had a sense that certain higher powers are present in the world. And religion was the instrument that allowed a person to establish relationships with those powers. Understood in this way, religiosity has always been a purely human affair.
And yet God never abandoned man, even when man turned his back on Him, and therefore in every human religion there were sparks of Revelation that some managed to notice beneath the layers of human constructions. But in Yahwism, in the religion of the Old Testament, everything is different: here Revelation stands at the center, while religiosity becomes only a frame, the form that allows Revelation to exist in history. But if Revelation presupposes deeply personal and intense relationships with God, impossible without keeping the commandments and following moral norms, religion can at times get along without such relationships at all.
Religiosity is often based on ideas not very different from those characteristic of ancient magic, where contact with higher powers was usually purely instrumental and required no personal relationships. And all this pagan baggage became part of the mass Yahwist religiosity that characterized the majority of the population of the Northern Kingdom. It is no wonder that the religious life of these people began to resemble the religious life of pagans, where form, ceremony, and ritual always came to the forefront sooner or later. This is a general law; such is the downward dynamic of spiritual movement in the fallen world, where Revelation is always, over time, obscured by human religiosity, sometimes becoming almost invisible against its background. And then God sends prophets to remind people of Himself and of what is most important in every religious tradition: morality, the commandments, and Revelation.
4 Oppressors threatened, Amo 4:1-3.
Idolaters given up, Amo 4:4-5.
The incorrigibleness of Israel, Amo 4:6-11.
They are still invited to repent, Amo 4:12-13.
4:1 Kine of Bashan - So Amos compares the mighty, wanton, and oppressive rulers of Israel, to those full - fed, strong, and wanton beasts which in the herds did push at, hurt, and disturb the weaker cattle.
4:2 By his holiness - By himself as he is the holy God.The days - Of famine, desolation and captivity. He - God by the Assyrian army will take you, as fish are taken with the hook.Your posterity - The children of these oppressors.
4:3 Ye - Kine of Bashan. Go out - Ye shall endeavour to make your escape. The breaches - Which the besieging enemy make in your walls, when Samaria is besieged. Before her - Taking the readiest way. The things - All the riches and ornaments of your palaces.
4:4 Come to Beth-el - A strong irony, giving them over as incorrigible.At Gilgal - Gilgal was a place where much idolatry was acted.Every morning - In the same irony God reproves their sins tho' they imitated the instituted worship at Jerusalem. Three years - God had Deu 14:28, commanded every third year that all the tithe ofthat year should be brought, and laid up in a publick store - house.
4:5 With leaven - As all the rest of your will - worship, so this also is against the express law, Lev 2:11. However, do so at your peril, try whether it will end in good. Proclaim - Publickly persuaded your people to voluntary sacrifices.
4:6 An I - The Lord who gave many blessings to win you to repentance, hath also tried what might be done by judgments.Cleanness of teeth - This is a description of famine.
4:7 When - At a season when your country most needed it.Upon one city - That you might see my hand in it, I gave rain to one city, and withheld it from the next; nay one part of the same field was watered and flourished: another part, dry and withered.
4:8 Not satisfied - Either that had not enough for them, or durst not part with it.
4:9 Increased - When they were most fruitful. Devoured - Eat up all, as is the manner of them.
4:10 Your horses - The riders being killed. The stink - So great slaughter hath been made in your camp that there were not sufficient to bury the slain.
4:11 Overthrew - By grievous and desolating judgments.As a fire - brand - Such of you as escaped were yet as fire - brands in the midst of the fire, 'till infinite mercy saved a remnant.
4:12 Therefore - In a more terrible manner will I now proceed against thee.
4:13 Declareth - Knows the thoughts of all men.The God of hosts - Whose sovereign power all creatures obey, and acts for or against us as he willeth. Let us humble ourselves before this God, and give all diligence to make him our God. For happy are the people whose God he is, and who have all this power engaged for them.