THE SECOND SERMON TO THE COWS OF BASHAN The Lord directs His talk to the children of Israel, calling them ‘the fat cows of Bashan’ which, on the mountains of Samaria; are not just browsing at the expense of others, but are crushing them as well; That is why they are worthy of chastisement; a continuous chastisement, and in diverse ways, until they seek salvation; whatever the sacrifices they offer. 1- The oppressive cows of Bashan 1 – 2 2- Rejection of the worship going hand in hand with oppression 4 – 5 3- Diverse ways of chastisements 6 – 11 4- The shining of salvation 12 – 13 1- THE OPPRESSIVE COWS OF BASHAN: “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring wine, let us drink’” (Amos 4: 1) ‘Bashan’, a Hebrew name meaning (a flat or level land), refers to the land that belonged to half the tribe of Manasseh (Deuteronomy 3: 13), in the Land of Canaan, East of the Jordan, between the mountain of Harmod and Gilead; A very fertile land, with plenty of water; Mentioned more than 60 times in the Holy Book; Known for its fatlings herds (Psalm 22: 12; Hezekiel 39: 18); And famed for their evergreen forests of oaks (Isaiah 2: 13; Hezekiel 27: 6; Zechariah 11: 2), up to our present day1. Here, the Lord likens the people of Israel, known for their oppression of the poor, and crushing the needy: to the fat and strong cows of Bashan, that browse on rich pastures. The extremely rich and the elite among the people, instead of helping the miserable and the oppressed, They crushed them more by oppression and tyranny; that the rich became more rich, and the poor became more poor and miserable. Those rich people used to go to their equally oppressive peers, and say: “Bring wine, let us drink”, in extravagant banquets, packed with pleasures and evil lusts; mixing their drinks with the tears of the poor and the oppressed; according to the words of the wise Solomon: “Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun; And look! The tears of the oppressed, But they have no comforter – On the side of their oppressors there was power” (Ecclesiastes 4: 1). Some believe2 that the cows of Bashan, here, are the Israeli women who got fat and more violent, because of the multitude of banquets, and of their life of excessive luxury. Those who live in Samaria used to demand from their husbands – their masters or their ‘Baals’ – to realize for them what the greater ‘Baal’ demands! And as the worship of ‘Baal’ was mainly set upon drinking wine in an excessive way, Those other ‘Baals’ used to provide their women with as much wine. It is as though, those ‘cows of Bashan’, as a result of their persuasion of their husbands to provide them with their mortal pleasures, 1 New Westminister Dict. Of the Bible, p. 94, 95. . حزقیال ص 182 2 Jerome Biblical Comm., P. 248. 39 especially the incessant drinking of wine, were accordingly responsible for the oppression of the poor and the needy. “The Lord God has sworn by His holiness, ‘Behold, the day shall come upon you when He will take you away with fishhooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. Through breaches in the wall you shall leave, each one straight ahead of her, And you shall be flung out into Harmon ‘, says the Lord’” (Amos 4: 2, 3) What would God do to those oppressive cows?! (1) The Lord has sworn by His holiness, because what those cows of Bashan have done with His poor and needy children, that He will take them away with fishhooks; As the Lord said to Sennacherib the king of Assyria on the tongue of the prophet Isaiah: “Because your rage against Me and your tumult have come up to My ears, Therefore I will put My hook in your nose, and My bridle in your lips, And I will turn you back by the way which you came” (Isaiah 37: 29; 2 Kings 19: 28). It seems that the hook that were normally put in the nose of the violent wild animal to draw it along, were also used with the human captives, including the kings, to humiliate them, the way the king of Assyria did with Menasseh king of Judah (2 Chronicles 33: 11)1. If the cows of Bashan, for the sake of their own pleasures, have been stirred up against the poor, God will draw them captives with fishhooks in their noses, without honor, authority, or power! The world, with its pleasures, would turn man into a fierce and wild animal, who assumes that no one could escape from its fangs and claws; to find himself eventually drawn in humiliation, to taste the bitterness of his oppression. (2) The punishment does not stop at the cows of Bashan, but would extend to their posterity, to be drawn with fishhooks as well! Man in his foolishness would bring loss and perdition over himself, as well as over his children. If the children of Israel represent the human soul, Their women, namely, the cows of Bashan, represent the body, that would in humiliation, fall together with the soul, and be destroyed; Whereas the children represent the talents, that would fall down and be lost, together with man’s spirit, body, and energies, because of sin. On the contrary, the righteous will have his souls exulted, his body sanctified, and his talents grown; according to the words of the Psalmist: “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed, who fears the Lord” (Psalm 128: 3, 4). He will be blessed, together with his wife, and children; namely, his soul, body, and talents. (3) Each cow will leave through breaches in the wall, straight ahead, to be flung out into the fortress, the palace, or ‘Harmon’, (according to the Greek text). The breaches in the wall might have happened in the walls , when the cows of Bashan, in their oppression and defilement, refused to stay within the walls of the divine commandment; Namely, they left through the breaches in the walls, to keep away from the commandment, and set forth toward the palace or fortress they have built for themselves by their own hands, hoping it will protect them; the way man did in the old, when he built the tower of Babel to hide in it from the face of God. If the Greek text mentioned ‘Harmon’ instead of fortress; the breaches here probably mean that the cows of Bashan that oppressed the poor will fall into captivity 1 New Westminister Dict. P 403. 40 when the walls of Samaria are broken and destroyed; will find no escape, but will be taken into captivity as though to the slaughter house1; and led by the enemy into Harmon, there to stay in humiliation. 2- REJECTION OF THE WORSHIP GOING HAND IN HAND WITH OPPRESSION: The children of Israel may assume that these warnings do not concern them; As they go to Bethel to offer sacrifices; present tithes without delay, and burn offerings of thanksgiving to God … In their own eyes, they love God! How simple it is for man to deceive himself, and deal with his evil, not by repentance and returning to God, but by carrying out some formalities of worship; through which they deprive the ecclesiastical rites of their spirit, through separating them from the practical life of faith; and through distorting the offerings and gifts, by presenting them without the heart. “Come to Bethel and transgress; At Gilgal multiply transgression” (Amos 4: 4) God says this mockingly; as, while committing all wickedness and oppressions, they keep on filling the sanctuaries, pretending to be people of religion and spirituality; They go to the sanctuaries, yet unsanctified; they go to the house of God, and do not return to God Himself! … He is as though saying to them, [Transgress, and multiply transgression; … If going frequently to the sanctuaries is to cover up your hidden evil, You are actually adding to it, and treating the wounds with more dangerous wounds]. “Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days” (Amos 4: 4) The Jew was committed to offer an annual sacrifice (1 Samuel 1: 3, 7, 21); and to present the accounts of his tithes every three years (Deuteronomy 14: 28; 26: 12). Even if the oppressor offers a sacrifice every morning, instead of every year; and gives his tithes every three days instead of every three years, It would not be well-received by God … who is not to be bribed by offerings and gifts, but seeks the spirit of giving, and the inner fruit of the heart, more than He seeks the gift itself. And as the apostle Paul says to the Philippians, with love: “You sent aid once and again for my necessities. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account” (Philippians 4: 16, 17). For this same reason, the apostle warns us against giving without love, saying: “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13: 3). “Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven. Proclaim and announce the freewill offerings. For so you love to do, O people of Israel’, says the Lord God” (Amos 4: 5) As though He says: By coming to My house and My sanctuaries to offer sacrifices, and present tithes, you offend Me; because you offer leaven and freewill offerings to My house. … Offering leaven was prohibited by the law: “No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you must not turn any leaven or honey into smoke as an offering by fire to the Lord” (Leviticus 2: 11). As leaven refer to evil that spreads like leaven in the dough; Therefore, by offering sacrifices of thanksgiving to God, that carry their evil with it; they actually provoke Him to anger. 1 Ibid P. 365. 41 In the Septuagint version it came as: “They read the law outside, and call for public meetings”. He probably means that, pretending to be religious, they discuss and debate the divine law with non-believers with great enthusiasm, and in public meetings. Yet they do not carry the law in their hearts, nor have a true relationship with God. That is the most serious portrait of religion, when it concentrates on showing off enthusiasm without an inner true life! And on partaking of collective worship and religious celebrations, without a hidden relationship with God in the soul, or in the secret place! … That is what the people of Israel loved to do, as the Lord says. 3- DIVERSE WAYS OF CHASTISEMENTS: He mentioned the diverse chastisements under which He allowed them to fall, from which they did not profit; and each time He admonishes them, saying: “’Yet you have not returned to Me’, says the Lord” (6, 8, 9, 10, 11). This shows that chastisement in the eyes of God, are not for the sake of revenge, but for love…, He longs to see man return to Him. If the past chastisements, although many and diverse, did not realize their goal, because of the hardness of man’s heart; He is committed to present chastisement of more cruel nature, in order for man to wake up, acknowledge God, and prepare himself to meet Him: “And because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel” (Amos 4: 12). This phrase is probably the key of the Book of Amos, or even of the whole Holy Book; Namely, that everything God does to His people, whether good or bad, gentle or firm, He does to let them prepare themselves to meet their God who descends to dwell in them, and to sanctify them as His own people! What are the chastisement that God allowed to come upon His people? “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places; Yet you have not returned to Me”(Amos 4: 6). Their teeth became clean because nothing ever enter their mouth to be chewed and eaten! In the Septuagint version it came: Their teeth became non-functioning, like someone unemployed of no benefit for himself or to others. Saying, “I gave you”, refers to the fact that all the natural calamities that cause famines, and make their teeth clean because of no use, do not happen haphazardly, but according to an elaborate divine plan, and a high exalted ordinance as a divine ‘gift’. God gives the goods, as He gives the anguish, the temptations, and the famines. By His love, He treats us with compassion and satisfies us; And by His wisdom He chastens us with deprivations to make us return to Him. The temptations and chastisements, He allows, reveal the work of sin in us, and its hidden evil; as it brings about: (1) Famines: “lack of bread in all your places” (Amos 4: 6); probably referring to the famine which happened in the days of the prophet Elisha and lasted seven years (2 Kings 8: 1). Sin also causes a spiritual famine, a need of spiritual bread in man’s inner life; no satisfaction, and a great void that could only be filled by the Lord Himself, the Bread coming down from heaven (John 6). (2) Spiritual draught: “I also withheld the rain from you, when there were still three months to the harvest. I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city. One field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered. So two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied”(Amos 4: 7, 8) 42 Forsaking the fountain of living water (Jeremiah 2: 13); namely Christ the Savior, the soul is deprived of the rain of the Holy Spirit, to remain in a state of draught! Two cities close to each other; one is dampened by the rain of the Spirit, while the other dries up; Two parts or fields of one city, one is dampened by the grace of the Spirit, and the other stays dry! In the world we find some hearts, opened to the fiery gift of the Spirit, to flare by it, and to bear the divine nature; And we find other hearts, shut up on themselves, to live in dryness, dead in Spirit, with nothing but barrenness and perdition! And as said by the Lord on the mouth of the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, My servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; Behold, My servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; Behold, My servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed; Behold, My servants shall sing, for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and wail for grief of spirit” (Isaiah 65: 13, 14). What are those two or three cities that wandered to another city to drink water, and were not satisfied, but the foolish virgins who seek oil from the wise ones, lest their lamps would go out; to hear them say: “No, lest there should not be enough for us and you” (Matthew 25: 9); and to end up being denied an entrance to the wedding, and the door shut up in their faces.. (3) Damaging pests like blight, mildew, and locusts, would devour the fruits of the soul, corrupt its inner garden, and destroy its vineyards and fig trees .. Which we have already discussed in detail in our study of the book of Joel. If the soul is the inner garden or paradise, with its spiritual vineyards and fig trees, that bring gladness to God; Sin, on the other hand, is like pests that turn that garden into a wilderness, and the fruit trees into a desert. (4) A plague would infects the soul as well as the body, to turn man into an invalid, helplessly lying on his bed, unable to do any work; and in need of the Savior, the true Physician of the soul. (5) Their young men would be killed with the sword; namely, man’s talents (his children) and his energies would be destroyed. (6) Their horses would be captivated: If the horses refer to strength and might; By committing sin, man would lose his authority over himself, and would turn into a captive with no strength nor freedom to work. (7) The stench of their camps would come up into their nostrils … Instead of the sweet fragrance of Christ, that brings gladness to God the Father and rejoicing to the heavenly creatures; A stench would come up from man’s inner self, as though from a dead body! He would be in need to hear the voice of the Lord Jesus, saying: “Lazarus, come forth!”, so that the dead man in him would come out of his tomb, carrying, the fragrance of life, instead of the stench of the dead, (8) Destruction by earthquakes and volcanoes: “I overthrew some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah; and you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning” (11) Instead of being destroyed by earthquakes and volcanoes with their devastating fire, we are in need for the Lord to come to us as though on a swift cloud, to destroy our inner idols, to burn our evil, and to set in the midst of our hearts an altar for Himself; as is said by the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt; The idols of Egypt will totter at His presence, and the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst; … In that day there will be an altar in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border” (Isaiah 19 1, 19). 43 Those were the divine chastisements that exposed the work of sin in the heart; and in man as a whole; with the goal of: “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel”(Amos 4: 12) 4- THE SHINING OF SALVATION: The chastisements of God exposed our corrupt condition; the way the surgeon, with his scalpel, opens up a wound to expose the corruption hidden within. Now, how would the wound be bandaged, and our condition be reformed. How would the saying “Prepare to meet your God” be realized? The answer lies in the divine words: “For Lo, the One who forms the mountains, creates the wind (the spirit), reveals His thoughts (His Christ) to mortals, makes the morning darkness, who treads on the heights of the earth – The Lord, the God of hosts is His name” (Amos 4: 13) The Lord of Glory says: “What king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousands” (Luke 14: 31). And the Psalmist says: “O Lord God of hosts, who is mighty like You, O Lord? Your faithfulness also surrounds You. You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, You still them. You have broken Rahab in pieces, as one who is slain; you have scattered Your enemies with Your mighty arm. The heavens are Yours, The earth also is Yours; The world and all its fullness, You have founded them” (Psalm 89: 8-11). If the kings and the armies during war take refuge in the mountains, God, being the Maker of mountains, and the founder of the entire world, does not take refuge in mountains. Entering into contention against God, Israel should know who God is, and what His potentials are, or else he should reconcile with him! He says: “He created the wind”; and in the Septuagint version: “He created the spirit”; The Creator of the wind, for which the leader of a battle cares, is God Himself. He makes the dawn (the morning darkness), by sending the dense clouds to cover the earth and to conceal the light. He treads the high places of the earth … He is Jehovah, the incomprehensible and the unutterable! That is Your God, whom you are committed to prepare to meet, O Israel; not for contention, but for reconciliation! In the Septuagint version it came as: “He who forms the thunder, and creates the spirit, who declares to man his Christ”. Many fathers, like St. Augustine1 believe that this text bears an obvious prophecy about the Messianic era; And that the new Israel should prepare to encounter with his God through the declaration of the Father about His Christ to man, to receive Him as the secret of reconciliation between the Father and man. Some heretics, on account of the words “He creates the spirit”, attempted to use this text to claim that the Holy Spirit is created, Yet many fathers, like St. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, rebutted their claim by saying: [We should realize that the prophet, when he speaks about forming the thunder, is referring to the creation of another spirit altogether,; and not to the Holy Spirit. As the name ‘thunder’, in the Hebrew language, was given to the gospel.;Those in whom the unshaken faith in the gospel is founded, cross over from the body to the spirit, according to the words of the Lord: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3: 6). It is God who founds the sound of the gospel, and makes man a spirit (spiritually). To him who is born of the Spirit and becomes a spirit, Christ is proclaimed, according to the 1 City of Gof 18: 28. 44 words of the apostle: “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12: 3) 1. That is the secret of the encounter of the new Israel; That God founds the thunder; namely, sends to us the word of preaching that thunders in the soul, and creates in us the spiritual nature instead of the carnal life; that Christ, the Lord of Glory, is proclaimed in us by His Holy Spirit. By that, the prophet has turned the mind of Israel, from the cruel chastisements - that failed to bring them back to God, but have only exposed their weakness and the work of sin in them – to the Savior Messiah, proclaimed by the Father to man, to receive Him by the Holy Spirit, a Redeemer and a Savior. 1 On the Faith (to Simplicius).
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