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Amos

About this book
Chapter 4

1 Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan who live on Mount Samaria! You oppress the poor; you crush the needy. You say to your husbands, “Bring us more to drink!” 2 The Sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his own holy character: “Certainly the time is approaching when you will be carried away in baskets, every last one of you in fishermen’s pots. 3 Each of you will go straight through the gaps in the walls; you will be thrown out toward Harmon.” The Lord is speaking. 4 “Go to Bethel and rebel! At Gilgal rebel some more!⁠ Bring your sacrifices in the morning, your tithes on the third day! 5 Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast!⁠ Make a public display of your voluntary offerings! For you love to do this, you Israelites.”⁠ The Sovereign Lord is speaking. 6 “But surely I gave you no food to eat in all your cities; you lacked food everywhere you lived. Still you did not come back to me.” The Lord is speaking. 7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. I gave rain to one city, but not to another. One field would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.⁠ 8 People from two or three cities staggered into one city to get water, but remained thirsty. Still you did not come back to me.” The Lord is speaking. 9 “I destroyed your crops with blight and disease. Locusts kept devouring your orchards, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees. Still you did not come back to me.”⁠ The Lord is speaking. 10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. I killed your young men with the sword, along with the horses you had captured. I made the stench from the corpses rise up into your nostrils. Still you did not come back to me.” The Lord is speaking. 11 “I overthrew some of you the way God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the flames.⁠ Still you did not come back to me.” The Lord is speaking. 12 “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel. Because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel!” 13 For here he is! He formed the mountains and created the wind.⁠ He reveals his plans to men.⁠ He turns the dawn into darkness and marches on the heights of the earth.⁠ The Lord God of Heaven’s Armies is his name!

Texts in conversation

Compare Amos 4:4 and Jonathan Amos 4:4

Hebrew Bible · Targum

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Summary

Amos 4 describes God giving ironic commands, urging the people to continue their sin at Bethel and Gilgal as a form of rebellion. The Aramaic translation in Targum Jonathan changes this to remove the irony, likely to avoid making God look cruel.

Passages

Amos 4:4

Hebrew Bible
3 Each of you will go straight through the gaps in the walls; you will be thrown out toward Harmon.” The Lord is speaking. 4 “Go to Bethel and rebel! At Gilgal rebel some more! Bring your sacrifices in the morning, your tithes on the third day! 5 Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast! Make a public display of your voluntary offerings! For you love to do this, you Israelites.” The Sovereign Lord is speaking.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Amos

Jonathan Amos 4:4

Targum
3 They shall break down the wall upon you and they shall lead you out headlong like women and deport you beyond the mountains of Armenia,” says the Lord. 4 “They came to Bethel and rebelled, in Gilgal they increased sinning, bringing your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days. 5 You collect a free-will offering by violence and bring it with a song, saying, ‘This is for acceptance.’ For you love that sort of thing, O people of Israel,” says the Lord God.
200–300 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jonathan Amos

References

"... Amos 4:4 ... The Masoretic text’s ironic invitation, ‘Come to Bethel and transgress; to Gilgal and transgress even more’, is altered by the Targumist who probably wanted to avoid Yahweh’s involvement in a summons to evil. ..."
Kevin J. Cathcart and Robert P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets, ArBib 14 (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989), 83.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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