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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 KTU 1.4 V:6 and Amos 4:7

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Amos 4 gives Israel's God Baal's power over rain from the Baal Cycle, making drought a deliberate call for the people to return to the God who controls their food supply.

Passages

KTU 1.4 V:6

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
A court, like Athirat's sons. And Lady Athirat of the Sea responds: You are great, El, so very wise; The gray hair of your beard instructs you Your soft beard down to your chest. So now may Baal enrich with his rain May he enrich with abundant water in a downpour. And may he give his voice in the clouds May he flash lightning to the earth. Is it a cedar house that he would complete Or a brick house that he would construct Let it be told to Mightiest Baal: Invite a caravan into your house, commodities amid your palace. The mountains will bring you ample silver, the hills, the finest gold; the top-tier ore will be brought to you. So build a house of silver and gold, a house of pure stones, of lapis lazuli.
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Amos 4:7

Hebrew Bible
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.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Amos

References

“... The mountainous temple home from which Baal utters his voice and rains lavishly upon the earth (KTU 1.4 V-VII) appears not only in descriptions of Yahweh roaring from Zion (Joel 3:16; Amos 1:2) or giving forth rains (Isa. 30:19; Jer. 3:3; 5:24; 10:13; 14:4; 51:16; Amos 4:7) but also in postexilic discussions of the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The tradition of the temple home that guarantees the life-giving rains underlies the relationship between tithe and temple in Malachi 3:10. This passage reflects the notion that payment of the tithe to the temple would induce Yahweh to open the windows of heaven and pour down crop-producing rains. Similarly, Haggai 1:7-11 attributes drought and scarcity to the failure to rebuild the temple. Yahweh’s role as the divine source of rain appears elsewhere in postexilic prophecy (Zech. 10:1). Joel 4 (E 3) presents various aspects of the mountain tradition. It is the divine home (4:17 [E 3:17]), the location of Yahweh’s roar (4:16 [E 3:16]), the site of divine battle (4:9-15 [E 3:9-15]) with heavenly hosts (4:11-13 [E 3:11-13]; cf. 2:1-11), and the origin of the divine rains issuing in terrestrial fertility (4:18 [E 3:18]). ...”
Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2nd ed., The Biblical Resource Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), PDF 105–106.

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KTU 1.4 V:6 and Amos 4:7

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