Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,
    you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy
    and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”
Amos 4:1 (NIV)

As we began this chapter-a-day trek through Amos, I likened the working man’s prophet with Oliver Anthony, an Appalachian singer-songwriter who recently went from anonymity to having the most popular song on the planet overnight. His song, Rich Men North of Richmond is classic protest song in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, the likes of which we have not heard since Bob Dylan’s Masters of War in the early 1960s. Both of these songs stand out, not just because they are well-crafted songs, but because the are the raw cries of broken and angry souls. (For any who aren’t familiar with one, or both, I will post links to both at the bottom of this post and I encourage you to search for the lyrics online and take a few minutes to listen.)

Rich Men North of Richmond is a fascinating song to have resonated so deeply with so many at this moment in time. It is a scathing rebuke of American government (Washington D.C. is roughly 100 miles north of Richmond, Virginia) and policies that has left people feeling that our leaders have marginalized the many in pandering to the few. The lyrics don’t mince words. They bite. They bite hard amidst a culture that throws around terms such as micro-aggressions, trigger warnings, and the violence of words in order to duck-and-cover under the desks of their victim status.

This is why I come back to this song after meditating on today’s chapter. Amos’ prophecy stands up along side these modern songs of angry, soul-aching protest. Amos begins by calling the elite, wealthy women of Israel “cows of Bashan,” which in that day were prime exclusive, pampered livestock that would have been the choice meats enjoyed by the lucky few of their day.

Amos immediately moves from this image to that of conquered peoples being led by a hook through the nose. This was a common practice in ancient times. A ring or hook through the nose, attached to a rope, was how victors humiliated their defeated foes as they led them off into slavery. Of course, metaphors are layered with meaning. A ring through the nose is also how cattle and livestock were controlled and led. The elitist, wealthy, pampered women of Israel, the “cows of Bashan,” will become humiliated, human livestock.

Amos then immediately pivots to dripping sarcasm telling his elitist audience to “go to Bethel and Gilgal” to make sacrifices, offerings, and tithes. Lost on modern readers, these two worship centers were set up as a nod to Yaweh and the God of their ancestors, but they mixed their people’s religion with those of other pagan gods. The northern Kingdom of Israel gave their people an “alternative” to going to Jerusalem and worshipping Yahweh at Solomon’s temple. Thus, the worship of God was not the worship of God at all, but a watered-down, pagan version of it that the elites of Israel practiced religiously. A system of regular sacrifices, offerings, and tithes. The worship of Bethel and Gilgal were a shadow of the real worship God designed for His people.

What did God demand of his people in the Law of Moses? He demanded that the choicest of meat be used for sacrifice. What was the choicest beef in Israel? The pampered cows of Bashan. In just a few verses, Amos has called the rich, elitist women of Israel cows, intimated that they will humiliated like common livestock, and further insinuated that in profaning the true worship of the Holy God, they have made themselves the sacrifice of choice to a foreign power who will come with judgement.

These are words that bite.

In the quiet this morning, I ponder the culture I see around me. I think back to the first time I listened to Bob Dylan’s Masters of War in the 1970s on my Walkman as I walked home from school. I was young, but still remember the anger over the Vietnam war and over Watergate. I grew up being taught that freedom of speech means that we have the right to speak words that bite, that we sometimes have to hear words that bite (even if we don’t want to hear them), and that sometimes we need words that bite. We need words that bite to wake us from the fog of our complacency, to reveal our need of personal, moral, political, and cultural change, and to drive us to our knees in repentance. That’s why God raised up prophets like Amos. That’s why we still need modern-day prophets like Bob Dylan and Oliver Anthony.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.