Read
The Women of Samaria
The Lord said:
1You women of Samaria
are fat cows!
You mistreat and abuse
the poor and needy,
then you say to your husbands,
“Bring us more drinks!”
2I, the Lord God, have sworn
by my own name
that your time is coming.
Not one of you will be left—
you will be taken away
by sharp hooks.
3You will be dragged through holes
in your city walls,
and you will be thrown
toward Harmon.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
Israel Refuses To Obey
The Lord said:
4Come to Bethel and Gilgal.
Sin all you want!
Offer sacrifices the next morning
and bring a tenth of your crops
on the third day.
5Bring offerings to show me
how thankful you are.
Gladly bring more offerings
than I have demanded.
You really love to do this.
I, the Lord God, have spoken!
How the Lord Warned Israel
6 I, the Lord, took away the food
from every town and village,
but still you rejected me.
7Three months before harvest,
I kept back the rain.
Sometimes I would let it fall
on one town or field
but not on another,
and pastures dried up.
8People from two or three towns
would go to a town
that still had water,
but it wasn't enough.
Even then you rejected me.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
9I dried up your grain fields;
your gardens and vineyards
turned brown.
Locusts ate your fig trees
and olive orchards,
but even then you rejected me.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
10I did terrible things to you,
just as I did to Egypt—
I killed your young men in war;
I let your horses be stolen,
and I made your camp stink
with dead bodies.
Even then you rejected me.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
11 I destroyed many of you,
just as I did the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were a burning stick
I rescued from the fire.
But even then you rejected me.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
12Now, Israel, I myself
will deal with you.
Get ready to face your God!
13I created the mountains
and the wind.
I let humans know
what I am thinking.
I bring darkness at dawn
and step over hills.
I am the Lord God All-Powerful!
Reflect
The CEV’s “fat cows” may be in step with modern idiom, but it lacks the class of “The cows of Bashan” (4:1 NIV) The poetry of the putdown. The lush plains of Bashan yield the fatted calf. The imagery of waddling udders and cow bells satirizes the wives of the wealthy, indulgent, drunken, selfish, servant-beating women of Israel. Saturday Night Live meets Real House Wives of Bethel. He threatens, no promises: the cows will be lead away with fishhooks. Warnings had been given and ignored: a crop failure here, a drought there, locusts everywhere.
It is terrible thing to stray from God and no longer encounter crisis. Trouble can always bring us to our knees, to repentance, to seek him for help, for forgiveness, for guidance. The absence of difficulty is not cause for relief. Oh well, God does not really mind, does not care; indeed perhaps there is nothing wrong with what we are doing. His silence seems to be saying: “Sin all you want!” But it is really the eerie, deadly silence of judgment: the calm before the storm. When he abandons us to ourselves, we are not free, we are lost, and he has stopped looking; consequences are coming over the horizon.
How often have you been that “burning stick” that he “rescued from the fire”? How often have “you rejected” him anyway? These stories, these words, they are not just history, they are our story: the rise and fall of Israel, the triumphs and failures of her heroes and villains. They are the narrative of anyone who hears him, in the sharp tongue of his prophets or the piercing shard of conscience or the moments of truth that stalk us as we hide, behind the trees in the garden we forget to tend, as we squeeze the fruit of our disobedience in fists clasped across our shame.
Respond
“The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12, NKJV)
Pierce me, that I may see what you see and live.
Alexander Best
Alexander cultivated a network of Christian leaders, OneMission, to promote collaboration, including service to the 15,000 new students arriving at University of Toronto each fall, under the umbrella, ServeToronto. He recently helped foster the same at the PanAm Games. He publishes THisToronto, a social media platform promoting & connecting the activities of over 300 ministries and churches in the city."