ABSTRACT
In Amos 3:13-14, unidentified people are urged to 'hear and warn' the House of Jacob. The punishment includes the destruction of the altar at Bethel. The Bethel shrine represents a sphere of social life in which presumably men possessed high levels of control. Divine action against Bashan's magnificent trees in Isa. 2:13 is only a part of God's retribution against all that is proud and arrogant in the world, including humanity; thus, it has some affinities to the Ezekiel verse. The 'cows of Bashan', therefore, seem to the author to possess an intentionally ambiguous identity. On the simplest level, they can be seen to be the rich women of Samaria, and yet, these women themselves are but a metaphor for the Israelites as a whole, with the men receiving the added insult of having their masculinity ridiculed by the overt description of the punished people as women.
