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What the Bible says about Women as Guardians of Moral Standards
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Isaiah 3:16-26

Isaiah 3:16—4:1 and Amos 4:1-3 paint rather uncomplimentary pictures of women in our time. Both predict captivity and great humiliation to the women who oppress the poor and needy, satiate their desires, and proudly vaunt their power. We need not be terribly observant to recognize that we have reached such a state in our society. It will not be long before God acts to correct it.

The genie is out of the bottle. Radical feminism will not go away until Christ returns to usher in true cooperation and proper balance between men and women. When He sets up His government, "the times of restoration of all things" will begin (Acts 3:21), and He will declare the eternal end of the battle of the sexes. Then it will not be a woman's world—or a man's world—but God's world!

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
A Woman's World

Isaiah 3:16-25

This section begins with a description of the haughtiness of Israelite women. God illustrates the pride of Israel's women in the way they walk, their dress, and the use their eyes. Instead of being modestly well-dressed and dignified, the walk, the dress, the whole appearance is designed to impress others and frankly, to scorn them. It is also designed to bring attention, prestige, and acclaim to the self.

It is common in society for modern parents to encourage, passively or not, their adolescent daughters to grow up too soon by wearing clothing, shoes, and other pieces of apparel designed to draw attention to the wrong things, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time. They give in to their children's pressure, who have already surrendered to the pressure of their peers. God says the problem is pride.

Isaiah 3:16 is an almost savage denunciation. Why is it so harsh? It is interesting to consider this in light of when it was written, around the time Israel fell and several decades before Judah's fall. Isaiah was a prophet to Judah, but before it succumbed to the Babylonians, Judahite society had disintegrated badly. Morality was at a low ebb.

The reason Isaiah 3:16 contains such a harsh denunciation is because of the influence that women hold over a nation's morality—God expects them to be the primary, daily instructors of their children. If women largely determine the character of a nation through their instruction of their children in morality, spirituality, and ideals, then they wield critical power over the nation's future. They determine whether ideals of purity, integrity, unselfishness, and faith will prevail or fall.

It ought not to be this way because the weight of instruction should fall at least equally on men. But in reality, because there is such a double standard in the world, women do most of the teaching. So when that line of defense—the moral teaching of women—breaks, and the morality of women becomes debased, then there is no hope for the nation.

Pride distorts a person's thinking into misconceiving one's function. We can apply this to what is happening in our nation. Will women fill the role God designed for them, or will they fulfill the role that the world has designed for them? God says in the next chapter that, if they choose wrongly, He will punish women by taking away their men.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Faith (Part Six)

Amos 4:1-3

"Cows of Bashan" (Amos 4:1-4) is a figure or symbol for the Israelite women in Samaria. Amos implies that these women are the trendsetters and leaders in Israelite society, a course Judah also took before she fell (Isaiah 3:12). Apparently, when nations degenerate, leaders of society, who should be setting the standards, are replaced by women and children (or the immature), who, Isaiah says, "cause [them] to err, and destroy the way of [their] paths."

In the United States, women have traditionally been the guardians of moral standards. In general, women have had high standards, while many men have held double standards. Amos, however, shows that the women of his day had slipped so far that they were "leading the pack" in immorality. And in America, the same is true: Women are becoming just as immoral as men. Between 1990 and 1991, according to the Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, the female crime rate increased 15.2 percent while the male crime rate increased by 17.4 percent.

Apparently, God built safeguards into women to ensure that some measure of right ideals, standards, and practices are passed on to the next generation. This gives a measure of stability to a society. Men, with their mind-set of aggressive ambition and their desire to compete and conquer, tend to focus on achievement, often at the expense of morality and ethics. In general, women are not designed for this role, and when they begin to fill it, a nation is on its way down very rapidly.

Besides this, a growing number of women today pursue full-time career positions for reasons of "fulfillment," personal ambition, and social advancement, diminishing their high calling as wives and mothers. Womanhood, marriage, and homemaking (Titus 2:5) have become subservient to the selfish accumulation of things. Unfortunately, many women have to work these days just to make ends meet. Primarily, Amos is speaking to the selfish, power-hungry, ruthless women we often see portrayed on television and in movies.

Amos impolitely calls them a very demeaning name: a bunch of well-fed cows. Like cows, they are just following the herd. They are content with an animal existence; that is, they are completely carnal in their outlook (Romans 8:5-7). Their concern is only for the beautification, care, and satiation of their own bodies. They live only for themselves, not for God. Isaiah captures their attitude in a word—complacent (Isaiah 32:9-11).

Like their husbands, these cows of Bashan oppress the poor and crush the needy. By demanding more things, they push their husbands to succeed—at the expense of the weak. With the attitude shown in this passage, though, they probably did not care as long as their "needs" were met.

The word translated "fishhooks" (verse 2) is quite obscure in the Hebrew, but it suggests that these lazy women will be ignominiously herded into captivity. Some have suggested it means carried away on the shields of their enemies or pulled on a leash.

In any case, those who formerly lay on the beds of ivory and on plush couches, pandering to themselves, will be led in humiliation through Samaria and into slavery. Isaiah also describes the same scene in Isaiah 3:16-26. Because of their oppression and their haughty self-concern, their riches and beauty will be stripped away, and they will be left with nothing.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prepare to Meet Your God! (The Book of Amos) (Part One)


 




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