Amos 3:14. "On the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground."

The prophecies I have been reading lately have been focusing on Judah, and its fall at the hands of Babylon, but God, through Amos, is speaking to Israel here. The Jewish kingdom had divided, Israel to the north with Samaria as its capital, and Judah to the south with its capital of Jerusalem. When the northern tribes separated, their king, Jeroboam, worried that the people would be drawn back to Jerusalem to worship at the temple, so he made two golden calves, called them Israel's gods, and placed one in Bethel and one in Dan (1 Kings 12: 28-29). Essentially, the people were led back into idolatry, although they were confused enough to think they were worshiping the one true God, and were going through the motions of doing so. Through Amos, God is promising to punish Israel for its transgressions.

When I read this, passage, I did not know what the "horns of the altar" were, so I looked them up. In Exodus, God tells Moses to construct an altar for sacrifice, and tells him "Make a horn at each of the four corners, so that the horns and the altar are of one piece." (Exodus 27:2) The two articles I found explaining the horns and the significance of this prophecy explain them well, so I recommend them: "What was the significance of the horns of the altar (Amos 3:14)? , and Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible, Amos 3:14, reprinted by studylight.org. Basically, the Israelites had fallen into idolatry that mimicked the worship of the true God. The horns of the altar were meaningful because in the Old Testament, grasping those horns was a way for fugitives to seek asylum. God promising to take them away was essentially Him saying there would be no refuge from the coming punishment.

Going a bit deeper, though, I think the horns of the altar could not possibly give refuge, since they were just a facsimile of the real thing. In Israel, after the divide, the whole altar was really like a prop. The horns were on the altar of sacrifice, but the people of Israel were only going through the motions of sacrifice on this altar, they were not actually sacrificing at all. They had become comfortable and complacent (in later verses, Amos upbraids the women of Samaria as "cows of Bashan," who lie in comfort, eating and drinking while ignoring the poor).

The sacrifices God asked of Moses and the Israelites were supposed to mean something. That is why it was the "first fruits" and the unblemished lamb that were to be sacrificed - God wanted the people to see the value of the gifts He had given them and to willingly and joyfully offer the choicest portions back to Him, His priests, and His people. This kind of sacrifice is one we all want to do when we love - just look at how we sacrifice for our spouses and our children.

When we are just going through the motions of sacrifice - giving the least we can get away with in a spirit of indifference - we are actually not loving or worshiping God at all, we are worshiping idols - the idols of our comfort. Thus, the places and altars we use for these sacrifices become meaningless. They are like the set and props of a play we are acting out. The altar at Bethel was like this - a cheap prop, not imbued with any of the mystical aspects of a true sacrifice because no true sacrifice had ever been offered there. The horns and the altar were not "of one piece" , they were pieced together by a people trying to look like they were making a sacrifice there. The horns meant nothing, and would fall to the ground worthlessly, unable to offer any refuge or hope when this reality was revealed.