Gender inconsistency in Hebrew Pronominal suffixes in Amos 4:1-5

Hi Gift, Great question. I always recommend starting with Christo van der Merwe’s Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar. Also, Naama Zahavi-Ely has written on this topic with gendered language in Ruth. As you know, the הם ending on לאדני does not match the feminine referent פרות (cows). Note that the BHS apparatus proposes a feminine ending here. Also, I think Naama’s paper might help explain why a masculine ending came to be here (because they were so frequently used as to become default). In v2, the two instances of כם suffix on על and את does not match the feminine referent nor the following feminine suffix כן. Note that the BHS apparatus also proposes feminine suffixes for the two masculine ones. In v3, note that the two instances of נה on תצאנה and והשלכתנה are not pronominal suffixes, but part of the verbal conjugation. Nevertheless, this marks them as explicitly feminine along with the noun אשה. However, נה on ההרמונה is not a suffix. ההרמון is Mount Hermon and the lone ה suffix ִis the so-called directional ה which is to be translated as “to” or “towards” (thus, ’toward Mt. Hermon’). Vss 4-5 do not have proposals in the BHS apparatus for feminine endings. Since a נאם־יהוה ended v3, and thus more speech continues in v4, is it possible to read vss4-5 as directed to larger group than only the פרות (cows), since it is in a new נאם (utterance)?

Daniel, Thank you for the advice and observations. I really appreciate the guidance and will immediately start looking at you suggestions. Regarding vs 4-5, I am under the assumption that the solution to the gender problem is key to understanding who the addressee was in both cases i.e the first three verses as well as vs 4-5. Nevertheless, I will re-look at how נאם־יהוה would be of help to solve part of the puzzle.

I very much like this reading of v 1, but it creates more problems than it solves. The אשר relative clause modifies פרות הבשן (cows of Bashan) localizes the geography of the cows (on Mount Samaria) and strings three feminine participles together including האמרת. If the actors of האמרת are indeed the poor/needy (דלים and אביונים-both masculine nouns) instead of the feminine cows of Bashan, then one needs to explain why the gender does not match between the participle and noun(s) which perform it. Further, one would need to explain this mismatch in a way that also accounts for why such a mismatch would occur in a string of participles that are all morphologically feminine. And one would need to explain, with other examples, how this is the case inside a BH אשר clause. Are there other examples where morphologically similar participle usages within an אשר clause are "broken" in the sense that they (or at least one of them) stops referring back to the noun phrase which the אשר clause modifies and starts referring to the closest noun, despite the morphological mismatch? I'm not aware of such cases.

I understand what you are saying now. Thanks for explaining further. Are there other examples of הם or another pronom suffix referring to a closer noun rather than back to the noun which governs the relative clause?

I did a grammatical search for similar constructions, and found that sometimes the ‎הֶם refers to a noun immediately before it, sometimes to a noun after it, sometimes to a noun that isn't even in the verse or sentences before, and often not to the noun that governs the clause. Here are just a few references to look at, not classified too much, as I found 172 hits on the search to study: Exo. 26:32, 27:16, 18; Lev. 11:24; 2 Kings 17:34; 2 Chron. 19:10. At this point I would say that the antecedent of the pronoun could be in a variety of positions with a variety of constructions, which is what my Hebrew intuition would have said if asked before I did the search. If you want to take the time, here is the list of 172 hits in 163 verses of my search: Gen. 32:16; 42:35; 43:32; Ex. 13:21; 25:20; 26:32; 27:16-18; 37:9; Lév. 11:24-25, 27-28, 31, 36; 17:10, 13; 18:29; 24:14; Nomb. 5:3; 10:33; 14:14; 15:26, 29; 16:27; 19:10; 21:18; Deut. 12:2; 13:14; 19:1; Josué 6:13; 8:35; 9:5; 11:6, 13; 17:2; 20:9; 24:15; Juges 6:10; 7:6; 19:22; 1 Sam. 18:16; 26:12; 2 Sam. 15:11; 23:6, 17; 1 Rois 10:5; 22:10; 2 Rois 17:31, 34, 41; 22:7; 1 Chron. 6:18; 2 Chron. 3:13; 5:12; 9:4; 11:16; 18:9; 19:10; 31:6; 35:25; Néh. 6:17; 9:3, 6, 29; 10:30; Esther 9:2, 5; Job 1:14; 3:15; 21:8, 29; Ps. 5:10; 19:4; 28:3; 33:15; 49:7; 57:5; 68:28; 69:26; 99:8; 129:3; 136:10; 144:12; 145:15; 147:3; Prov. 2:15; 8:21; 9:15; 11:3; 22:2; Es. 31:4; 40:26; 44:9; 45:20; 46:1; 49:23, 26; 59:5; 63:12; 66:24; Jér. 5:6; 6:3; 8:1, 6, 12; 9:7; 12:14; 13:10; 14:12; 19:7, 9; 21:7; 22:27; 23:31; 25:36; 34:20-21; 36:6; 44:14-15; 46:26; 49:7, 37; 50:7; Lament. 1:11; 3:62; 5:8; Ezéch. 1:22; 2:6; 3:15; 6:9; 8:11; 11:21; 13:3; 20:30; 23:23; 26:17; 31:14; 33:31; 36:17; 38:4, 11, 15; Dan. 1:16; Osée 7:7; 9:4; 11:4; Amos 4:1; Jonas 2:9; Michée 2:1, 13; 3:2, 5; 7:13; Nahum 2:3; Soph. 1:5, 9, 12; 3:6; Zach. 7:11; 11:3 (I apologize for the French names. I have my program set for French right now!)