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阿摩司書 3

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1 以色列人哪,你們全家是我從埃及領上來的,當耶和華攻擊你們的

2 在地上萬族中,我只認識你們;因此,我必追討你們的一切罪孽。

3 人若不同心,豈能同行呢?

4 獅子若非抓食,豈能在林中咆哮呢?少壯獅子若無所得,豈能從洞中發聲呢?

5 若沒有機檻,雀豈能陷在網羅裡呢?網羅若無所得,豈能從上翻起呢?

6 城中若吹角,百姓豈不驚恐呢?災禍若臨到一城,豈非耶和華所降的麼?

7 耶和華若不將奧秘指示他的僕人─眾先知,就一無所行。

8 獅子吼叫,誰不懼呢?耶和華發命,誰能不預言呢?

9 要在亞實突的宮殿中和埃及宮殿裡傳揚:你們要聚集撒瑪利亞上,就見城中有何等大的擾亂與欺壓的事。

10 那些以強暴搶奪財物、積蓄在自己家中的人不知道行正直的事。這是耶和華的。

11 所以耶和華如此:敵人必來圍攻這,使你的勢力衰微,搶掠你的家宅。

12 耶和華如此:牧人怎樣從獅子中搶回兩條羊或半個耳朵,撒瑪利亞以色列人躺臥在床角上或鋪繡花毯的榻上,他們得救也不過如此。

13 耶和華─萬軍之:當這話,警戒雅各家。

14 我討以色列罪的日子,也要討伯特利祭壇的罪;角必被砍下,墜落於

15 我要拆毀過冬和過夏的房屋象牙房屋也必毀滅;高大的房屋都歸無有。這是耶和華的。

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 137

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137. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation. (2:22) This symbolically means that therefore they must be left to their doctrine with its falsifications and be sorely infested by falsities.

A bed symbolizes doctrine, as we will see momentarily. Those committing adultery mean, symbolically, falsifications of truth (see nos. 134 and 136 above). And tribulation symbolizes an infestation by falsities (nos. 33, 95, 101), thus a great tribulation a severe infestation.

A bed symbolizes doctrine because of its correspondence; for as the body rests in its bed, so the mind rests in its doctrine. The doctrine symbolized by a bed, however, is the kind that each person acquires for himself, either from the Word or from his own intelligence. For it is in this that his mind finds repose and, so to speak, sleeps.

The beds that people rest in in the spiritual world come from just such an origin. For everyone there has a bed in keeping with the character of his knowledge and intelligence - the wise having magnificent beds, those without wisdom having humble beds, and falsifiers having squalid beds.

[2] This is the symbolic meaning of a bed in Luke:

I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. (Luke 17:34)

The subject is the Last Judgment. The two men in one bed are two who share the same doctrine, but not the same life.

In John:

Jesus said to (the sick man), "Rise, take up your bed and walk." And... he took up his bed, and walked. (John 5:8-12)

And in Mark:

...(Jesus) said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven you." (And to the scribes He said,) "Which is easier, to say..., 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, '...take up your bed and walk'?..." (Then He said,) "Rise, take up your bed (and walk.)" And... he took up the bed and went out (from their presence). (Mark 2:5, 9, 11-12)

It is apparent that a bed has some symbolic meaning here, because Jesus said, "Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Take up your bed and walk'?" To carry one's bed and walk means, symbolically, to meditate on doctrine. That is how it is understood in heaven.

[3] A bed symbolizes doctrine also in Amos:

As a shepherd rescues from the mouth of a lion..., so shall the children of Israel be rescued who dwell in Samaria at the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch. (Amos 3:12)

At the corner of a bed and on the edge of a couch means relatively removed from the truths and goods of doctrine.

A bed or a couch has the same symbolic meaning elsewhere, as in Isaiah 28:20; 57:2, 7-8.

Because Jacob in the prophecies of the Word symbolizes the church in respect to its doctrine, therefore it is said of him that "he bowed himself on the head of the bed" (Genesis 47:31), that when Joseph came, "he sat up on the bed" (Genesis 48:2), and that "he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last" (Genesis 49:33).

Since Jacob symbolizes the church's doctrine, therefore at times, when thinking of Jacob, I have seen at a height before me a man lying on a bed.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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Servant

  

“Servant” literally means “a person who serves another," and its meaning is similar in reference to its spiritual meanings of the Bible. Our lives in their most outward form -- the physical actions we take and the thoughts and feelings directly connected to them -- are in a way “servants” to our deeper, more hidden, internal thoughts and desires. So in most cases, “servants” in the Bible represent things we're doing and thinking on that outward, external level. Servants can have good masters or evil ones, obviously, and a servant doing good work in service of an evil master is actually making the world a more evil place. So the precise meaning of a given servant in the Bible depends on the nature of the master he or she is serving. Finally, when the Bible is addressing the Lord's own spiritual development, “servant” represents the Lord's most outward aspect: the human body he inherited from Mary, with all its frailties and potential for temptation.