In this fifth chapter of the Book of Amos, the first three verses (Amos 5:1-3) state the Lord's sorrow that the church - the truth from the Divine flowing into the world - has successively been devastated. (That was seen in Amos 4). When, in verse 3, it says, “The city that goes out by a thousand shall have a hundred left,” it means that very little truth is left to nourish the people. This bad state is their own doing.

In Amos 5:4-9, amid this dying out, the Lord entreats, almost anxiously, “Seek Me and live,” and then names traps, or spiritual states, that will turn people away from Him: Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba.

- The first, Bethel, here stands for falsifying knowledges.

- The second, Gilgal, signifies sensuous or external pleasures.

- The third, Beersheba, symbolized the last negative attitudes towards everything that constitutes faith and its doctrine. (See Arcana Coelestia 3923).

The next warning is to those “who turn justice into wormwood,” in Amos 5:7, i.e. they turn good into evil. (Arcana Coelestia 1488)

The Lord wants the people to return to Him, and explains clearly that He is the source of power, the one who, “made the Pleiades and Orion,” and the one who “rains ruin upon the strong”.

In Amos 5:10-13, in their love of their own intelligence, people continue to reject the Lord, to “tread down the poor,” rejecting even the little bits of truth coming to them. The people are warned, “Though you have built houses of hewn stone, yet you shall not dwell in them."

Stone meaning truths in our natural minds. (Apocalypse Explained 745). The dictionary meaning of “hewn” means a workman making something, so it can be seen as coming from ourselves, or our own intelligence. Anything like that is “devoid of life from the Divine” (Arcana Coelestia 9852).

In Amos 5:14-15, the path is shown for the way the Lord can be with us: “Seek good and not evil, that you may live.” It can’t be any plainer. In that way the Lord can reach out with His mercy, and “be gracious to the remnant of Joseph”. That remnant is a small amount of truth, and Joseph is the spiritual part of us. (Arcana Coelestia 3921).

In Amos 5:16-20, people are warned of how bad it will be for them when the day of the Lord comes. “Is not the day of the Lord darkness?”, for those who are in evil, “with no brightness in it?” A person’s suffering will be painful, “as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him,” and terrorizing, “As though a man fled from a lion and a bear met him.”

In Amos 5:21-22, God warns that people's fear-spurred worship won’t be accepted. He says, “I hate, I despise your feast days”. The strong language of the Lord is the mirror opposite of the depth of the evil the people are in.

In verses 23-25, "Take away your noisy songs and melodies," the Lord says, i.e. take away what sounds beautiful to you but is hurtful to the Divine because it lacks internal goodness and truth. In its place, in one of the Bible's memorable images, Jehovah says, "Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mightly stream”.

Then, at the end, in verses 26-27, the warning is clear: if the people don’t return to the Lord, everything good will be taken from them, as shown in verse 27:

“Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus”.

Damascus was the furthest boundary of Canaan, or beyond where spiritual things reside. The “boundary of Damascus” is also referred to in Ezekiel 47:16-18. See also Apocalypse Explained 1088.

2495. It has been stated and shown in many places already that the Word has an internal sense within it that is not seen in the letter. Also the nature of that sense is evident from the explanation given so far from Genesis 1 onwards. Even so, because the few at the present day who do believe in the Word do not in spite of that belief know about the existence of such an internal sense, let further confirmation of it be given.

[2] The Lord describes the close of the age, that is, the final period of the Church, as follows,

Immediately after the affliction of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Matthew 24:29; Mark 13:24-25.

That 'the sun' here does not mean the sun, nor 'the moon' the moon, nor 'the stars' the stars, but that 'the sun' means love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, 'the moon' faith received from love and charity, and 'the stars' cognitions of good and truth, has been shown in 31, 32, 1053, 1521, 1529-1531, 2120, 2441. Thus these words spoken by the Lord mean that when the close of the age or final period has arrived there will no longer be any love or any charity, or consequently any faith. It is evident that this is their meaning from similar words of the Lord that occur in the Prophets, as in Isaiah,

Behold, the day of Jehovah comes, to make the earth a desolation, and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not shine with their light. The sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not give its light. Isaiah 13:9-10.

This too refers to the final period of the Church, or what amounts to the same, the close of the age.

[3] In Joel,

A day of darkness and thick darkness, a day of cloud and obscurity. The earth quaked before Him, the heavens trembled. The sun and the moon were darkened, and the stars withdrew their shining. Joel 2:2, 10.

Here the meaning is similar. Elsewhere in the same prophet,

The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah comes. Joel 2:31.

In addition in the same prophet,

The day of Jehovah is near. The sun and the moon have been darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. Joel 3:14-15.

In Ezekiel,

When I have blotted you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars, I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. All the bright lights in the heavens I will make dark over you, and I will put darkness over your land. Ezekiel 32:7-8.

Likewise in John,

When he opened the sixth seal I looked, and behold, a great earthquake took place, and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the full moon became like blood, and the stars fell to the earth. Revelation 6:12-13.

In the same book,

The fourth angel sounded, so that the third part of the sun was struck, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars, and a third part of them was darkened. Revelation 8:12.

[4] These places show clearly that the Lord's words in the Gospels embody much the same as the Lord's words in the Prophets - namely that in the last times there will be no charity and no faith - and that this is the internal sense. All this is further evident in Isaiah,

The moon will blush, and the sun be ashamed, for Jehovah Zebaoth will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem. Isaiah 24:23.

The meaning here is that faith, which is 'the moon', will blush, and charity, which is 'the sun', will be ashamed because their condition is such; for it cannot be said of the moon and the sun that they will blush and be ashamed. And in Daniel,

The horn of the he-goat grew towards the south, and towards the east, and grew even towards the host of heaven, and it cast down to the earth some of the host, and of the stars, and trampled on them. Daniel 8:9-10.

Here it is evident to anyone that 'the host of heaven' does not mean a host, nor 'the stars' the stars.