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.

4585. ‘Profecti a Bethel, et fuit adhuc tractus terrae ad veniendum Ephratam’: quod significet quod nunc spirituale caelestis, constat a significatione ‘proficisci a Bethel’ quod sit continuum progressionis Divini a Divino Naturali; quod ‘proficisci’ sit continuum, videatur n. 4554, hic in supremo sensu continuum progressionis Divini, et quod Bethel sit Divinum Naturale, n. 4559, 4560; ¹ a significatione ‘tractus terrae ad veniendum’ quod sit intermedium, de qua sequitur; et a significatione ‘Ephratae’ quod sit spirituale caelestis in statu priore, de qua infra ubi de Bethlehem, quae est spirituale caelestis in statu novo, inde dicitur ‘Ephrath haec Bethlehem’, vers. seq. 19. Agitur in his versibus de progressione Divini Domini versus interiora;

[2] Dominus enim cum Humanum Suum Divinum fecit, simili ordine progressus est quo cum hominem per regenerationem novum facit, nempe ab externis ² ad interiora, ita a vero quod in ultimo ordinis ad bonum quod interius est et bonum spirituale vocatur, et inde ad bonum caeleste; sed haec in intellectum alicujus cadere nequeunt nisi sciatur quid homo externus et homo internus, et quod ille ³ ab hoc distinctus sit, tametsi apparent cum homo vivit in corpore, sicut unum; tum nisi sciatur quod naturale constituat externum hominem, et rationale internum; et insuper nisi sciatur quid spirituale et quid caeleste;

[3] haec quidem aliquoties prius explicata sunt, sed usque qui nullam ideam de illis prius habuerunt, ex causa quia non in aliquo desiderio fuerunt sciendi illa quae sunt vitae aeternae, nec ullam habere possunt; hi dicunt ⁴ , quid homo internus? an is potest esse distinctus ab externo?

tum quid naturale et rationale, annon unum? insuper quid spirituale et caeleste, anne nova distinctio? de spirituali audivimus, quod caeleste sit aliud, non audivimus; sed usque ita se res habet, qui de illis non aliquam ideam sibi prius comparaverunt, ex causa quod curae mundi et corporis possideant ⁵ omne cogitationis, et auferant ⁶ omne desiderii sciendi aliud, vel quod autument satis esse scire doctrinalia quantum vulgus, et quod non interest ultra cogitare quia mundum videmus, alteram vitam non videmus, fortassis est, et fortassis non; illi qui tales sunt, haec removent ⁷ a se, nam usque ad primam intuitionem corde rejiciunt:

[4] verumtamen quia talia sunt quae in Verbi sensu interno continentur, et illa absque terminis adaequatis explicari nequeunt, et termini adaequatiores non dantur ad exprimendum exteriora quam per ‘naturale’, et interiora per ‘rationale’, et illa quae sunt veri per ‘spirituale’, et illa quae sunt boni per ‘caeleste’, non potest aliter quam illas voces in usum adhibere, nam absque vocibus rei adaequatis nihil potest describi; ut itaque illi qui in desiderio sciendi sunt, aliquam ideam accipiant quid spirituale caelestis ⁸ quod Benjamin repraesentat et quod Bethlehem significat, paucis dicendum: actum est in sensu supremo de glorificatione Naturalis Domini, et in sensu respectivo de regeneratione hominis quoad ejus naturale; quod ‘Jacob’ repraesentaverit hominem Ecclesiae quoad ejus externum, et ‘Israel’ quoad internum, ita ‘Jacob’ quoad ⁹ naturale ejus exterius, et ‘Israel’ quoad interius, n. 4286, ' in praecedentibus ostensum est, nam spiritualis homo est ex naturali, caelestis autem ex rationali; tum ostensum, quod glorificatio Domini processerit ab externis ad interiora, ¹⁰ similiter ac procedit regeneratio hominis, et quod repraesentationis hujus causa Jacob vocatus sit Israel;

[5] nunc autem agitur de progressione ulteriore versus interiora, nempe versus rationale, nam, ut mox supra dictum, rationale constituit internum hominem; intermedium inter internum naturalis et externum rationalis, est quod intelligitur per spirituale caelestis, quod significatur per ‘Ephratam’ et ‘Bethlehem’, et repraesentatur per ‘Benjaminem’; hoc intermedium trahit aliquid ab interno naturalis quod est ‘Israel’,

et ab externo rationalis quod est ‘Josephus’; quod enim intermedium est, trahit aliquid ab utroque, alioquin pro intermedio inservire non potest; ut aliquis a spirituali fiat caelestis, necessario progredietur per hoc intermedium; absque intermedio scandere ad superiora non possibile est:

[6] qualis itaque progressus sit per intermedium illud describitur hic in sensu interno per quod ‘venerit Jacob ad Ephratam’, et quod ¹¹ ‘ibi Rachel pepererit Benjaminem’; inde patet quod per ‘profecti a Bethel, et fuit adhuc tractus terrae ad veniendum Ephratam’ significetur continuum progressionis Divini Domini a Divino Naturali ad spirituale caelestis, quod per Ephratam et Bethlehem ‘Benjaminem repraesentatur’: est spirituale ¹² caelestis intermedium illud, de quo dictum; spirituale dicitur a spirituali homine, qui in se spectatus est interior naturalis ¹³ , et [caelestis] a caelesti homine, qui in se spectatus est rationalis; ‘Josephus’ est exterior rationalis, quare de eo praedicatur caeleste spiritualis e rationali.

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