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.

9277. ‘Ita facies vineae tuae, oliveto tuo’: quod significet quod ita sit cum bono spirituali et cum bono caelesti, constat ex significatione ‘vineae’ quod sit Ecclesia spiritualis, de qua n. 1069, 9139, ita bonum caeleste, quod est bonum amoris in Dominum, nam hoc ¹ bonum facit Ecclesiam caelestem; quid Ecclesia spiritualis et ejus bonum, et quid Ecclesia caelestis et ejus bonum, tum quae differentia, videatur n. 2046, 2227, 2669, 2708 fin. , 2715, 2718, 2935, 2937, 2954, 3166, 3235, 3236, 3240, 3246, 3374, 3833, 3887, 3969, 4138, 4286, 4493, 4585, 4938, 5113, 5150, 5922, ² 6289, 6296, 6366, 6427, 6435, 6500, 6647, 6648, 7091, 7233, ³ 7474, 7977, 7992, 8042, 8152, 8234, 8521.

[2] Quod ‘olivetum’ significet Ecclesiam caelestem ac ita bonum caeleste, constat ex locis in Verbo ubi ‘olea’ nominatur, ut apud Moschen, Vineas plantabis et coles, sed vinum non bibes, neque congregabis, quia comedet illud vermis; oleae erunt tibi in omni termino tuo, sed oleo non unges te, quia excutietur olea tua, Deut. 28:39, 40;

agitur ibi de maledictione si dii alii colerentur et in statuta ac judicia non custodirentur; ‘oleae in omni termino’ sunt bona amoris caelestis quae a Domino per Verbum in tota Ecclesia, ‘oleo non ungi’ pro ⁴ non usque in illo bono esse, ⁵ ‘excutietur olea’ pro quod periturum id bonum: similiter apud Micham, Tu calcabis olivam sed non unges te oleo, et mustum sed non bibes vinum, 6:15:

[3] apud Amos, Percussi vos uredine et rubigine, plurimos hortos vestros, et vineas vestras, et ficus vestras, et oleas vestras comedit ⁶ eruca; nec tamen reversi estis ad Me, 9:9;

‘vineae’ pro bonis fidei, ‘oleae’ pro bonis amoris; punitio pro non receptione illorum bonorum ⁷ significatur per quod ‘oleas comedet eruca’: apud Habakuk, Ficus non florebit nec proventus in vitibus, mentietur opus olivae ⁸ et ager non faciet cibum, 3:17;

‘ficus’ pro bono naturali, ‘vitis’ pro bono spirituali, ‘oliva’ ⁹ pro bono caelesti, et ‘ager’ pro Ecclesia: apud Sachariam, Duae oleae juxta candelabrum, una a dextra ¹⁰ lecythi, et una juxta sinistram ejus; hi duo filii olei puri stantes juxta Dominum totius terrae, 9:3, 11, 14; ‘duae oleae juxta candelabrum’ pro bono caelesti et spirituali, quae sunt ad dextram et ad sinistram Domini; ‘candelabrum’ significat Dominum quoad Divinum Verum:

[4] in libro Judicum, Jotham dixit ad cives Schechemi qui regem fecerunt Abimelechum, Iverunt arbores ad ungendum super se regem, et dixerunt oleae, Regna super nos; sed dixit eis olea, Num cessare faciam pinguedinem meam quam in me honorant Deus et homines, et ibo ad movendum me super arbores? Et dixerunt arbores ad ficum, Ito tu, regnato super nos; sed dixit ad illas ficus, Num cessare faciam dulcedinem meam et proventum meum bonum, et ibo ad movendum me super arbores? Tum dixerunt arbores ad vitem, Ito tu, regnato super nos; sed dixit illis vitis, Num cessare faciam mustum meum, laetificans Deum et homines, et ibo ad movendum me super arbores? Et dixerunt omnes arbores ad rhamnum, Ito tu, regnato super nos; et dixit rhamnos ad arbores, Si in veritate vos ¹¹ ungentes me in regem super vos, venite et confidite in umbra mea; si vero non, exeat ignis e rhamno et comedat cedros Libani, 9:7-16;

quid haec in specie ¹² involvunt, non sciri potest nisi sciatur quid significat ‘olea’, ‘ficus’, ‘vitis’, et ‘rhamnos’; ‘olea’ significat bonum internum Ecclesiae caelestis, ‘ficus’ bonum externum ejus Ecclesiae, n. 4231, 5113, ‘vitis’ bonum Ecclesiae spiritualis, ‘rhamnos’ autem ¹³ bonum spurium; involvunt itaque illa, quod populus, qui hic sunt ‘arbores’, non vellet ut bonum caeleste, nec bonum spirituale, regnaret super illos, sed bonum spurium, et quod populus hoc eligeret prae illis bonis; ‘ignis ex illo’ est malum concupiscentiae, ‘cedri Libani quas consumeret’ sunt vera boni.

[5] Quia ‘olea’ significabat bonum amoris a Domino, et in Dominum, ideo cherubi in medio domus seu templi facti sunt ex ligno olei, similiter fores ad adytum, 1 Reg. 6:23-33;

‘cherubi’ enim, ut et ‘fores adyti’, significabant custodiam et providentiam Domini ne aditus sit ad Ipsum nisi per bonum amoris caelestis, ideo ex ‘ligno olei’ erant. Ex his constare potest unde sit quod tabernaculum et altare uncta fuerint oleo, tum quoque sacerdotes, et postea reges; et unde, quod oleum olivae fuerit ad lucernas; ‘oleum’ enim significabat bonum amoris a Domino, videatur n. 886, 3728, 4582, 4638, et ‘unctio’ significabat ut sic repraesentarent Dominum.

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