The Bible

 

Amos 2

Study

   

1 Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Moab, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:

2 but I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet;

3 and I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith Jehovah.

4 Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have rejected the law of Jehovah, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have caused them to err, after which their fathers did walk:

5 but I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

6 Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes-

7 they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father go unto the [same] maiden, to profane my holy name:

8 and they lay themselves down beside every altar upon clothes taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of such as have been fined.

9 Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

10 Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.

11 And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith Jehovah.

12 But ye gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.

13 Behold, I will press [you] in your place, as a cart presseth that is full of sheaves.

14 And flight shall perish from the swift; and the strong shall not strengthen his force; neither shall the mighty deliver himself;

15 neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver [himself]; neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself;

16 and he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith Jehovah.

   

Commentary

 

Dust

  

Dust, in Ezekiel 26:12, signifies the lowest things which are of the sensual principle of man. They can be either good or bad, depending on the context.

In Isaiah 40:12, the dust signifies exterior or natural truths and goods of heaven and the church.

In Genesis 2:7, the dust is good, and we see some interesting nuances:

First, there's this: 'To form the man, dust from the ground' is to form his external man, which had not previously been man... (Arcana Coelestia 94)

Here, this formation of our external body and mind is a precursor, setting the stage for God to "breathe into our nostrils".

In Arcana Coelestia 1610, we find this passage, where again, dust has a good signification:

'Dust of the earth' has regard to those things that are celestial, for, as shown already, 'the earth' means the celestial aspect of love; 'dust of the sea' has regard to those things that are spiritual, for 'the sea', as has also been shown, means the spiritual aspect of love; while 'as the stars of heaven' means both but in a higher degree. And because these things cannot be numbered they therefore became common expressions to describe growth and multiplication beyond measure.

Then, in Arcana Coelestia 3707, these ideas get pulled together:

The reason the dust of the earth symbolizes goodness is that the earth, [or land,] symbolizes the Lord’s kingdom and therefore goodness, as shown just above in §3705. The dust of that land, then, means goodness, but earthly goodness, since the land symbolizes what is lowest in the Lord’s kingdom....

But there are bad connotations, too. In Micah 7:14-17, licking dust symbolizes being only sensual - bodily and external, worldly, and selfish. It's much the same in Psalms 72:9, where "Barbarians will bow down before God, and His enemies lick the dust...". See Arcana Coelestia 249, 3413 for interesting explanations of this.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 1145)