24
but let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream.
Exploring the Meaning of Amos 5
By New Christian Bible Study Staff
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.
1 Samuel 15
1
And Samuel said to Saul, Jehovah sent *me* to anoint thee king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken to the voice of the words of Jehovah.
2
Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: I have considered what Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3
Now go and smite Amalek, and destroy utterly all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
4
And Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
5
And Saul came to the city of the Amalekites, and set an ambush in the valley.
6
And Saul said to the Kenites, Go, depart, and go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. And the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
7
And Saul smote Amalek from Havilah as thou comest to Shur, which is opposite to Egypt.
8
And he took Agag the king of Amalek alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
9
And Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep and oxen, and beasts of the second bearing, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not devote them to destruction; but everything that was mean and weak, that they destroyed utterly.
10
And the word of Jehovah came to Samuel, saying,
11
It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned away from following me, and hath not fulfilled my words. And Samuel was much grieved; and he cried to Jehovah all night.
12
And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set him up a monument, and has turned about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.
13
And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, Blessed art thou of Jehovah: I have fulfilled the word of Jehovah.
14
And Samuel said, What [means] then this bleating of sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of oxen which I hear?
15
And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, because the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice to Jehovah thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.
16
And Samuel said to Saul, Stay, that I may tell thee what Jehovah has said to me this night. And he said to him, Say on.
17
And Samuel said, Was it not when thou wast little in thine eyes that thou [becamest] the head of the tribes of Israel, and Jehovah anointed thee king over Israel?
18
And Jehovah sent thee on a way and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.
19
Why then didst thou not hearken to the voice of Jehovah, but didst fall upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of Jehovah?
20
And Saul said to Samuel, I have indeed hearkened to the voice of Jehovah, and have gone the way which Jehovah sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
21
But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Jehovah thy God in Gilgal.
22
And Samuel said, Has Jehovah delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, As in hearkening to the voice of Jehovah? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, Attention than the fat of rams.
23
For rebellion is [as] the sin of divination, And selfwill is [as] iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, He hath also rejected thee from being king.
24
And Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of Jehovah, and thy words; for I feared the people, and hearkened to their voice.
25
And now, I pray thee, forgive my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship Jehovah.
26
And Samuel said to Saul, I will not turn again with thee; for thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, and Jehovah has rejected thee from being king over Israel.
27
And as Samuel turned to go away, [Saul] laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.
28
Then Samuel said to him, Jehovah has rent the kingdom of Israel from thee to-day, and has given it to thy neighbour, who is better than thou.
29
And also the Hope of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent.
30
And he said, I have sinned; honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship Jehovah thy God.
31
So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped Jehovah.
32
And Samuel said, Bring ye near to me Agag the king of Amalek. And Agag came to him gaily. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past.
33
And Samuel said, As thy sword has made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless above women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before Jehovah in Gilgal.
34
And Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul.
35
And Samuel saw Saul no more until the day of his death; for Samuel mourned over Saul; and Jehovah repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
