The Bible

 

Amos 6:11

Study

       

11 For behold, Jehovah commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.

Commentary

 

Exploring the Meaning of Amos 6

By Helen Kennedy

Woe is called upon people who seem to live a life of ease and fill it with pleasures -- for example, those who “eat lambs from the flock.” (Amos 6:4)

Using the significations mentioned elsewhere in Swedenborg’s works, this could mean “those who attribute innocence (the lamb) to themselves,” or think they are blameless when they have actually sinned.

Also, to ask, “Do horses run on rocks?”(Amos 6:12) is a great image for when our understanding is filled with only literal or external truths but doesn’t delve into deeper ones that show the Lord’s leading more clearly.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #9852

Study this Passage

  
/ 10837  
  

9852. 'And two small chains of pure gold' means coherence with the good of the whole kingdom. This is clear from the meaning of 'small chains' as coherence (the reason why 'small chains' has this meaning is that such chains serve to join things together, and when joined together those things cohere, coherence with the spiritual kingdom being meant here because the small chains were fabricated to make [the shoulder-pieces] cohere with the ephod, which represented the spiritual kingdom in general, 9824); and from the meaning of 'gold' as the good of love, dealt with in 113, 1551, 1552, 5658, 6914, 6917, 9490. The words 'pure gold' are used because good from the Divine is meant; for this good is pure, and it holds all things in heaven in connection and in an outward form. The meaning of 'chains' as coherence is also evident in Isaiah,

The craftsman casts a graven image, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains for it. Isaiah 40:19.

'A graven image' means teachings presenting falsity, which are a product of self-intelligence, and so are devoid of life from the Divine, 8869, 8941. Producing such teachings is meant by 'the craftsman casts a graven image'. The effort to make them look like a product of good is meant by 'a goldsmith overlays it with gold'. To make falsities cohere is meant by 'he casts silver chains for it', 'silver' meaning truth and in the contrary sense falsity, see 1551, 2954, 5658, 6112, 6911, 6917, 8932.

  
/ 10837  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.