IBhayibheli

 

အာမုတ် 4:5

Funda

       

5 လုယူသောဥစ္စာထဲကကျေးဇူးချီးမွမ်းရာ ပူဇော်သက္ကာကို မီးရှို့ကြလော့။ အလိုလိုပြုသော ပူဇော်သက္ကာ များကိုလည်း ကြားပြော၍ကြော်ငြာစေကြလော့။ အိုဣသရေလအမျိုးသားတို့၊ ထိုသို့ပြုရာတွင် သင်တို့သည် မွေ့လျော်တတ်ကြသည်ဟု အရှင်ထာဝရဘုရား မိန့်တော်မူ၏။

Amazwana

 

Exploring the Meaning of Amos 4

Ngu Helen Kennedy

In chapter 4 of the Book of Amos, verses 1-3 are talking about people who pervert the truths of the church. They will fall into falsities in outermost things.

In the Bible, fish represent "lower" things than mammals, so we can interpret the fishhooks in verse 2 as meaning being caught and held fast in natural or lower things.

Verses 4-6 are about acts of worship such as tithes and sacrifices. These look similar to genuine worship, but are only external sorts of things. We can tell because ‘teeth’ (in verse 6) represent ultimates or outermost things (see Secrets of Heaven 6380). It follows that “cleanness of teeth” would mean outermost things that look good but only imitate genuine worship. The Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verses 7-8. Some things true will remain, when where there are too many false ideas, the truths don't get through. This can be seen where the Lord says, “I made it rain on one city; I withheld rain from another city... where it did not rain the part withered.” Again the Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verse 9. Afterward all things of the church are falsified, shown by blight attacking the gardens, vineyards, fig tree and olive trees. The last three represent spiritual, natural and celestial things, or all the things of spiritual life. “Yet you have not returned to me,” says the Lord.

Verses 10-11. The Lord explains the devastating things he allowed to happen: plague in Egypt, death of young men by swords, stench in the camps, Sodom and Gomorrah. This is because they are profaned by sensual knowledges. Profanation means the mixing of good and evil together. (See Secrets of Heaven 1001[2]).

This extends to all things of the church, with the church being the Lord’s kingdom on earth (Secrets of Heaven 768[3]).

With profanation “as soon as any idea of what is holy arises, the idea of what is profane joins immediately to it,” (Secrets of Heaven 301).

Now there is hardly anything left. “Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord again.

Verses 12-13: Because people adamantly remain in their profane ways, they are warned, “Prepare to meet your God!”. This is the God powerful and mighty, “who forms mountains, and creates the wind,” and even more close to home, “Who declares to man what his thought is.” As intimately a knowing as that is, the Lord’s love for all humanity is contained in His exhortations for them to turn themselves to Him.

See, for example, Luke 6:44-45, and True Christian Religion 373.

Okususelwe Emisebenzini kaSwedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #4792

Funda lesi Sigaba

  
Yiya esigabeni / 10837  
  

4792. Because food and nourishment correspond to spiritual food and nourishment, taste consequently corresponds to a perception of and an affection for this food. Spiritual food consists in knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom. These are what quicken and also sustain spirits and angels, who desire them and have an appetite for them as men desire and have an appetite for food when they are very hungry. Therefore appetite corresponds to that desire for them. And what is amazing, spirits and angels also grow to maturity on that spiritual food, for those who die as young children do not in the next life look like any but young children, and they are young children too as far as their understanding goes. But as they grow in intelligence and wisdom they cease to look like young children. They now look like those who are coming of age, and at length like adults. I have talked to some who died when they were young children and who looked to me like youths, for by then they had grown in understanding. From this one may see what spiritual food and nourishment are.

  
Yiya esigabeni / 10837  
  

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