Amos 7:1

 Thus the Lord God showed me: Behold, He formed locust swarms at the beginning of the late crop; indeed it was the late crop after the king’s mowings.

• "That the church has increased from the externals to externals, ver. 1..."

• "The ‘locust’ signifies...falsity in the most external things, or the densest falsity...which is one of the curses if they did not keep and do the commandments of Jehovah....and the ‘locust’[denote] dense falsity from the sensual man that consumes and destroys...." Amos 7:1-2 is cited.

• The swarming of locust is not covered specifically for this verse of Amos, but we can draw on other references from the Word such as Exodus 10:14-15, in which the locust were so thick they darkened Egypt, and they ate the residue (the late crop) of what was left from the plague of hail.
• The Writings make a point that this represents a sad period in the life of an evil person who "persuade themselves that they are in truth by faith, but they are not; they are in falsity, and are against the truth of faith." (AC 7689) Such a spiritual state severs all connection with the light of heaven and the "crop" of every living thing is devoured with a malicious swarming of lies thus producing a gross darkness of the mind.

• We need to note the good and bad representation of king. In the good sense, "king" represents being led by the divine truth and divine good from the Lord, our "king." In the bad sense, it represents those who feign obedience but really seek to rule themselves by claiming, or demanding, merit. Let this quote help us see the difference:
  • "Those who have lived a good civic and moral life, but have persuaded themselves that they merit heaven by their works...have their false principles turned into such phantasies that they seem to themselves to be cutting grass, and are called grass-cutters.... They are always hoping to be taken up to heaven, and sometimes consult together how they may introduce themselves by their own power." (AC 1111)
    • The locusts eat early and "late" mowings by such self-serving kings.

1. The reading in P&P on this verse turns our attention to this teaching: "That the church has increased from externals to externals..." What does that mean to you? To answer this question, let’s turn to a passage in the Arcana: "...when a man is in things external, as when he is in worldly and bodily things, then the angels are removed, and when they are removed, then nothing at all of...goods and truths appears." (AC 5897[11])

2. Increasing from externals to internals is lauded. We are told that such a progression causes a conjunction of the Lord with His church. But that is not what is happening in this prophecy. All thinking and living is from sensual and bodily things. Let’s liken this process to a sand dune. Little grows on it. It offers little in the way of a firm foundation because its substance shifts with the prevailing current or wind.

3. Have you ever looked at a teaching from the Word and thought you understood the essence of the passage until popular opinions caused you to have doubts about its eternal application? Were precedents pointed out that appeared to provide exceptions to the teaching? It sometimes appears that human experience testifies against a teaching in the Word, and we need to explain away the former rigidity with modern enlightenment. "We were turning people away from the church with such hard teachings." This is an appearance, not the truth.

4. The "mowings" of modern meritorious thinking seem to hold more of an appeal than the "antiquated" teachings of the Word. There are those who want to have a feel-good experience with religion. Are we in a period of moving from externals to externals? Has the external world rationalized the Lord’s Word to the point where a "swarm" of locusts plunder everything in sight, silencing the warnings of our conscience and perception?

5. Lastly, do we see evidence that there are those who keep "cutting grass" thinking that leading a civil and moral life will carry the day and earn heaven for them? How about this statement: "It doesn’t matter what kind of faith we follow as long as we are kind to one another. We all worship the same God, and after all that is all that really matters in the long run." What truth and falsity are mixed in this statement?

Read Amos 7:1.

Read the summary from P&P.

1. What is the first act of charity? To shun evils as sins. If we move from externals to externals, how can we even begin to fulfill this requirement? Why is the internal necessary to the existence of charity in us?

2. Have you ever done a study of what acts of worship the Lord abrogated? Please check out AC 9349. This quote might be of great use if a discussion should arise about the validity of rites and rituals. Old forms verses modern forms can be a heat-producing topic.

   Did you see anything in this number that would be of great use when the world or the bodily senses (logic) try to abrogate inconvenient prohibitions to their ends?

3. How flexible have the "external of externals" made us in our thinking? Why?

4. Would you see yourself as a "mower of grass"?

5. Is it necessary for us to rework the image of the church to bring those who have been hurt back into the fold of the church? What specific things would have to be looked at and possibly changed? Would those external changes eventually lead to internal changes? Are there internal changes we can make that would bring about external changes? How can we be softer, but yet true to the Word of the Lord, so that we don’t have a "swarm of locust" so thick that the skies grow dark and the spiritual food of the soul is devoured?

Amos 7:2-6

“And so it was, when they (the locust) had finished eating the grass of the land, that I said:
O Lord God, forgive, I pray!
Oh, that Jacob may stand,
For he is small!
So the Lord relented concerning this.
It shall not be, said the Lord.
Thus the Lord God showed me: Behold, the Lord God called for conflict by fire,
and it consumed the great deep and devoured the territory.
Then I said: O Lord God, cease, I pray!
Oh, that Jacob may stand,
For he is small!
So the Lord relented concerning this.
This also shall not be, said the Lord God.”

Passages From the Writings

P&P

·        “...that when externals were corrupted, reparation was made, vers. 2-6...”

AC 4281

·        “...in the Word ‘Jacob’ denotes not only Jacob, but also all his posterity.... Jacob and his posterity were of such a character that with them celestial and spiritual love could not be conjoined with natural good (that is, the internal or spiritual man with the external or natural man)...for they did not know, nor were they willing to know, what the internal or spiritual man is, and therefore this was not revealed to them; for they believed that nothing exists in man except that which is external and natural. In all their worship they had regard to nothing else, insomuch that Divine worship was to them no otherwise than idolatrous....” Amos 7:2 is cited.

AC 7571[2]

·        This number cites Amos 7:2 regarding the meaning of “grass and herbs.” By these words are meant such things as are of the church. “...the truth which is of faith...”

AC 10441[3]

·        “In these passages Jehovah is said to have ‘repented,’ when yet it cannot be that He repents, because He knows all things before He does them; from which it is evident that by ‘repenting’ is signified mercy.” Amos 7:3, 6 are cited.

AC 587

·     “...it is of mercy to be punished, because mercy turns all the evil of punishment into good.... Mercy has its name from the fact that it delivers man from miseries and from hell...”  

AE 538[13]

·        “In these passages...‘the abyss’ and ‘the depth of the sea’ signify the hell where and from which are the falsities of evil; for the reason that the evil spirits who are there, and who while they lived as men in the world were in the falsities of evil, seem to dwell as it were in the bottom of the seas, and this more deeply according to the grievousness of the evil from which was their falsity.”  Amos 7:4 is cited as one of many examples.

Derived Doctrine

 “Oh, that Jacob may stand...” 

·        In AC 7068, we have this interesting quote: “...they who are in truth are as it were rigid, and stand erect as if they were hard; and when they ought to humble themselves before the Divine, they only bend the body a little; but they who are in good are as it were soft, and when they humble themselves before the Divine, they bow themselves down to the earth.”

·        In AR 366, we are told that standing before God is to hear and do what He commands.

·        Standing represents new life such as belong to a regenerate person. (AE 666[3])

·        Somewhere in this wide range of meanings, it would appear that the Word is contrasting the state of the Israelites to that of the external man. He is broken by the “locust” events in his life, and yet he remains resistively proud and fails to give total humility to the Lord. The external man is only willing to bend the body slightly to acknowledge the mercy of the Lord.

Jacob’s Small Size

• In AE 696, we have an explanation of the “small and the great” fearing the name of the Lord. The “small” mean those “...who have but little knowledge of the truths and goods of the church, and ‘the great’ those who know much, thus those who worship the Lord little and much; for (small or great) is measured according to how much a man knows the truths of faith and lives according to them....”

The Lord Relenting

• “The Lord relented concerning this....” Could this mean that the Lord took into account how “small” Jacob was? If Jacob had been described as “great,” would the Lord’s mercy have relented?

Conflict by Fire

·        AE 702 includes a teaching that may offer us a possible meaning of this verse. “...Where the evil are there were conflicts and disturbances of the thoughts and reasonings...respecting the goods and truths of the church.” The ranting and ravings of hell offered up confusion and uncertainty to the worship of the Lord.

• The conflict of fire could represent how the Lord’s love (fire) will consume all of these illogical ravings and disturbances. This prophecy tells us that the Lord’s love or mercy will “consume” and expose the malignant insanities the evil thought they had well hidden in the deepest recesses of their dwellings or territory.

Repetition in the Word

• Once again, the plea of the prophecy asks the Lord to cease and to help Jacob stand for he is small, and once again, we are told that the Lord relented. Why are these words repeated? Is it for poetical emphasis?
• We need to hear the teaching of the Writings:
  • “...there is not the least word [in the Word] that is superfluous and vain...There is therefore no repetition, except with another signification.” (AC 734)
  • “...he who does not know the mystery...cannot but think...[that] repetition [is] for the sake of emphasis. But this is not so.... One expression has reference to truth, the other to good; thus one has reference to the intellect...and the other to the will....” (AC 4691)                                                                    
• Therefore, we must see that this second reference is not repetition; it is for the examination of the quality of the will.

Putting It All Together

1. When externals are corrupted, the Lord works to make reparations possible for His children. When the locust “finished eating the grass of the land...the Lord relented....” Evil has to run its course, and human beings have to almost hit the bottom of despair. Providence can then enter and lift us from the grip of hell’s influence. Such states of despair help to break up the hard ground of the mind. The ground of our minds wants relief and protection from the barrenness hell has left us in.

2. How small or great are we? Will we stand before the Lord with rigidness and reluctance, bending so slightly to His magnificent royalty? Or will we fall prostrate before Him with a degree of softness and loving humbleness?

3. The Lord tells us that all factors of our choices (intentions) will be given proper consideration. We will be given an opportunity to see the contents of our understanding and our will. Mercy will carry a degree of “punishment” so that we may be led into good and that we may be rescued from the miseries of hell and their conflicts and worrisome disturbances.

Read and Review

Read Amos 7:2-6.

Read the summary from P&P.

Questions to Stimulate Reflection

1.      This section covers five verses. In comparison to some of the other sections, we had little doctrinal exposition. We had to use some “derived doctrinal” application. Is this an appropriate thing for us to do? What are the positive and negative aspects of this approach?

If you are interested in this question, get a copy of W.F. Pendleton’s The Science of Exposition. Starting on page 194, he has a chapter on making comparisons of words and passages that is very helpful and encouraging to the researcher.

2.      Prayer groups form to pray for someone in the congregation or community. They “seem” to pray so as to get the Lord to relent over some difficulty or illness. Who is helped the most with prayer?  Do you think your praying will help the problem a friend is facing? How?

3.      What is your reaction to the quotation about mercy? “It is of mercy to be punished,” and mercy has its name “from the fact that it delivers us from miseries and from hell.”

4.      The teachings on “repetition” make a statement about the Word. The Word is not superfluous and vain. When I reflect on this, I wonder about courses that teach the Bible as poetry or for literature appreciation. What spiritual effects might come from this kind of instruction? What effect will there be on organized religion if it doesn’t recognize the spiritual reasons for repetition?

5.   What are some other things in the Word that appear on the surface to make no sense?  What might be present “under the surface”?  How can you find out?