9033. The last two verses have dealt with the weakening of spiritual truth, that is, truth contained in the teachings and belief of the Church. But the two verses which follow next deal with the weakening of factual truth, which belongs to the literal sense of the Word, by spiritual truth, which is contained in the teachings and belief of the Church. This, it is true, appears to be a similar matter to that in the previous paragraph; but it is not similar. Therefore let an example again be used to clarify it. One spiritual truth or genuine truth contained in the teachings and belief of the Church is that the Lord punishes no one, since He is Mercy itself, and therefore whatever He does, He does because He is merciful and in no way at all because He is angry and vengeful. And yet the Lord says in Matthew,

Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna. Matthew 10:28.

Here it says that God should be feared because He is able to destroy body and soul in Gehenna, when in fact He destroys no one; but it is still a truth. Therefore it must not be dispensed with, that is, denied, because if it is denied, faith in the Word perishes. And if that perishes a person cannot have any spiritual life within himself, for spiritual life comes to a person from the Word through faith.

[2] The truth of the matter is this: It is a law of Divine order that good holds within itself its own reward, which is heaven. So too evil holds within itself its own punishment, which is hell. The first law begins in the Lord, since the Lord intends good to all; but not so the second, since the Lord intends ill to none. It nevertheless comes about, not because of the Lord but because of the person immersed in evil, thus because of evil itself. Yet such ill is attributed to the Lord in the literal sense of the Word, because He appears to be the cause of it. Therefore since it is an apparent truth it must not be denied, that is, must not be disposed of; for faith in the Word, simple people's faith, would thereby be disposed of, see 2447, 6071, 6991, 6997, 7533, 7632, 7643, 7679, 7710, 7877, 7926, 8197, 8227, 8228, 8282, 8483, 8631, 8632, 9010.

7632. 'For I have made his heart stubborn, and the heart of his servants' means that they remained obstinate, all in common with one another. This is clear from the meaning of 'making the heart stubborn', 'hardening it', and 'making it unyielding' as remaining obstinate, dealt with in 7271, 7300, 7305; and from the representation of Pharaoh, whose 'heart was made stubborn', as those engaged in molestation - all in common with one another being meant when it says 'he and his servants', because the servants and he together make up his house. When it says that Jehovah made Pharaoh's heart stubborn the meaning in the internal sense is that he himself made his heart stubborn. In ancient times everything bad was for simple people's benefit attributed to Jehovah. It was attributed to Him because simple people could not have known, and most of them could not have understood either, how the origin of things that happened could lie anywhere else than in Jehovah. Nor could they have known how to understand the truth that Jehovah permits the devil's crew to inflict evil and does not stop them, when yet He is all-powerful. Since simple people could not have grasped these matters, and also the intelligent could have scarcely done so, it was said, in keeping with what very many believed, that Jehovah was the author even of what was bad or evil. This is a common feature of the Word, whose literal sense is accommodated to the beliefs of simple people. The evil that is attributed in the Word to Jehovah has its origin in man, see 2447, 6071, 6991, 6997, 7533.