35. 28 shows that the Old Testament prophets represented the Lord in respect to the Word and therefore meant the teaching of the church drawn from the Word, and that because of this they were addressed as “children of humanity.” It follows from this that by the various things they suffered and endured they represented the violence done to the literal meaning of the Word by Jews. Isaiah, for example, took the sackcloth off his waist and the sandals off his feet and went naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:2-3). Similarly, Ezekiel the prophet took a barber’s razor to his head and his beard, burned a third of the hair in the middle of the city, struck a third with a sword, and scattered a third to the wind; also, he bound a few hairs in his hems and eventually threw a few into the midst of a fire and burned them (Ezekiel 5:1-4).

Since the prophets represented the Word and therefore meant the teaching of the church drawn from the Word (as just noted), and since the head means wisdom from the Word, the hair and the beard mean the outermost form of truth. It is because of this meaning that inflicting baldness on yourself was a sign of immense grief and being discovered to be bald was an immense disgrace. This and this alone is why the prophet shaved off his hair and his beard - to represent the state of the Jewish church in regard to the Word. This and this alone is why two she-bears tore apart forty-two boys who called Elisha bald (2 Kings 2:23-25)-because as just noted the prophet represented the Word, and his baldness signified the Word without an outermost meaning.

We shall see in §49 below that the Nazirites represented the Lord’s Word in its outermost forms, which is why they were commanded to let their hair grow and not to shave any of it. In Hebrew, “Nazirite” actually means “hair.” It was commanded also that the high priest was not to shave his head (Leviticus 21:10) and that the fathers of their families as well were not to do so (Leviticus 21:5).

That is why they regarded baldness as such an immense disgrace, as we can tell from the following passages:

There will be baldness upon all heads, and every beard will be cut off. (Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:37)

There will be shame upon all faces and baldness on all heads. (Ezekiel 7:18)

Every head was made bald and every shoulder hairless. (Ezekiel 29:18)

I will put sackcloth around all waists and baldness upon every head. (Amos 8:10)

Make yourself bald and cut off your hair because of your precious children; make yourself still more bald, because they have left you and gone into exile. (Micah 1:16)

Here making yourself bald and making yourself still more bald means distorting truths of the Word in its outermost forms. Once they have been distorted, as was done by Jews, the whole Word is ruined, because the outermost forms of the Word are what it rests on and what holds it up. In fact, every word in it is a base and support for the Word’s heavenly and spiritual truths.

Since a head of hair means truth in its outermost forms, in the spiritual world everyone who trivializes the Word and distorts its literal meaning looks bald; but those who respect and love it have good-looking hair. On this, see §49 below.

233. I have received information from heaven that before the Lord from eternity (who is Jehovah) took on a human nature in the world, the first two levels in him were actual while the third level was potential, which is the way things are for angels. After he took on a human nature in our world, though, he clothed himself with that third level as well, the one we call "earthly," and in this way became a human being like us in this world. Still, there was the difference that this level like the others was infinite and uncreated, while in angels and in us the levels are finite and created.

What happened was that although the Divinity that had filled all space without being bound by space (see 69-72) also penetrated to the most remote elements of nature, before taking on a human nature the divine inflow into the earthly level was indirect, through the angelic heavens. After taking on the human nature it was direct from Divinity itself. This is why all the world's churches before his coming were representative of spiritual and heavenly realities, while after his coming they became spiritual and heavenly on the earthly level and representational worship was done away with. This is also the reason why the sun of the angelic heaven (which as already noted [93] is the first emanation of his divine love and wisdom) shone out with greater radiance and brilliance after he took on a human nature than before. This is also the meaning of the following words in Isaiah: "In that day the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days" (Isaiah 30:25 [26]). This is about the state of heaven and the church after the Lord's coming into the world. There is also Revelation 1:16, "the face of the Human-born One looked like the sun shining at full strength;" and such other passages as Isaiah 60:20; 2 Samuel 23:3-4; and Matthew 17:1-2. We might compare our indirect enlightenment through the angelic heaven, which obtained before the Lord's coming, with the moon's light, which is indirect sunlight. Since this became a direct enlightenment after the Lord's coming, it says in [the passage just cited from] Isaiah that the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun; and it says in David, "Righteous people will blossom in his day, and peace in abundance until the moon is no more" (Psalms 72:7). This too is about the Lord.