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.

143. But that east is always in front of angels no matter which way they turn their faces and bodies - this is even harder to understand in our world, since for us, the direction that is in front of us depends on which way we are facing; so this too needs to be explained.

Angels turn and direct their faces and bodies in any direction just as we do, but still, the east is always before their eyes. The way angels turn is not the way we turn, since it comes from a different origin. The two modes of turning look the same, but they are not. The origin [for angels] is a ruling love. It is the basis of all delimitation for angels and spirits; for, as noted just above, their deeper levels are actually turned toward their common center. So in heaven they are turned toward the Lord as the sun; and since love is constantly in front of their deeper levels, and their faces are manifestations of these levels (being their outward form), the love that is predominant is always in front of their faces. In heaven, then, this is the Lord as the sun, since he is the source of all their love. ¹ Further, since the Lord himself is in his love among the angels, it is the Lord who causes them to be looking at him wherever they turn. These matters cannot be further clarified here, but they will be in subsequent chapters. In particular, where we deal with representations and appearances and with time and space in heaven, they will be presented to understanding more plainly.

As for angels having the Lord constantly in front of them, this I have been granted to know through a great deal of experience. Sometimes when I have been in the company of angels, I have noticed the Lord's presence before my own face: even though I did not see him, I could tell he was there because of the light. Angels have often borne witness to the truth of this as well.

Since the Lord is constantly in front of angels, we say in our world that they have God before their eyes and faces, that people who believe in him and love him look to him and see him. Expressions like this come to us from the spiritual world, for this is the source of many of our expressions, though we are unaware that they come from there.

Poznámky pod čarou: