10182. 'Its horns shall be of one piece with it' means the powers of truth derived from the good of love and charity. This is clear from the meaning of 'horns' as the powers of truth, dealt with in 2832, 9719-9721. The reason why derived from the good of love and charity is meant is that all the power which truth possesses comes from that good. Therefore also the horns continued from the altar itself or were of one piece with it; for this altar was representative of the Lord, of His hearing and receiving everything of worship that springs from love and charity, 10177.

[2] The statement that all the power which truth possesses comes from the good of love is unintelligible to those who have only a material idea of power, and therefore the nature of that power must be described. In the heavens all power is derived from Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good. This is the source of the power angels possess, for angels are recipients of Divine Truth from the Lord, 1752, 4295, 8192. By means of the power which they receive from that source they protect a person by removing the hells from him; for a single angel is stronger than a thousand who come from hell. This power is what Peter's keys serve to mean, though Peter, who in the same place is referred to as a rock, means the Lord in respect of the truth of faith springing from the good of love, see Preface to Genesis 22, and 3750, 4738, 6000, 6073(end), 6344(end), 10087, 'the Rock' being the Lord in respect of the truth of faith, 8581.

[3] The power that Divine Truth possesses is also meant by 'the voice of Jehovah' in David,

The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters; the voice of Jehovah is powerful; the voice of Jehovah breaks the cedars; the voice of Jehovah strikes a flame of fire; the voice of Jehovah causes the wilderness to shake; the voice of Jehovah strips the forests bare; Jehovah gives strength to His people. Psalms 29:3-5, 7-9, 11.

'The voice of Jehovah' is the Divine Truth emanating from His Divine Good, see 9926.

[4] The power that Divine Truth possesses is also meant by 'the Word' in John,

All things were made through the Word, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:3.

'The Word' is the Divine Truth emanating from Divine Good, see 9987. Therefore also the Lord, when He was in the world, first made Himself Divine Truth, which is also meant in John 1:14 by the Word became flesh. The Lord made Himself Divine Truth then to the end that He might fight against all the hells and overcome them, and in so doing might restore all things to order there, and at the same time in the heavens, 9715, 9809, 10019, 10152.

[5] The fact that truths springing from good possess all power, while on the other hand falsities arising from evil have no power, is very well known in the next life. For this reason the evil who come there from the world have their belief, which is no more than persuasion, and also their knowledge of any truth, taken away from them. This then leaves them with the falsities belonging to their evil.

[6] The statement that truths springing from good possess such power is unintelligible to those who have the idea that truth or a belief in truth is no more than mental activity, when yet a person's mental activity, under the control of his will, constitutes all the strength which the body has; and if the Lord were to instill it through His Divine Truth into that body the person would possess the strength of Samson. But yet it is the Lord's good pleasure to impart strength to a person through faith springing from love in the things that belong to his spirit and that contribute to eternal life.

[7] From all this one may see what should be understood by the power of truth springing from good, the power meant by 'the horns' of both the altar of burnt offering and the altar of incense. That this power is meant by 'the horns' is clear from places in the Word where 'horns' are mentioned, as in Ezekiel,

On that day I will make a horn grow up for the house of Israel. Ezekiel 29:21.

In Amos,

Have we not by our own strength taken horns for ourselves? Amos 6:13.

In the first Book of Samuel,

Jehovah will give strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed. 1 Samuel 2:10.

In David,

Jehovah has exalted the horn of His people. Psalms 148:14.

In the same author,

All the horns of the wicked I will cut off; the horns of the righteous will be exalted. Psalms 75:10.

In Jeremiah,

The Lord has cut down in His very fierce anger ¹ the whole horn of Israel. And He has exalted the horn of your foes. Lamentations 2:3, 17.

In Ezekiel,

You push with side and shoulder, and butt with your horns all the weak sheep, until you have scattered them abroad. Ezekiel 34:21.

In Zechariah,

I saw four horns. The angel said, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. The smiths have come to cast down the horns of the nations lifting up their horn against the land of Judah. Zechariah 1:18-21.

In Moses,

His horns are unicorn horns ² . With these he will strike the peoples together to the ends of the earth. Deuteronomy 33:17.

In these places it is self-evident that power is meant by 'horns', and indeed power in both senses, that is to say, of truth directed against falsity and of falsity directed against truth; for the state of the Church is the subject in the internal sense of every one of these places.

[8] Something similar occurs in Amos,

On that day I will visit the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar will be cut away and fall to the ground. Amos 3:14.

'The altars of Bethel' and 'the horns of the altar' mean the evils and falsities destroying the Church's goodness and truth, regarding which it says that they 'will be cut away'.

[9] From all this one may see what should be understood by 'the horns' mentioned so frequently by Daniel, and by John in the Book of Revelation. Daniel describes the beast which had ten horns and also a horn speaking, Daniel 7:8, 11, 20; and he says that the horn was making war with the saints and prevailing, until the Ancient of Days ³ came, Daniel 7:11, 21-22, 24. He also speaks about the horns of the ram and the horns of the he-goat, which they used to make war against each other, Daniel 8:3-21. And John mentions that the dragon had ten horns, Revelation 12:3, as did the beast coming up out of the sea, Revelation 13:1, and also the scarlet beast, Revelation 17:12. In this verse it is also stated that the ten horns are ten kings; and the same words occur in Daniel 7:24. By 'kings' in the Word truths are meant, and in the contrary sense falsities, see 1672, 2015, 2069, 3009, 4575, 4581, 4966, 5044, 5068, 6148.

[10] It is because 'horn' means truth in its power, or in the contrary sense falsity destroying truth, that speech is attributed to a horn in Revelation 9:13; Daniel 7:8; Psalms 22:21.

[11] The anointing of kings with oil from a horn, 1 Samuel 16:1, 13; 1 Kings 1:39, represented truth springing from good, in its power; for truths in their power are meant by 'horns', good by 'oil', and those who are guided by truths springing from good by 'kings'. For the meaning of 'oil' as good, see 886, 9780; and for that of 'kings' as those who are guided by truths springing from good, thus - in the abstract sense - as truths springing from good, 6148. So it is also that in Psalms 132:17 a horn is said to bud, because all spiritual budding is that of truth springing from good. Therefore also in former times they made [imitations of] budding horns.

All power belongs to good and is exercised through truth, or what amounts to the same thing, belongs to truth springing from good, see the places referred to in 10019.

Poznámky pod čarou:

5828. 'And I said, He has surely been torn to pieces' means a perception that it was destroyed by evils and falsities. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying' as perception, dealt with often; and from the meaning of 'being torn to pieces as being destroyed by evils and internal good represented by 'Joseph' was destroyed, 5805. 'Being torn to pieces' has this meaning because no other kind of tearing to pieces takes place in the spiritual world than that of good by evils and falsities. It is the same with death and anything having to do with death, by which is meant in the spiritual sense not natural death but spiritual death, which is damnation. No other kind of death occurs in the spiritual world. So too with 'a tearing to pieces'. This does not mean in the spiritual sense the kind of tearing to pieces that wild animals engage in, but the tearing to pieces of good by evils and falsities. Also, in the spiritual sense, 'wild animals that tear to pieces' means evil desires and derivative false ideas; and such ideas are also represented in the next life by wild animals.

[2] The good which constantly comes from the Lord to a person is destroyed by nothing other than evils and derivative falsities, and by falsities and consequent evils. For as soon as that constantly inflowing good, coming by way of the internal man, reaches the external or natural man it encounters evil and falsity, which - acting like wild animals - employ various methods to tear apart and annihilate that good. For that reason the inflow of good by way of the internal man is blocked and halted, and the interior mind through which the inflow comes is consequently closed. Only as much of what is spiritual is allowed through as will enable the natural man to reason and speak, though he does so in terms that are solely earthly, bodily, and worldly, either in opposition to what is good and true, or else in keeping with such but in a false or deceitful way.

[3] It is a universal law that an inflow adjusts itself to the outflow, and if the outflow is blocked, so is the inflow. Through the internal man there is an inflow of good and truth from the Lord, and through the external there should be an outflow, an outflow into life, that is, in the exercise of charity. As long as that outflow is taking place the inflow from heaven, that is, from the Lord by way of heaven, is continuous. If however no outflow takes place but something stands in the way in the external or natural man, namely evil and falsity which tear the inflowing good to pieces and annihilate it, it follows from the universal law mentioned above that the inflow adjusts itself to the outflow. All this being so, the inflow of good holds itself back and accordingly closes the internal through which the inflow comes; and that closing of it leads to stupidity in spiritual matters, which is so great that the person who is like this neither knows nor wishes to know anything at all about eternal life. At length he becomes so senseless that he raises falsity as an obstacle to truth, calling falsities truths and truths falsities, and raises evil as an obstacle to good, regarding evils as forms of good and forms of good as evils. In this way he tears good completely to pieces.

[4] The word 'torn' occurs in various places in the Word, the proper meaning of which is falsities that arise from evils, while that which is destroyed by evils is called 'a carcass'. When however the expression 'torn' is used by itself, both ideas are meant since the one includes the meaning carried by the other. It is different when the one is referred to together with the other, because in that case a distinction is being made. Since what had been torn meant in the spiritual sense what had been destroyed by falsities arising from evils, people were forbidden in the representative Church to eat anything torn. They would never have been forbidden to eat it if that spiritual evil had not been meant in heaven. Apart from this, what evil could have lain in eating flesh torn by a wild animal?

[5] Regarding their not eating anything torn the following is stated in Moses,

The fat of a carcass and the fat of that which has been torn may be put to any use, provided that you do not eat it at all. Leviticus 7:24.

In the same author,

He shall not eat a carcass or that which has been torn, to be defiled by it. I am Jehovah. Leviticus 12:8.

In the same author,

You shall be men who are sanctified to Me; therefore you shall not eat flesh torn in the field, you shall throw it to the dogs. Exodus 21:31.

In Ezekiel,

Ah Lord Jehovih! The prophet says, Behold, my soul has not been polluted, and from my youth even till now I have not eaten any carcass or that which has been torn, so that abominable flesh has not come into my mouth. Ezekiel 4:14.

From these quotations it is evident that it was an abomination to eat what had been torn, not because it had been torn but because a tearing to pieces of good by falsities arising from evils was meant, 'a carcass' on the other hand being the death of good caused by evils.

[6] A tearing to pieces of good by falsities and evils is also meant in the internal sense of the following places in David,

The wicked is like a lion, he desires to tear, and like a young lion who sits in hiding-places. Psalms 17:12.

Elsewhere,

They opened their mouth against me - a lion tearing and roaring. Psalms 22:13.

And in yet another place,

Lest like a lion they seize my soul, tearing it to pieces and there is none to deliver. Psalms 7:1.

'A lion' stands for those who lay waste the Church. Above, where Joseph was the subject - at the point where he was sold by his brothers, and his tunic, which had been dipped in blood, was sent to his father - his father too said at that time,

My son's tunic! An evil wild animal has devoured him; Joseph has been torn to pieces. Genesis 37:33.

'His having been torn to pieces' means being scattered by falsities arising from evils, see 4777.