8364. 'I will not put on you any sickness that I put on the Egyptians' means that they are to be withheld from the evils present among those who uphold separated faith and lead a life of evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'sickness' as evil, dealt with below; from the representation of 'the Egyptians' as those who uphold separated faith and lead a life of evil, dealt with in 7097, 7317, 7926, 8148; and from the meaning of 'not putting on you' - when used in association with 'sickness', which means evil - as withholding from evil. For Jehovah, that is, the Lord, does not take away evil but withholds a person from it and maintains him in good, 929, 1581, 2256, 2406, 4564, 8206. So it is that 'not putting a sickness on them' means that they are to be withheld from evils.

[2] The reason why 'sickness' means evil is that in the internal sense the kinds of things that attack spiritual life are meant. The sicknesses which attack it are evils, and they are called evil desires and cravings; and the components of spiritual life are faith and charity. That life is sick when falsity exists instead of the truth of faith and evil instead of the good of charity, because they lead to the death of that life, which is called spiritual death and is damnation, just as sicknesses lead to the death of natural life. This is why in the internal sense 'sickness' means evil, and 'the sicknesses of the Egyptians' means the evils which those upholding separated faith and leading a life of evil cast themselves into, and which they used to molest the upright. Those evils have been dealt with in what has gone before, where the plagues in Egypt were the subject.

[3] Evils are again meant by 'sicknesses' elsewhere in the Word, as in Moses,

If you keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgements which I am commanding you today, Jehovah will take away all sickness from you, and will not put on you any of the evil diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on [all] who hate you. Deuteronomy 7:11, 15.

In the same author,

If you will not obey the voice of Jehovah your God, taking care to do all His commandments and His statutes, Jehovah will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, ¹ until you are destroyed, because of the wickedness of your deeds by which you have forsaken Me. Jehovah will make the pestilence cling to you, until He has consumed you from upon the land. Jehovah will strike you with consumption, and hot fever, and burning fever, and raging fever, and drought, and blight, and mildew, which will pursue you until you perish. Jehovah will strike you with the sores of Egypt, and with hemorrhoids, and the scab, and the itch, so that you cannot be healed. Jehovah will strike you with madness, and blindness, and stupefaction. ² You will be made mad by what your eyes will see ³ . Jehovah will strike you with evil sores on the knees and on the thighs, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. He will throw back onto you every disease of Egypt, also every sickness and every plague that is not written in the book of this Law. Jehovah will give you a trembling heart, failing ⁴ of eyes, and distress of soul. Deuteronomy 28:15, 20-22, 27-28, 34-35, 60-61, 65.

All the sicknesses mentioned here mean spiritual sicknesses, which are evils destructive of the life of a will desiring what is good and falsities destructive of the life of an understanding seeing what is true, in short things destructive of spiritual life composed of faith and charity. Natural sicknesses also correspond to such things, for every sickness present among the human race has its origin in spiritual ones, because each exists as a result of sin, 5712, 5726. Each sickness furthermore corresponds to its own evil. The explanation for this is that everything composing a person's life originates in the spiritual world. If therefore his spiritual life is sick, evil spreads from it into his natural life and becomes a sickness there. See what has been stated from experience in 5711-5727 about the correspondence of sicknesses with evils.

[4] The same things are meant by 'sicknesses' elsewhere, as in Moses,

You shall worship Jehovah your God, in order that He may bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness out of your midst. Exodus 23:25.

In the same author,

If you despise My statutes, and if your soul abhors My judgements, so that you do not do all My commandments, while you make void My covenant, I will appoint terror over you, along with consumption, and burning fever, which will consume the eyes and torment the soul. Leviticus 26:15-16.

'Consumption' stands for the decrease of truth and the increase of falsity, 'burning fever' for the desire for evil. Further still, in Isaiah,

Why will you also defect? ⁵ The whole head [departs] into sickness, and the whole heart is diseased. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and scars, and recent blows. They are not pressed out, nor bound up, nor softened with oil. Isaiah 1:5-6.

Here nobody can fail to see that 'sickness', 'wounds', 'scars', and 'blows' are used to mean sins. Similarly in Ezekiel,

Woe to the shepherds of Israel! The weak sheep you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, and the broken you have not bound up. Ezekiel 34:2, 4.

In David,

My iniquities have gone over my head. My wounds have become putrid, they have rotted away because of my foolishness. For my intestines are full of burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. Psalms 38:4-7.

[5] Since the disorders and evils of spiritual life are meant by 'sicknesses', the various kinds of disorders and evils of that life are meant by the various kinds of sicknesses. 'Pestilence' means the vastation or laying waste of goodness and truth, see 7102, 7505; and 'leprosy' means the profanation of truth, 6963. In general 'sicknesses' means sins, as may also be seen in Isaiah,

... a man of sorrows, and acquainted with sickness, on account of which as it were men hid their faces from Him. He was despised, so that we did not esteem Him. Nevertheless He has borne our sicknesses and carried our sorrows, and through His wounds healing has been given to us. Isaiah 53:3-5.

This refers to the Lord.

[6] Since sicknesses represented the unrighteous ways and the evils of spiritual life the sicknesses which the Lord healed have as their meaning deliverance from the different kinds of evil and falsity that were molesting the Church and human race and that would have brought spiritual death. Divine miracles are distinguishable from other miracles by the fact that they involve and have regard to states of the Church and the heavenly kingdom; and this is why the Lord's miracles were primarily healing of sicknesses. These miracles are meant by the Lord's words addressed to the disciples sent by John,

Tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind see and the lame walk; lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead rise again and the poor hear the gospel. Matthew 11:4-5.

This is why it says so many times that the Lord healed every sickness and every disease among the people, Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 14:14, 35-36; Luke 4:40; 5:15; 6:17; 7:21; Mark 1:32-34; 3:10.

Poznámky pod čarou:

8148. 'And he took six hundred chosen chariots' means each and every doctrinal teaching that upholds falsity belonging to separated faith, in their own order. This is clear from the meaning of the number 'six hundred' as each and every aspect of the truth and good of faith taken all together, and so in the contrary sense as each and every aspect of the falsity and evil of faith separated from charity (this meaning of 'six hundred' may become clear from what has been shown regarding the number 'six hundred thousand' in 7973); and from the meaning of 'chariots' as doctrinal teachings upholding faith, in this instance separated faith, dealt with just above in 8146. 'Chosen chariots' means the chief doctrinal teachings that uphold that faith, to which all other teachings are subordinate. Those that are subordinate to them or serve them are meant by 'the chariots of Egypt', referred to immediately after the six hundred chosen ones.

[2] It should be recognized that these falsities - the ones that are meant here by Pharaoh, his army and people, and also his chariots, horses, and horsemen - are chiefly falsities present with people whose faith is no more than persuasion, that is, people who persuade themselves that the teachings of the Church they are in are true and who nevertheless lead a life of evil. This kind of faith, unlike saving faith, goes together with evil in life, because it is a faith in which people persuade themselves that everything the Church teaches is true, yet do so not for the sake of truth, or for the sake of life, or even for the sake of salvation (since they have scarcely any belief in this), only for their own advantage, that is, to acquire important positions and wealth, and reputation because of these. It is to gain such advantages that they imbibe religious teachings. Thus they do not learn them to the end that they may be of service to the Church and the salvation of souls, but to themselves and their dependents. Therefore it makes no difference to them whether those teachings are true or false. They do not care which they are, much less do they bother to find out; for they have no affection for truth because it is the truth. They endorse those teachings regardless of the character of them; and when they have endorsed them they tell themselves that they are true, without stopping to think that falsities can be endorsed just as much as truths, 4741, 5033, 6865, 7012, 7680, 7950.

[3] This is how faith that is no more than persuasion arises. And since it does not see the neighbour and the good of the neighbour, or therefore the Lord, as the end in view, only self and the world, that is, important positions and material gain, that kind of faith is linked to evil in life, and not to good in life. For faith, when linked to this good, is saving faith. This kind of faith is imparted by the Lord, but the other has its origin in people themselves. Faith imparted by the Lord remains forever, the other kind melts away in the next life. It even melts away in the world if they can gain nothing by it. As long as they can gain anything they fight for it as if for heaven itself, though in fact they do so not for that faith but for themselves. For the things that belong to faith, which are religious teachings, are for those people simply the means to an end, which is high position and wealth. People in the world with this type of faith are scarcely distinguishable from those possessing saving faith, since they speak and proclaim in favour of religious teachings with an ardour that seemingly belongs to true zeal, but is an ardour fired by selfish and worldly love.

[4] These are the people who are meant in particular by 'Pharaoh' and 'the Egyptians', who in the next life undergo vastation of that kind of faith. When that vastation is completed they are steeped in utter falsities arising from evil, for falsities now burst out of evil. Falsities do so because all evil has falsity present with it, since the two have been joined together. Those falsities make their appearance when such people are left exposed to the evil in their life. That evil is then like fire, and the falsities are like the light coming from a fire. This kind of evil, and the falsity arising from it, is altogether different from other kinds of evil and derivative falsities. It is more loathsome than all the rest, because it is contrary to the forms of good and the truths of faith, and that kind of evil consequently holds profanation within it. Profanation consists in acknowledging truth and good and yet living contrary to them, 593, 1008, 1010, 1059, 2051, 3398, 3898, 4289, 4601, 6959, 6963, 6971.