14
I will give the price to make them free from the power of the underworld, I will be their saviour from death: O death! where are your pains? O underworld! where is your destruction? my eyes will have no pity.
Hosea 13:14
Apocalypse Revealed # 572
572. 13:2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard. This symbolizes their heresy destructive of the church, being founded on the Word's truths falsified.
Animals in general symbolize people in respect to their affections (no. 567), and a leopard symbolizes an affection or penchant for falsifying the Word's truths. Moreover, because it is a fierce beast and slaughters harmless animals, it also symbolizes a heresy destructive of the church.
A leopard symbolizes the Word's truths falsified because of its black and white spots, its black spots symbolizing falsities, and the whiteness between them symbolizing truth. Consequently, because it is a fierce and savage beast, it symbolizes the Word's truths falsified and so destroyed.
A leopard has a similar symbolism in the following places:
Shall an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Then you also can do good who have been taught to do evil. (Jeremiah 13:23)
...a lion from the forest slew (the great men), a wolf in the fields shall devastate them; a leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out... shall be torn in pieces, because... their apostasies have become mighty. (Jeremiah 5:6)
A leopard lying watching their cities is to ambush doctrinal truths - a city being doctrine (no. 194).
(Because) they forgot Me... I have become to them like a lion, and like a leopard by the path I will watch them. (Hosea 13:5-7)
A path, too, symbolizes truth (no. 176).
The wolf shall tarry with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat... (Isaiah 11:6)
The subject there is the Lord's kingdom to come. The young goat is genuine truth in the church, and the leopard is that truth falsified.
(The third beast that came up from the sea) was like a leopard, which had on its back four wings... (Daniel 7:6)
On the four beasts seen by Daniel, see no. 574.
Revelation 4
1
After these things I looked and saw a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, like a trumpet speaking with me, was one saying, "Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after this."
2
Immediately I was in the Spirit. Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne
3
that looked like a jasper stone and a sardius. There was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald to look at.
4
Around the throne were twenty-four thrones. On the thrones were twenty-four elders sitting, dressed in white garments, with crowns of gold on their heads.
5
Out of the throne proceed lightnings, sounds, and thunders. There were seven lamps of fire burning before his throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
6
Before the throne was something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal. In the midst of the throne, and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes before and behind.
7
The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle.
8
The four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. They have no rest day and night, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!"
9
When the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever,
10
the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever, and throw their crowns before the throne, saying,
11
"Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!"
