Jerusalem
Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. Jerusalem first comes to our attention in 2 Samuel 5, when King David takes the city from the Jebusites and makes it his capital. In the next chapter he brings the Ark of the Covenant there, and later it is where Solomon builds the temple, and his own palace. From then on Jerusalem is the center of worship of the Israelitish church. It is the place where the Lord was presented in the temple as a baby, where He tarried to talk to the priests at age twelve, where He cleansed the temple, had the last supper, was crucified and then rose. It is a central place in both the old and new Testaments. The city was built on Mount Zion, the highest point of the mountains of Judea. A city, in the Word, represents doctrine, the organized knowledge of the truths of the church. Mountains represent love of the Lord and the consequent worship. If you put those things together, Jerusalem on Mount Zion signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. This is why David was led to make Jerusalem the most important city of the land, and why all worship was conducted there. And this is also why Jeroboam was condemned for introducing idol worship in Samaria. In the Book of Revelation, John's vision of the city New Jerusalem descending from God is a prophecy of a new dispensation of doctrine coming from the Lord.
(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4539, 8938; The Apocalypse Explained 365 [35-38])
The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms # 0
Table of Subjects 1
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1. The Lord's advent.
2. The successive vastation of the church.
3. The church totally devastated, and its rejection.
4. The rejection of the Lord by the church.
5. Temptations of the Lord in general.
6. Temptation even to despair.
7. The combats of the Lord with the hells.
8. Victory over them, or their subjugation.
9. The passion of the cross.
10. The glorification of the Human of the Lord, or its union with the Divine.
11. A new church in place of the former.
12. A new church together with a new heaven.
13. The state of humiliation before the Father.
14. 2
15. A last judgment by the Lord.
16. Celebration and worship of the Lord.
17. Redemption and salvation by the Lord.
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Editor's Introduction: In this work, Emanuel Swedenborg outlined the internal meaning of all the Prophetical Books, from Isaiah to Malachi, and the Psalms, and then the first 16 chapters of Genesis. It provides a survey of the inner meaning of a substantial portion of the Old Testament, in one place.
This work was written by Swedenborg in Latin, in 1761. It was translated from Latin into English by Rev. J. E. Schreck, and this translation was published by the Swedenborg Foundation, in New York, in 1900. This modified version of Schreck's 1900 translation does not update the text; instead just modifying numbering and formatting for clarity of use online.
Each chapter of each book of the Prophets has one corresponding numbered section in Swedenborg's explanation of its inner meaning, or internal sense. Swedenborg listed the verses that relate to each outlined point. We have added hyperlinks to the verse references, shown to the left of each outlined point. The Psalms and initial chapters of Genesis are treated in a similar fashion.
This work was not published by Swedenborg, but it is consistent with other more detailed treatments made in his published works. For example, Swedenborg refers to this work in Doctrine of the Lord 37.
Readers may also find these comparisons useful:
- No. 124 of this work, explaining Ezekiel 1, with The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture 97,
- Nos. 161, 162, explaining Ezekiel 38, and 39, with Apocalypse Revealed 859,
- No. 236, explaining Zechariah 4, with Apocalypse Revealed 43, and
- Nos. 244-246 of this work, explaining Zechariah 12, 13, 14, with Apocalypse Revealed 707.
In the manuscript, at the beginning, Swedenborg wrote out a list of works that he intended to write and publish. While it's clearly related to the project of outlining the internal meaning of the Prophets, Psalms, and historical parts of the Word, it seems to be an independent list. We reproduce Rev. Schreck's translation of that list here:
"To Be Published:
1. Concerning the Lord.
2. Concerning the Sacred Scripture or concerning the Word of the Lord.
3. All things of religion and of the worship of God in one complex in the Decalogue.
4. Concerning Faith.
5. Angelic wisdom concerning the Divine Providence.
6. Angelic wisdom concerning the Divine omnipotence and omniscience, and concerning infinity and eternity.
7. Angelic wisdom concerning life.
8. Angelic wisdom concerning the Divine love and Divine wisdom."
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. In the original Latin manuscript, Swedenborg cross-referred the outlined internal sense to a more general Table of Subjects, shown above. In the following passages, those references are shown in parentheses, e.g. (3) would refer to subject number 3 above. We received the Latin text for this "front matter" from the Heavenly Doctrines Publishing Foundation.
2. Editor's Note (Schreck): No. 14 is crossed out by Swedenborg in his MS., and is never referred to in the text. It reads, "The state of unition with His Divine," which is the same as No. 10.
Doctrine of the Lord 3 for an outline of a similar set of themes that form the internal sense of the prophetical books.
