Apocalypse Revealed # 450
450. Having breastplates that were fiery, hyacinthine and sulfurous. This symbolizes their fanciful and illusory arguments springing from a hellish love and their own intelligence, and from the attendant lusts.
Breastplates symbolize the arguments people use to do battle for faith alone (no. 436). Fire symbolizes heavenly love, and in an opposite sense, hellish love (nos. 452, 468, 494). Hyacinthine symbolizes intelligence springing from a spiritual love, and in an opposite sense, intelligence springing from a hellish love, which is one's own inherent intelligence, as explained below. And sulfur symbolizes lust arising from that hellish love and expressed through their own inherent intelligence (no. 452). It follows from this that breastplates fiery, hyacinthine and sulfurous have the symbolic meaning stated.
[2] The reason their arguments in defense of faith alone are thus described is that all those people who believe themselves to be justified by faith alone, which is to say, absolved from sins, never give any thought to repentance, and an impenitent person engages in nothing but sins. All sins, moreover, spring from and so draw their character from a hellish love, from one's own inherent intelligence, and from the attendant lusts; and people caught up in them not only act on them, but they also speak, indeed think and will, in conformity with them, and accordingly reason and argue in conformity with them. These are who they are because they are their life; but who they are is a devil, and their life a hellish one.
In actual fact, however, people who live a moral life solely for the sake of themselves and the world do not know this. The reason is that although they inwardly are such as described, in outward appearances they are like people who live a Christian life. But they should know that when anyone of them dies, he comes into his interior life, because it is the life of his spirit, and he is his internal self. Moreover, his inner character then accommodates his outward one to itself, and they become alike. Consequently the moral virtues of these people's life in the world then become like the scales of fish that are scraped away.
The case is altogether different with people who regard the precepts of a moral life as Divine, and who make them at the same time civil precepts because they are expressive of a love for the neighbor.
[3] Hyacinthine symbolizes intelligence springing from the affection of a spiritual love because this color takes its hue from the redness of fire and the whiteness of light; and fire symbolizes love, and light intelligence. This intelligence is symbolically meant by the hyacinthine blue in the coverings and veils of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:31, 36; 27:16), and in Aaron's ephod (Exodus 28:6, 15); by the cloth of hyacinthine blue placed on the ark, table, lampstand, and altar [in the tabernacle] when the people prepared to journey (Numbers 4:6-7, 9, 11-12); and by the blue stuff in Ezekiel 27:7, 24.
On other hand, intelligence springing from the affection of a hellish love is symbolically meant by hyacinthine in Ezekiel 23:
Oholah (or Samaria) played the harlot... and she doted on her lovers, the neighboring Assyrians, clothed in hyacinthine blue..., horsemen riding on horses. (Ezekiel 23:4-6)
Thus is described a church which by the reasonings of its own inherent intelligence had falsified the Word's truths.
And in Jeremiah:
They are altogether foolish and grow stupid; the teaching of vanities is wood. Beaten silver... is brought from Tarshish..., the work of the craftsman and the hands of the metalsmith; hyacinthine blue and purple are their clothing, all the work of skillful men. (Jeremiah 10:8-9)
The work of the craftsman and the hands of the metalsmith, and all the work of skillful men, symbolize here that they spring from their own inherent intelligence.
以西结书 28
2
人子啊,你对推罗君王说,主耶和华如此说:因你心里高傲,说:我是神;我在海中坐神之位。你虽然居心自比神,也不过是人,并不是神!
3
看哪,你比但以理更有智慧,甚麽秘事都不能向你隐藏。
7
我必使外邦人,就是列国中的强暴人临到你这里;他们必拔刀砍坏你用智慧得来的美物,亵渎你的荣光。
9
在杀你的人面前你还能说我是神麽?其实你在杀害你的人手中,不过是人,并不是神。
10
你必死在外邦人手中,与未受割礼(或译:不洁;下同)的人一样,因为这是主耶和华说的。
12
人子啊,你为推罗王作起哀歌,说主耶和华如此说:你无所不备,智慧充足,全然美丽。
13
你曾在伊甸神的园中,佩戴各样宝石,就是红宝石、红璧玺、金钢石、水苍玉、红玛瑙、碧玉、蓝宝石、绿宝石、红玉,和黄金;又有精美的鼓笛在你那里,都是在你受造之日预备齐全的。
14
你是那受膏遮掩约柜的基路伯;我将你安置在神的圣山上;你在发光如火的宝石中间往来。
15
你从受造之日所行的都完全,後来在你中间又察出不义。
16
因你贸易很多,就被强暴的事充满,以致犯罪,所以我因你亵渎圣地,就从神的山驱逐你。遮掩约柜的基路伯啊,我已将你从发光如火的宝石中除灭。
17
你因美丽心中高傲,又因荣光败坏智慧,我已将你摔倒在地,使你倒在君王面前,好叫他们目睹眼见。
18
你因罪孽众多,贸易不公,就亵渎你那里的圣所。故此,我使火从你中间发出,烧灭你,使你在所有观看的人眼前变为地上的炉灰。
19
各国民中,凡认识你的,都必为你惊奇。你令人惊恐,不再存留於世,直到永远。
21
人子啊,你要向西顿预言攻击他,
22
说主耶和华如此说:西顿哪,我与你为敌,我必在你中间得荣耀。我在你中间施行审判、显为圣的时候,人就知道我是耶和华。
23
我必使瘟疫进入西顿,使血流在他街上。被杀的必在其中仆倒,四围有刀剑临到他,人就知道我是耶和华。
24
四围恨恶以色列家的人,必不再向他们作刺人的荆棘,伤人的蒺藜,人就知道我是主耶和华。
25
主耶和华如此说:我将分散在万民中的以色列家招聚回来,向他们在列邦人眼前显为圣的时候,他们就在我赐给我仆人雅各之地,仍然居住。
26
他们要在这地上安然居住。我向四围恨恶他们的众人施行审判以後,他们要盖造房屋,栽种葡萄园,安然居住,就知道我是耶和华─他们的神。