208. "'And do not know that you are miserable.'" This symbolically means that they do not know that nothing at all of what they know and think about the truths and goods of the church has any coherence, and that these are its walls.

Misery here symbolizes a lack of coherence; thus to be miserable symbolizes someone who thinks incoherently about matters connected with the church. The reason is that the people who are the subject here at times deny the reality of God, heaven, eternal life, the holiness of the Word, and at other times acknowledge them. Consequently what they build with one hand, they destroy with the other. Thus they are like people who build a house and then tear it down. Or they are like people who dress themselves in beautiful garments and then rend them. Their houses are consequently rubble and their garments in pieces.

Such is the nature of everything these people think regarding heaven and the church, although they are not aware of it.

This is the meaning of misery also in the following passages:

Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, when you said in your heart, "I am, and there is no one else besides me." ...Therefore... misery shall fall upon you... (Isaiah 47:10-11)

Misery will come upon misery... The king will mourn, and the prince will be clothed with insensibility... (Ezekiel 7:26-27)

The king who will mourn and the prince who will be clothed with insensibility are people who are impelled by the truths of the church.

...there is no rectitude in their mouth; in their inward part is misery. (Psalms 5:9)

Walls have a similar symbolic meaning in Jeremiah 49:3, Ezekiel 13:10-13, and Hosea 2:6.