Apocalypse Revealed # 323
323. With sword, with famine, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. This symbolically means, by doctrinal falsities, by evil practices, by self-love, and by lusts.
To be shown that a sword symbolizes truths fighting against evils and falsities and destroying them, and in an opposite sense, falsity fighting against goods and truths and destroying them, see nos. 52, 108, 117 above. Accordingly, because the subject is the destruction of all good in the church, a sword here symbolizes doctrinal falsities.
That a famine symbolizes evil practices - this we will confirm below.
Death symbolizes a person's self-love because death symbolizes the extinction of spiritual life, and thus natural life divorced from any spiritual life, as shown in no. 321 above, and this life is the life of a person's self-love; for this life causes a person to love nothing but himself and the world, and so to love also evils of every kind, evils which, because of that life's love, are delightful to him.
That beasts of the earth symbolize lusts arising from the love will be seen in no. 567 below.
Here we will say something about the symbolic meaning of famine. A famine symbolizes the privation and rejection of concepts of truth and goodness, springing from evil practices. It symbolizes as well an ignorance of concepts of truth and goodness, owing to an absence of these in the church. And it symbolizes also a desire to know and understand them.
[2] I. That a famine symbolizes the privation and rejection of concepts of truth and goodness, springing from evil practices, and thus symbolizes evil practices, can be seen from the following passages:
They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, so that their corpses become food for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth. (Jeremiah 16:4)
These two things shall befall you...: devastation and ruin, and famine and sword... (Isaiah 51:19)
Behold, I am visiting punishment upon them. The young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine. (Jeremiah 11:22)
...deliver up her children to famine, and cause them to flow down upon the hands of the sword..., that their men may be put to death... (Jeremiah 18:21)
...I will send on them the sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them like rough figs that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence. (Jeremiah 29:17-18)
I will send upon them the sword, famine, and pestilence, till they are consumed from the land... (Jeremiah 24:10)
...I proclaim liberty to you..., to the sword, to pestilence, and famine! And I will deliver you for turmoil to all nations. (Jeremiah 34:17)
...because you have defiled My sanctuary..., a third of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine...; and a third shall fall by the sword... When I send against them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for destruction... (Ezekiel 5:11-12, 16-17)
The sword is outside, and the pestilence and famine within. (Ezekiel 7:15)
...for all the evil abominations... they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. (Ezekiel 6:11-12)
...I will send My four evil judgments on Jerusalem - the sword, famine and wild beast, and pestilence - to cut off man and beast from it. (Ezekiel 14:13, 15, 21)
And so, too, elsewhere, as in Jeremiah 14:12-13, 15-16; 42:13-14, 16-18, 22; 44:12-13, 27, Mark 13:8, Luke 21:11. Sword, famine, pestilence and beasts in these places have similar symbolic meanings to those of the sword, famine, death, and beasts of the earth in the present verse. For the Word has a spiritual meaning in it in every single constituent, in which a sword means the destruction of spiritual life by falsities, in which famine means the destruction of spiritual life by evils, in which a beast of the earth means the destruction of spiritual life by the lusts accompanying falsity and evil, and in which pestilence and death means a complete destruction and thus damnation.
[3] II. That famine, or hunger, symbolizes an ignorance of concepts of truth and goodness, owing to an absence of these in the church, is clear as well from various passages in the Word, as in Isaiah 5:13; 8:19-22, Lamentations 2:19; 5:8-10, Amos 8:11-14, Job 5:17, 20, and elsewhere.
III. That famine or hunger symbolizes a desire to know and understand the church's truths and goods is apparent from the following: Isaiah 8:21; 32:6; 49:10; 58:6-7; Matthew 5:6; 25:35, 37, 44; Luke 1:53; John 6:35; and elsewhere.
Jeremiah 42
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Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, came near,
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and said to Jeremiah the prophet, Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes do see us:
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that Yahweh your God may show us the way in which we should walk, and the thing that we should do.
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Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray to Yahweh your God according to your words; and it shall happen that whatever thing Yahweh shall answer you, I will declare it to you; I will keep nothing back from you.
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Then they said to Jeremiah, Yahweh be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don't do according to all the word with which Yahweh your God shall send you to us.
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Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of Yahweh our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of Yahweh our God.
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It happened after ten days, that the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah.
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Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest,
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and said to them, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him:
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If you will still live in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you.
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Don't be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; don't be afraid of him, says Yahweh: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand.
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I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.
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But if you say, We will not dwell in this land; so that you don't obey the voice of Yahweh your God,
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saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell:
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now therefore hear the word of Yahweh, O remnant of Judah: Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there;
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then it shall happen, that the sword, which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, shall follow close behind you there in Egypt; and there you shall die.
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So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there: they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.
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For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: As my anger and my wrath has been poured forth on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall my wrath be poured forth on you, when you shall enter into Egypt; and you shall be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.
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Yahweh has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah, Don't you go into Egypt: know certainly that I have testified to you this day.
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For you have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for you sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and according to all that Yahweh our God shall say, so declare to us, and we will do it:
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and I have this day declared it to you; but you have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh your God in anything for which he has sent me to you.
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Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place where you desire to go to live there.
