Apocalypse Revealed # 788
788. 18:19 "And they put dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and mourning, and saying, 'Woe, woe, that great city!'" This symbolizes their interior and exterior grief and mourning, which is a lamentation that so eminent a religion was completely destroyed and condemned.
Putting dust on their heads symbolizes their interior and exterior grief and mourning over the destruction and damnation, as we will show below. To cry out, weeping and mourning, symbolizes their exterior grief and mourning - to weep symbolizing a mourning of the soul, and to grieve a grief of the heart. "Woe, woe, that great city!" symbolizes a grievous lamentation over the destruction and damnation. That "woe" symbolizes a lamentation over a calamity, misfortune, or damnation, and that "woe, woe," therefore symbolizes a grievous lamentation, may be seen in nos. 416, 769, 785; and that the city symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion may be seen in no. 785 and elsewhere.
That putting dust on the head symbolizes an interior grief and mourning over a destruction and damnation is clear from the following passages:
They will cry bitterly and cast dust on their heads; they will roll about in ashes. (Ezekiel 27:30)
(The daughters) of Zion sit on the ground...; they have cast dust on their heads... (Lamentations 2:10)
(Job's friends) rent their tunics and sprinkled dust upon their heads... (Job 2:12)
Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne... (Isaiah 47:1)
And so on elsewhere.
The people put dust on their heads when they grieved deeply, because dust symbolized something damned, as is apparent from Genesis 3:14, Matthew 10:14, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:10-12, and dust on the head represented the people's acknowledgment that of themselves they were damned, and thus their repentance, as in Matthew 11:21, Luke 10:13.
Dust symbolizes something damned because the land over the hells in the spiritual world consists of nothing but dust, without grass or plants.
Exodus 21
1
"Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.
2
"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.
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If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him.
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If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
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But if the servant shall plainly say, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;'
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then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.
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"If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do.
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If she doesn't please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.
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If he marries her to his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter.
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If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights.
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If he doesn't do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.
12
"One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death,
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but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen: then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.
14
If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
15
"Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
16
"Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
17
"Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
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"If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't die, but is confined to bed;
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if he rises again and walks around with his staff, then he who struck him shall be cleared: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall provide for his healing until he is thoroughly healed.
20
"If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished.
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Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property.
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"If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman's husband demands and the judges allow.
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But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life,
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eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
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burning for burning, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.
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"If a man strikes his servant's eye, or his maid's eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.
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If he strikes out his male servant's tooth, or his female servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
28
"If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible.
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But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the bull shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death.
30
If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid on him.
31
Whether it has gored a son or has gored a daughter, according to this judgment it shall be done to him.
32
If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver shall be given to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.
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"If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn't cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it,
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the owner of the pit shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.
35
"If one man's bull injures another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live bull, and divide its price; and they shall also divide the dead animal.
36
Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall surely pay bull for bull, and the dead animal shall be his own.
