“The eyes are the windows of the soul.” That's a sentiment with roots somewhere in murky antiquity, but one that has become hopelessly cliché because it is both poetic and obviously true. We feel that if we can look in someone's eyes, we can truly know what they are inside. And it's not just the eyes; really it is the face as a whole that conveys this. As Swedenborg puts it, the face is “man's spiritual world presented in his natural world” (Heaven and Hell, No. 91). Our faces reveal our interior thoughts and feelings in myriad ways, which is why psychologists, poker players and criminal investigators spend so much time studying them. It makes sense, then, that people's faces in the Bible represent their interiors, the thoughts, loves and desires they hold most deeply. We turn our faces to the ground to show humility when we bow in worship; we turn them to the mountains when seeking inspiration; we turn them toward our enemies when we are ready to battle temptation. When things are hard, we need to “face facts,” or accept them internally. When the topic is the Lord's face, it represents the Lord's interiors, which are perfect love and perfect mercy. And when people turn away from the Lord and refuse his love, it is described as the Lord “hiding his face.”

(Odkazy: Heaven and Hell 91)

8088. 'Therefore I sacrifice to Jehovah all that open the womb, if they are males' means that therefore the faith springing from charity, which belongs to the new birth, is to be ascribed to the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'sacrificing to Jehovah' as ascribing to the Lord ('sacrificing' here has a meaning similar to that which 'sanctify' has in verse 2 of this chapter, and 'making over to' in verse 12, for 'sanctifying to Jehovah' means ascribing to the Lord, see 8042 and so too does 'making over to Him', 8074; 'ascribing' is used to mean refusing to claim something as one's own, and confessing and acknowledging that it comes from the Lord); from the meaning of 'whatever opens the womb' as matters of faith springing from charity, dealt with in 8043 (for evidence that they belong to the new birth, see above in 8042); and from the meaning of 'male' as the truth of faith, dealt with in 2026, 4005, 7838.