Apocalypse Revealed # 399
399. And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood. This symbolizes falsity springing from a hellish love, destroying goodness and truth and falsifying the Word.
Hail symbolizes falsity destroying goodness and truth. Fire symbolizes hellish love. And blood symbolizes the falsification of truth.
The reason that hail symbolizes falsity destroying goodness and truth will be seen below. To be shown that fire is love in both senses, heavenly and hellish, see no. 468; and that blood is the Lord's Divine truth, which is also the Word, and in an opposite sense, the Word falsified, no. 379.
When these are assembled into a single meaning, it is apparent that "hail and fire followed, mingled with blood," symbolizes falsity springing from a hellish love, destroying goodness and truth and falsifying the Word.
This is the symbolic meaning because these are the kinds of things that appear in the spiritual world when the atmosphere of the Lord's Divine love and wisdom dips down from heaven into societies where there are falsities springing from hellish love and these are used to falsify the Word.
[2] Hail and fire together have the same symbolism in the following places:
From the brightness before Him, ...clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire... ...the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. And He sent out His (many) arrows and scattered them... (Psalms 18:12-14)
I will dispute... with pestilence and blood, and I will rain down on (them)...hailstones, fire, and brimstone. (Ezekiel 38:22)
Then Jehovah will cause His... voice to be heard..., with the flame of a devouring fire... and hailstones. (Isaiah 30:30)
He made their rain hail, a flaming fire in their land..., and splintered the trees of their border. (Psalms 105:32-33)
He smote their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with heavy hail, and... their cattle with burning coals... He sent in the wrath of His anger... an incursion of evil angels. (Psalms 78:47-49)
The latter passages refer to Egypt, of whom we read in the books of Moses the following:
Moses stretched out his rod... and Jehovah sent voices and hail... And there was hail and fire together proceeding in the midst of heavy hail... And the hail struck every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field. (Exodus 9:23-35)
All the miracles done in Egypt symbolized those evils and falsities, springing from a hellish love, that existed in the Egyptians, each miracle symbolizing some evil and falsity. For the church with them had been representational, as it was in many Asiatic kingdoms, but one that became idolatrous and given to sorcery. The Red Sea symbolizes hell, in which the Egyptians finally perished.
[3] The hailstones which killed many more of the enemy than the sword in Joshua 10:11 have a similar symbolism. So, too, hail in the following passages:
Woe to the crown of pride... ...strong is the Lord, like an inundation of hail... The hail overturns the refuge of lies... (Isaiah 28:1-2, 17)
It will hail until it flattens the forest... (Isaiah 32:19)
The temple of God was opened in heaven..., and there were lightnings, voices, and thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail. (Revelation 11:19)
And great hail with the weight of a talent fell from heaven upon men. (Revelation 16:21)
...have you seen the treasuries of hail, which have been reserved... for the day of battle and war? (Job 38:22-23)
Say to those who plaster the unsuitable that it will fall. There will be flooding rain, in which you, hailstones, shall fall. (Ezekiel 13:11)
To plaster the unsuitable is to defend falsity so that it appears as true. Consequently people who do this are called hailstones.
Exodus 9:23-35
23
Moses stretched forth his rod toward the heavens, and Yahweh sent thunder, hail, and lightning flashed down to the earth. Yahweh rained hail on the land of Egypt.
24
So there was very severe hail, and lightning mixed with the hail, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.
25
The hail struck throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and animal; and the hail struck every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field.
26
Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.
27
Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "I have sinned this time. Yahweh is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.
28
Pray to Yahweh; for there has been enough of mighty thunderings and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer."
29
Moses said to him, "As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands to Yahweh. The thunders shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that you may know that the earth is Yahweh's.
30
But as for you and your servants, I know that you don't yet fear Yahweh God."
31
The flax and the barley were struck, for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was in bloom.
32
But the wheat and the spelt were not struck, for they had not grown up.
33
Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands to Yahweh; and the thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was not poured on the earth.
34
When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.
35
The heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he didn't let the children of Israel go, just as Yahweh had spoken through Moses.
