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Deuteronomy 8

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1 All the commandments, that I command thee this day, take great care to observe: that you may live, and be multiplied, and going in may possess the land, for which the Lord swore to your fathers.

2 And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy God hath brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove thee, and that the things that were in thy heart might be made known, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no.

3 He afflicted thee with want, and gave thee manna for thy food, which neither thou nor thy fathers knew: to shew that m not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.

4 Thy raiment, with which thou wast covered, hath not decayed for age, and thy foot is not worn, lo this is the fortieth year,

5 That thou mayst consider in thy heart, that as a man traineth up his son, so the Lord thy God hath trained thee up.

6 That thou shouldst keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and fear him.

7 For the Lord thy God will bring thee into a good land, of brooks and of waters, and of fountains: in the plains of which and the hills deep rivers break out:

8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vineyards, wherein fig trees and pomegranates, and oliveyards grow: a land of oil and honey.

9 Where without any want thou shalt eat thy bread, and enjoy abundance of all things: where the stones are iron, and out of its hills are dug mines of brass:

10 That when thou hast eaten, and art full, thou mayst bless the Lord thy God for the excellent land which he hath given thee.

11 Take heed, and beware lest at any time thou forget the Lord thy God, and neglect his commandments and judgments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day:

12 Lest after thou hast eaten and art filled, hast built goodly houses, and dwelt in them,

13 And shalt have herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, and plenty of gold and of silver, and of all things,

14 Thy heart be lifted up, and thou remember not the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage:

15 And was thy leader in the great and terrible wilderness, wherein there was the serpent burning with his breath, and the scorpion and the dipsas, and no waters at all: who brought forth streams out of the hardest rock,

16 And fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not. And after he had afflicted and proved thee, at the last he had mercy on thee,

17 Lest thou shouldst say in thy heart: My own might, and the strength of my own hand have achieved all these things for me.

18 But remember the Lord thy God, that he hath given thee strength, that he might fulfil his covenant, concerning which he swore to thy fathers, as this present day sheweth.

19 But if thou forget the Lord thy God, and follow strange gods, and serve and adore them: behold now I foretell thee that thou shalt utterly perish.

20 As the nations, which the Lord destroyed at thy entrance, so shall you also perish, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 775

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775. "Every vessel of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these because they do not have any knowledge of the goods and truths in ecclesiastical affairs to which such things correspond.

This statement is similar to the ones explained in nos. 772, 773, and 774 above. The difference is that the valuables here are various forms of knowledge, which are the lowest ones in a person's natural mind. And because they differ in character owing to the essence that lies within them, they are called vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble. For vessels symbolize forms of knowledge, here forms of knowledge in ecclesiastical affairs. Because various forms of knowledge are the containing vessels of goodness and truth, they are like vessels containing oil or wine.

Forms of knowledge are also found in great variety, and their recipient vessel is the memory. They are of great variety because they contain the interior elements of a person. They are also introduced into the memory either by intellectual deliberation or by hearing or reading them, according to the varying perception then of the rational mind. All of these things are present in forms of knowledge, as is apparent when they are reproduced, which is the case when a person speaks or thinks.

[2] But we will briefly say what vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron and marble symbolize. A vessel of precious wood symbolizes something known as the result of rational goodness and truth. A vessel of bronze symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness. A vessel of iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural truth. And a vessel of marble symbolizes something known as the result of an appearance of goodness and truth.

That wood symbolizes goodness may be seen just above in no. 774. That precious wood here symbolizes both rational goodness and rational truth is due to the fact that wood symbolizes goodness, and preciousness is predicated of truth. For one variety of goodness is symbolized by the wood of the olive tree, another by the wood of the cedar, of the fig tree, of the fir tree, of the poplar and of the oak.

A vessel of bronze and iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness and truth, because all metals, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead, in the Word symbolize goods and truths. They symbolize because they correspond, and because they correspond they are also found in heaven. For everything in heaven is a correspondent form.

[3] However, this is not the place to confirm from the Word what each kind of metal symbolizes owing to its correspondence. We will cite only some passages to confirm that bronze symbolizes natural goodness, and iron, therefore, natural truth, as can be seen from the following: That the feet of the Son of Man looked like bronze, as though fired in a furnace (Revelation 1:15). That Daniel saw a man whose feet were like the gleam of burnished bronze (Daniel 10:5-6).

That the feet of cherubim were seen sparking as with the gleam of burnished bronze (Ezekiel 1:7). (Feet symbolize something natural, as may be seen in nos. 49, 468, 470, 510.) That an angel appears whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze (Ezekiel 40:3). And that the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw was as to its head golden, as to its breast and arms silver, as to its belly and sides bronze, and as to its legs iron (Daniel 2:32-33). The statue represented the successive states of the church which the ancients called the golden age, silver age, bronze age, and iron age.

Since bronze symbolizes something natural, and the Israelite people were purely natural, therefore the Lord's natural humanity was represented by the bronze serpent, which people bitten by serpents had only to look at to be cured (Numbers 21:6, 8-9).

That bronze symbolizes natural goodness may also be seen in Isaiah 60:17, Jeremiah 15:20-21, Ezekiel 27:13, Deuteronomy 8:7, 9, 33:24-25

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.