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Micah 3

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1 And I said: Hear, O ye princes of Jacob, and ye chiefs of the house of Israel: Is it not your part to know judgment,

2 You that hate good, and love evil: that violently pluck off their skins from them, and their flesh from their bones?

3 Who have eaten the flesh of my people, and have flayed their skin from off them: and have broken, and chopped their bones as for the kettle, and as flesh in the midst of the pot.

4 Then shall they cry to the Lord, and he will not hear them: and he will hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved wickedly in their devices.

5 Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err: that bite with their teeth, and preach peace: and if a man give not something into their mouth, they prepare war against him.

6 Therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness to you instead of divination; and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them.

7 And they shall be confounded that see visions, and the diviners shall be confounded: and they shall all cover their faces, because there is no answer of God.

8 But yet I am filled with the strength of the spirit of the Lord, with judgment, and power: to declare unto Jacob his wickedness, and to Israel his sin.

9 Hear this, ye princes of the house of Jacob, and ye judges of the house of Israel: you that abhor judgment, and pervert all that is right.

10 You that build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

11 Her princes have judged for bribes, and her priests have taught for hire, and her prophets divined for money: and they leaned upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us.

12 Therefore, because of you, Sion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple as the high places of the forests.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 312

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312. So I looked, and behold, a black horse. This symbolizes an understanding of the Word among them extinguished as to truth, thus extinguished as regards their doctrine.

We showed above that a horse symbolizes an understanding of the Word. Blackness symbolizes a lack of truth, thus falsity, because blackness is the opposite of whiteness, and whiteness is predicated of truth (nos. 167, 231, 232). Whiteness is also the result of light, while blackness results from darkness, thus from the absence of light, and light means truth.

In the spiritual world, however, blackness has a double origin, one resulting from the absence of a flaming light, the light possessed by inhabitants of the Lord's celestial kingdom, and the other resulting from the absence of a bright white light, the light possessed by inhabitants of the Lord's spiritual kingdom. The first kind of blackness has the same symbolism as a thick darkness, the second the same as a gloomy darkness. The two kinds differ from each other. One is dreadful, the other not so dreadful. It is the same with the falsities that they symbolize. The spirits who appear in a terrible darkness are called devils. They also abhor truth as owls do the light of the sun. In contrast, the spirits who appear in a darkness that is not so dreadful are called satanic spirits. They do not abhor truth, though they are still averse to it, and therefore they may be likened to barn owls, but the first to eagle owls.

The fact that blackness in the Word is predicated of falsity can be seen from the following passages:

Her Nazirites were brighter than snow... Darkened more than blackness is their form. (Lamentations 4:7-8)

...on the prophets... the day shall grow black. (Micah 3:6)

On the day that you go down to hell..., I will make Lebanon dark over you... (Ezekiel 31:15)

...the sun became as black as sackcloth of goat's hair... (Revelation 6:12)

The sun, moon and stars are darkened in Jeremiah 4:27-28, Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10; 3:15, and elsewhere.

It was the third living creature that displayed the black horse because it had a face like a human being, which symbolized the Divine truth of the Word in respect to its wisdom (no. 243). Consequently it was this living creature that displayed the fact that there was no longer any truth of wisdom in the people who were third in order.

  
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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.