Apocalypse Revealed # 410
410. The name of the star is Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood. (8:11) This symbolizes hellish falsity, the origin of their personal intelligence, by which they had falsified all the Word's truths.
The star symbolizes their personal intelligence owing to a conceit arising from a hellish love (no. 408). The name symbolizes its character (nos. 81, 122, 165). Wormwood symbolizes hellish falsity, which we will consider next. Waters symbolize truths (no. 50), here the Word's truths, because the subject is faith. A third means, symbolically, all, as said before. Gathering these into a single meaning yields the meaning presented above.
As for wormwood, it symbolizes hellish falsity because of its extreme bitterness, which renders foods and beverages unpalatable. Wormwood symbolizes such falsity, therefore, in the following places:
Behold, I feed... this people with wormwood, and will give them water of gall to drink. (Jeremiah 9:14-15)
...thus says Jehovah... against the prophets: Behold, I feed them with wormwood, and will make them drink water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem hypocrisy has gone out into all the land. (Jeremiah 23:15)
...you turn justice into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. (Amos 6:12, cf. 5:7)
...that there may not be among you a root bearing gall or wormwood. (Deuteronomy 29:18)
Since the Jewish Church falsified all the Word's truths, like the church which is the subject here, and the Lord represented it by all the events of His suffering, by permitting the Jews to treat Him as they had the Word, because He embodied the Word, therefore "they gave Him vinegar mingled with gall," which is like wormwood, "but when He had tasted it, He would not drink" (Matthew 27:34, Mark 15:23, cf. Psalms 69:21).
As that was the character of the Jewish Church, it is therefore described in this way:
He has filled me with bitterness, (and) He has made me drunk on wormwood. (Lamentations 3:15, 19)
Jeremiah 8
1
At that time, says Yahweh, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;
2
and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth.
3
Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them, says Yahweh of Armies.
4
Moreover you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return?
5
Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.
6
I listened and heard, but they didn't speak aright: no man repents him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle.
7
Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don't know Yahweh's law.
8
How do you say, We are wise, and the law of Yahweh is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely.
9
The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh; and what kind of wisdom is in them?
10
Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields to those who shall possess them: for everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest every one deals falsely.
11
They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, Peace; when there is no Peace.
12
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says Yahweh.
13
I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh: no grapes shall be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and [the things that] I have given them shall pass away from them.
14
Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh.
15
We looked for peace, but no good came; [and] for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!
16
The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein.
17
For, behold, I will send serpents, adders, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, says Yahweh.
18
Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.
19
Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: isn't Yahweh in Zion? Isn't her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities?
20
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
21
For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I mourn; dismay has taken hold on me.
22
Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then isn't the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
