Apocalypse Revealed # 919
919. 21:23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is its lamp. This symbolically means that people of the New Church will not be caught up in self-love and their own intelligence and so possess a natural sight only, but from the Word's Divine truth will possess a spiritual light from the Lord alone.
The sun here symbolizes natural love divorced from spiritual love, which is self-love. And the moon symbolizes a natural intelligence and faith divorced from a spiritual intelligence and faith, which is one's native intelligence and a self-made faith. This is the love and the intelligence and faith symbolized by the sun and moon here, which people of the Lord's New Church will have no need of to light their sight.
The glory of God which illumines the city symbolizes the Word's Divine truth (no. 629), and because that illumination or enlightenment comes from the Lord, we are told as well that the Lamb is its lamp.
The symbolism here is similar to that found in the following verses in Isaiah:
You shall call your walls salvation, and your gates praise. The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you; but Jehovah will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory. Your sun shall no longer go down, nor shall your moon wane; for Jehovah will be your everlasting light... Your people shall all be righteous. (Isaiah 60:18-21)
The sun and moon that will no longer give light mean self-love and one's native intelligence. And the sun and moon that will no longer go down mean love from the Lord for the Lord, and an intelligence and faith from Him. That Jehovah will be an everlasting light has the same symbolic meaning as what is said here, that the glory of God will illumine the city and the Lamb be its lamp.
That the sun symbolizes love for the Lord, and in an opposite sense self-love, may be seen in nos. 53 and 414 above. And that the moon symbolizes intelligence from the Lord and faith from Him, in nos. 332, 413, 414. Thus the moon in an opposite sense symbolizes one's native intelligence and a self-made faith.
Since the sun in an opposite sense symbolizes self-love, and the moon one's native intelligence and a self-made faith, therefore it was an abomination to worship the sun, moon and stars, as may be seen in Jeremiah 8:1-2.
Jeremiah 7
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The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
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"Stand in the gate of Yahweh's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.
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Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
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Don't trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, are these.
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For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;
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if you don't oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:
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then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore.
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Behold, you trust in lying words, that can't profit.
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Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,
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and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations?
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Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh.
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But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
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Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer:
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therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
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I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
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Therefore don't pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.
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Don't you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
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The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
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Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh; [do they] not [provoke] themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?
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Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
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Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.
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For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
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but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
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But they didn't listen nor turn their ear, but walked in [their own] counsels [and] in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
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Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
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yet they didn't listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers.
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You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you.
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You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
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Cut off your hair, [Jerusalem], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
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For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, says Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
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They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn't command, nor did it come into my mind.
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Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place [to bury].
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The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.
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Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.
