424. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth. (9:3) This symbolically means that from them issued falsities of the lowest sort, such as are found in the case of people who have become sensual and who view and judge everything in accordance with the senses and their fallacies.

Falsities that we term falsities of the lowest sort are those which occur on the lowest level of a person's life, called sensual, which we will speak of below. These falsities are symbolized in the Word by locusts. It should be known, however, that the locusts here did not look like the locusts found in fields, which hop about and devastate pastures and crops. Instead they looked like pygmies or midgets, as is apparent also from their description, as for instance, that they had crowns on their heads, faces like the faces of men, hair like women's hair, teeth like lions' teeth, breastplates of iron, and the angel of the bottomless pit as king over them.

Ancient peoples, too, called midgets locusts, as we can conclude from these verses:

(Those who spied out the land of Canaan said:) ."..we saw the Nephilim, the descendants of the Anakim..., and we were like locusts... in their sight." (Numbers 13:33)

(Jehovah) who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants like locusts... (Isaiah 40:22)

[2] However, because falsities of the lowest sort, such as existed in the people here, are in the Word symbolized by locusts, therefore in Nahum the people are called locusts, as well as being termed crowned and commanders:

...the fire will devour you..., it will eat you up like a locust's larva. Make yourself many like the locust's larva! Make yourself many like locusts! ...Your crowned ones are like locusts, and your commanders like great locusts... (Nahum 3:15-17)

Because falsities of the lowest sort devour the growing truths and goods of the church in a person, they are symbolized by locusts which devour the grasses in fields and the vegetation on farms, as is clear from the following passages:

You shall carry much seed out to the field, but... the locust shall consume it. (Deuteronomy 28:38)

What the caterpillar left, the locust will eat; what the locust left, the beetle grub will eat; and what the beetle grub left, the locust's larva will eat. (Joel 1:4)

I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the beetle grub, the locust's larva, and the caterpillar... (Joel 2:25)

[3] The locusts in Egypt have the same symbolic meaning, of which we read the following in Exodus:

Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and... the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt...; previously there had been no such locusts...; and they ate every herb... of the field... (Exodus 10:12ff.)

And afterward Moses stretched out his rod, and the locusts were cast into the Red Sea.

Further, in the book of Psalms:

He gave their produce to the locust's larva, and their labor to the locust. (Psalms 78:46, cf. 105:34-35)

The miracles in Egypt describe the devastation of the church, and this particular miracle, its devastation by falsities of the lowest sort. And when the inner levels of a person's life are closed, on which the lowest levels depend, the lowest levels become hellish. Therefore the locusts were cast into the Red Sea, which symbolizes hell.

[4] Since few people today know what we mean by the sensual level, or what the character of a sensual person is, and since this is what locusts symbolize, therefore we will introduce from our Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven) the following extracts regarding it:

The sensual level is the lowest of a person's mental life, attaching to and uniting with his five physical senses (nos. 5077 5767, 9212, 9216, 9331, 9730).

That person is called sensual who judges of everything in accordance with his physical senses, and who believes in nothing but what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands, saying that if he can, it is real, and rejecting everything else (nos. 5094 7693).

The inner levels of that person's mind, which see in the light of heaven, are closed, so that he sees no truth on those levels which has to do with heaven and the church (nos. 6564, 6844, 6845).

A person like that thinks on the lowest levels, and not interiorly in any spiritual light (nos. 5089 5094, 6564, 7693).

In a word, people like that have a crude natural sight (nos. 6201 6310, 6564, 6844, 6845, 6612, 6614, 6622, 6624).

Inwardly they are therefore hostile to matters having to do with heaven and the church, though it is possible for them to speak in favor of them outwardly, even ardently, according to the power they have by virtue of them (nos. 6201, 6316, 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949).

The educated and learned who have deeply confirmed themselves in falsities, and still more those who are hostile to the Word's truths, are more sensual than others (no. 6316).

Sensual people reason keenly and skillfully, because their thinking is so near to speech as to almost reside in it, and to be, so to speak, on the lips, and because they place all intelligence in speech from the memory alone; moreover, some of them can cleverly defend falsities, and after they have done so, believe they are true (nos. 195 196, 5700, 10236).

They reason from fallacies of the senses and defend them, which they use to captivate and persuade the populace (nos. 5084 6948, 6949, 7693).

Sensual people are craftier and more malicious than others (nos. 7693, 10236).

Greedy people, adulterers, hedonists, and the deceitful are especially sensual, even though to the world they do not appear so (no. 6310).

The interiors of their minds are foul and filthy (no. 6201).

Through them they are in communication with the hells (no. 6311).

People residing in the hells are sensual, and the more so the deeper the hell (nos. 4623 6311).

The atmosphere of spirits in hell mixes with a person's sensual level from behind (no. 6312).

People who have based their reasoning on the evidence of the senses only, and so are hostile to the genuine truths of the church, were called by ancient peoples serpents of the tree of knowledge (nos. 195, 196, 197, 6398, 6399, 10313).

In addition, a person's sensual level and the sensual person are described (no. 10236), together with the extent of the sensual things in a person (no. 9731).

Sensual things ought to be held in last place, and not in first place, and in a wise and intelligent person they are held in last place, subject to more interior ones, while in a foolish person they are in first place and dominant; the latter are those properly called sensual (nos. 5077 5125, 5128, 7645).

If sensual things are in last place, they are the means by which a path is opened to understanding, and truths are refined by a process of abstraction (no. 5580).

These sensual things are the closest to the world, and they admit things that flow in from the world and, so to speak, sift them (no. 9726).

By these sensual things a person is in communication with the world, and by rational things with heaven (no. 4009).

Sensual things supply materials that are of service to the interior levels of the mind (nos. 5077 5081).

Some sensual things are of service to the intellectual faculty, and some are of service to the volitional faculty (no. 5077).

If a person does not raise his thought from sensual things, he is hardly wise (no. 5089).

A wise person thinks above the level of sensual things (nos. 5089, 5094).

When a person raises his thinking above the level of sensual things, he comes into a clearer sight, and finally into the light of heaven (nos. 6183 6313, 6315, 9407, 9730, 9922).

An elevation above the level of sensual things and withdrawal from them was something known to ancient peoples (no. 6313).

A person can be conscious in his spirit of things that occur in the spiritual world, if he can be withdrawn from sensual things by the Lord and elevated into the light of heaven (no. 4622). That is because it is not the body that thinks, but a person's spirit in the body, and to the extent that it dwells in the body, it thinks dimly and in a state of darkness; however, to the extent that it does not dwell in the body, it thinks clearly and in a state of light - but only as regards spiritual matters (nos. 4622, 6614, 6622).

The lowest level of the intellect is sensual knowledge, and the lowest level of the will is sensual delight (no. 9996).

The difference between sensual characteristics possessed in common with animals, and those not possessed in common with them (no. 10236).

Some sensual people are not evil, because their interior levels have not been closed: their state in the other life (no. 6311).

9723. 'And you shall make [its] pans to take away [its] ashes' means the removers of things which have served their purpose. This is clear from the meaning of 'pans to take away the ashes' as the removers of things which have served their purpose; for 'ashes' means the kinds of things which remain in a person's natural or external memory after they have served their purpose and which must be removed lest they get in the way of other things which come later to serve further purposes. The kinds of things which serve to effect such a removal are meant by 'pans', since ashes were taken away by means of them. To enable people to know what is meant by the ashes remaining on the altar after a burnt offering or sacrifice, the nature of things remaining in a person after they have served their purpose must be stated first. From early childhood right through to the end of his life in the world a person is being perfected in intelligence and wisdom, and if all is to go well for him, in faith and love. Items of factual knowledge contribute primarily to this end and purpose. These items of knowledge are absorbed through hearing, seeing, and reading, and are deposited in the external or natural memory; they serve inward sight or that of the understanding as a whole field of objects from which to choose and draw forth such as will help to make the person wiser. For interior sight or that of the understanding uses its own light, which comes from heaven, to see down into that field, that is, into the external memory which lies below it. From the many different items there it chooses and draws forth such as are suited to its own love; it summons them from there and deposits them in its own memory, which is the internal memory, regarding which, see 2469-2494. This is how the life of the internal man develops, along with its intelligence and wisdom. The situation is similar with those things that constitute spiritual intelligence and wisdom, namely matters of faith and love. Those which have to be implanted in the internal man are in like manner served by items of factual knowledge, but ones drawn from the Word or from what the Church teaches, which are called cognitions of truth and good. These cognitions deposited in the memory of the external man serve, in a similar way, as objects seen by the internal man. The internal man sees them in the light of heaven, then chooses and draws forth such as are suited to its love; the internal man sees no others within the external man. For what a person loves he sees in light; but what he does not love he sees in shade. He rejects the latter and chooses the former.

[2] All this goes to show what the situation is with the truths of faith and forms of the good of love present with a person who is being regenerated. It shows that the good which belongs to love chooses for itself truths of faith that are suited to it and perfects itself by means of them, and that for this reason the good of love occupies the first place and the truth of faith the second, as has been abundantly shown before, in 3325, 3494, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3701, 4925, 4977, 6256, 6269, 6272, 6273. After the items of knowledge or the cognitions of good and truth in the external man's memory have served that purpose they disappear so to speak from that memory. They are like the things taught to a person which have served since early childhood as the means to perfect his private life and his public life. After those things have served that informative purpose and the person has begun to live as they direct, they fade from view in the memory; only the practice of them remains. In this way a person learns to speak, learns to think, learns to discriminate and form opinions, learns to be honourable in dealings with others and to behave politely. In short, he acquires languages, good manners, intelligence, and wisdom.

[3] Items of knowledge which have served those purposes are meant by ashes which need to be removed; and cognitions of truth and good by means of which spiritual life is brought to a person, after they have served their purpose, that is, imparted that life, are meant by the ashes of the altar, which too need to be removed. But when they are removed they are first deposited at the side of the altar, then later on are carried outside the camp to a clean place, the fire on the altar all the while being kept alight to serve a new burnt offering or sacrifice, in accord with the process described by Moses in Leviticus,

The priest must see to it that the burnt offering burns ¹ on the hearth upon the altar all night until dawn. After this he shall put on his linen robe and linen breeches, and take up the ashes into which the fire has burned the burnt offering on the altar and place them at the side of the altar. Afterwards he shall take off his own garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. But the fire on the altar shall go on burning and not be put out. The priest shall kindle pieces of wood on it at every dawn, and lay the burnt offering on it, and burn on it the fat of the sacrifices. Fire shall burn unceasingly on the altar and not be put out. Leviticus 6:8-13.

All the details here hold the arcana of heaven within them and have as their meaning the Divine things that belong to worship of the Lord springing from the good of love. What is therefore meant by 'ashes' has been stated above. The fact that something heavenly is meant by 'the ashes of the altar' - for instance in the requirement that when the priest took the ashes off the altar he had to put on a linen robe and linen breeches, and after that wear other garments to carry them outside the camp and deposit them in a clean place - may be recognized by anyone who stops to consider the matter. Nothing mentioned in the Word is devoid of meaning, not a single word, nor thus any step in this whole process.

[4] All this shows pretty clearly what is meant by the ashes from the red cow that had been burned, by means of which the water of separation and of cleansing was prepared, referred to in Numbers 19:2-11, 17, and what is meant in the contrary sense by 'the ashes', namely the harm which has been done and remains after consumption by the fire of self-love. This harm is meant by the ashes which people bore on their head and in which they rolled in grief because of their sins, Jeremiah 6:26; Ezekiel 27:30; Jonah 3:6.