20
Mutta Juudassa pitää ijankaikkisesti asuttaman, ja Jerusalemissa ijankaikkiseen aikaan.
Joel 3:20
SWORD version by Tero Favorin (tero at favorin dot com)
Apocalypse Revealed # 546
546. Then the woman fled into the wilderness. (12:6) This symbolizes the church, namely, the New Jerusalem, being at first among few.
The woman symbolizes the New Church (no. 533), and the wilderness symbolizes a circumstance in which there are no longer any truths. The church is symbolized as being at first among few because the statement follows, "Where she has a place prepared by God, that they may feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days," which symbolizes the state of that church then, that in the meantime provision may be made for it to exist among more people until it grows to its appointed state (no. 547).
A wilderness in the Word symbolizes:
1. A church devastated, or one in which the Word's truths have all been falsified, as was the case with the Jews at the time of the Lord's advent.
2. A church without truths, because it does not have the Word, as was the case with upright gentiles at the time of the Lord's advent.
3. A state of temptation or trial, in which a person is seemingly without truths, being surrounded by evil spirits who induce the temptation or trial and appear to rob him of his truths.
[2] 1. That a wilderness symbolizes a church devastated, or one in which the Word's truths have all been falsified, as was the case with the Jews at the time of the Lord's advent: This is apparent from the following passages:
Is this the man who shook the earth, who made kingdoms tremble, who made the world as a wilderness...? (Isaiah 14:16-17)
This said in reference to Babylon.
On the land of my people will come up thorns and briers...; ...the palace will be deserted... (Isaiah 32:13-14)
I beheld, and lo, Carmel was a wilderness... "The whole land shall be a wasteland." (Jeremiah 4:26-27)
The land is the church (no. 285).
...shepherds have destroyed My vineyard..., they have made the field of My desire a desolate wilderness... The devastators are coming... in the wilderness. (Jeremiah 12:10, 12)
...(the vine) is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land. (Ezekiel 19:13)
...fire has devoured the habitations of the wilderness. (Joel 1:19-20)
...the day of Jehovah is coming... The land is like the Garden of Eden before it, but after it a desolate wilderness. (Joel 2:1, 3)
...see the word of Jehovah! Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness? (Jeremiah 2:31)
The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of Jehovah; make level in the desert a highway for our God." (Isaiah 40:3)
And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 33:9; Jeremiah 3:2; 23:10; Lamentations 5:9; Hosea 2:2-3; 13:15; Joel 3:19; Malachi 1:3; Matthew 24:26; Luke 13:35.
That such is the state of the church today may be seen in no. 566 below.
[3] 2. That a wilderness symbolizes a church without truths, because it does not have the Word, as was the case with upright gentiles at the time of the Lord's advent: This is apparent from these passages:
...the Spirit shall be poured upon us from on high, then the wilderness shall become a fertile field...; and judgment will dwell in the wilderness... (Isaiah 32:15-16)
(I will put) fountains in the midst of the valleys, [and turn] the wilderness into a pool of water... I will put in the wilderness the shittim cedar... and the oil tree. (Isaiah 41:18-19)
He will turn a wilderness into a pool of water, and dry land into springs of water. (Psalms 107:35-36)
I will make a road in the wilderness, rivers in the desert... to give drink to My people, My chosen. (Isaiah 43:19-20)
...Jehovah... will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah; gladness and joy will be found in her... (Isaiah 51:3)
The habitations of the wilderness drip... (Psalms 65:12-13)
Let the wilderness... lift up (its) voice... Let the inhabitants of the rock sing... (Isaiah 43:10-11)
[4] 3. That a wilderness symbolizes a state of temptation or trial, in which a person is seemingly without truths, being surrounded by evil spirits who induce the temptation or trial and appear to rob him of his truths: This is apparent from Matthew 4:1-3, Mark 1:12-13.
Isaiah 17
1
The burden of Damascus: "Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.
2
The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
3
The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel," says Yahweh of Armies.
4
"It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5
It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim.
6
Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree," says Yahweh, the God of Israel.
7
In that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.
8
They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the incense altars.
9
In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.
10
For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.
11
In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12
Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!
13
The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
14
At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.
