10182. 'Its horns shall be of one piece with it' means the powers of truth derived from the good of love and charity. This is clear from the meaning of 'horns' as the powers of truth, dealt with in 2832, 9719-9721. The reason why derived from the good of love and charity is meant is that all the power which truth possesses comes from that good. Therefore also the horns continued from the altar itself or were of one piece with it; for this altar was representative of the Lord, of His hearing and receiving everything of worship that springs from love and charity, 10177.

[2] The statement that all the power which truth possesses comes from the good of love is unintelligible to those who have only a material idea of power, and therefore the nature of that power must be described. In the heavens all power is derived from Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good. This is the source of the power angels possess, for angels are recipients of Divine Truth from the Lord, 1752, 4295, 8192. By means of the power which they receive from that source they protect a person by removing the hells from him; for a single angel is stronger than a thousand who come from hell. This power is what Peter's keys serve to mean, though Peter, who in the same place is referred to as a rock, means the Lord in respect of the truth of faith springing from the good of love, see Preface to Genesis 22, and 3750, 4738, 6000, 6073(end), 6344(end), 10087, 'the Rock' being the Lord in respect of the truth of faith, 8581.

[3] The power that Divine Truth possesses is also meant by 'the voice of Jehovah' in David,

The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters; the voice of Jehovah is powerful; the voice of Jehovah breaks the cedars; the voice of Jehovah strikes a flame of fire; the voice of Jehovah causes the wilderness to shake; the voice of Jehovah strips the forests bare; Jehovah gives strength to His people. Psalms 29:3-5, 7-9, 11.

'The voice of Jehovah' is the Divine Truth emanating from His Divine Good, see 9926.

[4] The power that Divine Truth possesses is also meant by 'the Word' in John,

All things were made through the Word, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:3.

'The Word' is the Divine Truth emanating from Divine Good, see 9987. Therefore also the Lord, when He was in the world, first made Himself Divine Truth, which is also meant in John 1:14 by the Word became flesh. The Lord made Himself Divine Truth then to the end that He might fight against all the hells and overcome them, and in so doing might restore all things to order there, and at the same time in the heavens, 9715, 9809, 10019, 10152.

[5] The fact that truths springing from good possess all power, while on the other hand falsities arising from evil have no power, is very well known in the next life. For this reason the evil who come there from the world have their belief, which is no more than persuasion, and also their knowledge of any truth, taken away from them. This then leaves them with the falsities belonging to their evil.

[6] The statement that truths springing from good possess such power is unintelligible to those who have the idea that truth or a belief in truth is no more than mental activity, when yet a person's mental activity, under the control of his will, constitutes all the strength which the body has; and if the Lord were to instill it through His Divine Truth into that body the person would possess the strength of Samson. But yet it is the Lord's good pleasure to impart strength to a person through faith springing from love in the things that belong to his spirit and that contribute to eternal life.

[7] From all this one may see what should be understood by the power of truth springing from good, the power meant by 'the horns' of both the altar of burnt offering and the altar of incense. That this power is meant by 'the horns' is clear from places in the Word where 'horns' are mentioned, as in Ezekiel,

On that day I will make a horn grow up for the house of Israel. Ezekiel 29:21.

In Amos,

Have we not by our own strength taken horns for ourselves? Amos 6:13.

In the first Book of Samuel,

Jehovah will give strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed. 1 Samuel 2:10.

In David,

Jehovah has exalted the horn of His people. Psalms 148:14.

In the same author,

All the horns of the wicked I will cut off; the horns of the righteous will be exalted. Psalms 75:10.

In Jeremiah,

The Lord has cut down in His very fierce anger ¹ the whole horn of Israel. And He has exalted the horn of your foes. Lamentations 2:3, 17.

In Ezekiel,

You push with side and shoulder, and butt with your horns all the weak sheep, until you have scattered them abroad. Ezekiel 34:21.

In Zechariah,

I saw four horns. The angel said, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. The smiths have come to cast down the horns of the nations lifting up their horn against the land of Judah. Zechariah 1:18-21.

In Moses,

His horns are unicorn horns ² . With these he will strike the peoples together to the ends of the earth. Deuteronomy 33:17.

In these places it is self-evident that power is meant by 'horns', and indeed power in both senses, that is to say, of truth directed against falsity and of falsity directed against truth; for the state of the Church is the subject in the internal sense of every one of these places.

[8] Something similar occurs in Amos,

On that day I will visit the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar will be cut away and fall to the ground. Amos 3:14.

'The altars of Bethel' and 'the horns of the altar' mean the evils and falsities destroying the Church's goodness and truth, regarding which it says that they 'will be cut away'.

[9] From all this one may see what should be understood by 'the horns' mentioned so frequently by Daniel, and by John in the Book of Revelation. Daniel describes the beast which had ten horns and also a horn speaking, Daniel 7:8, 11, 20; and he says that the horn was making war with the saints and prevailing, until the Ancient of Days ³ came, Daniel 7:11, 21-22, 24. He also speaks about the horns of the ram and the horns of the he-goat, which they used to make war against each other, Daniel 8:3-21. And John mentions that the dragon had ten horns, Revelation 12:3, as did the beast coming up out of the sea, Revelation 13:1, and also the scarlet beast, Revelation 17:12. In this verse it is also stated that the ten horns are ten kings; and the same words occur in Daniel 7:24. By 'kings' in the Word truths are meant, and in the contrary sense falsities, see 1672, 2015, 2069, 3009, 4575, 4581, 4966, 5044, 5068, 6148.

[10] It is because 'horn' means truth in its power, or in the contrary sense falsity destroying truth, that speech is attributed to a horn in Revelation 9:13; Daniel 7:8; Psalms 22:21.

[11] The anointing of kings with oil from a horn, 1 Samuel 16:1, 13; 1 Kings 1:39, represented truth springing from good, in its power; for truths in their power are meant by 'horns', good by 'oil', and those who are guided by truths springing from good by 'kings'. For the meaning of 'oil' as good, see 886, 9780; and for that of 'kings' as those who are guided by truths springing from good, thus - in the abstract sense - as truths springing from good, 6148. So it is also that in Psalms 132:17 a horn is said to bud, because all spiritual budding is that of truth springing from good. Therefore also in former times they made [imitations of] budding horns.

All power belongs to good and is exercised through truth, or what amounts to the same thing, belongs to truth springing from good, see the places referred to in 10019.

Poznámky pod čarou:

3246. 'And to the concubines' sons, whom Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts' means that places in the Lord's spiritual kingdom were allotted to spiritual people adopted by the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'the concubines' sons' as those who are spiritual, to be dealt with below; from the representation of 'Abraham' here as the Lord's Divine Human (so that the words 'whom Abraham had' mean that they - those who were spiritual - were adopted by the Lord's Divine Human); and from the meaning of 'the gifts which Abraham gave them' as allotted places in the Lord's spiritual kingdom.

[2] From what has been shown several times already about those who constitute the Lord's spiritual kingdom and who are called the spiritual, as in 3235 and elsewhere, it becomes clear that they are not sons of the marriage itself of good and truth, but of a certain covenant not so conjugial. They are indeed descended from the same father but not from the same mother, that is, from the same Divine Good but not from the same Divine Truth. Indeed with those who are celestial, since they are the product of the marriage itself of good and truth, good exists and truth rooted in that good. They never make investigations into what the truth may be but have a perception of it from good. Nor in conversation do they say more than this regarding what is true, 'Yes, that is so', in keeping with the Lord's teaching in Matthew,

Let your words be Yes, yes; No, no; anything beyond this is from evil. ¹ Matthew 5:37.

But those who are spiritual, since they are the product of a covenant not so conjugial, do not have any perception from which they can know what is true. Instead they call that the truth which parents and teachers have told them to be the truth. Consequently with them there is no marriage of good and truth. Nevertheless that which they believe to be the truth for the reason just given is adopted by the Lord as truth when goodness of life exists with them; see 1832. This now explains why the spiritual are here called 'the concubines' sons', which is used to mean all the sons of Keturah mentioned already, and also those descended from Hagar, dealt with shortly below in verses 12-18.

[3] In former times - to enable both those who are celestial and those who are spiritual to be represented in marriages - a man was allowed to have a concubine in addition to a wife. That concubine was given to the husband by his wife (uxor), in which case the concubine was called his wife (mulier), or was said to have been given to him as a wife (mulier), as when Hagar the Egyptian was given to Abraham by Sarah, Genesis 16:3, when the servant-girl Bilhah was given to Jacob by Rachel, Genesis 30:4, and when the servant-girl Zilpah was given to Jacob by Leah, Genesis 30:9. In those cases they are called 'wives' (mulier), but elsewhere concubines, as is Hagar the Egyptian in the present verse, Bilhah in Genesis 35:22, and even Keturah herself in 1 Chronicles 1:32.

[4] The reason why those men of old had concubines in addition to a wife, as not only Abraham and Jacob did, but also their descendants, such as Gideon, Judges 8:31; Saul, 2 Samuel 3:7; David, 2 Samuel 5:13; 15:16; Solomon, 1 Kings 11:3, was that they were permitted to do so for the sake of the representation. That is to say, the celestial Church was represented by the wife, and the spiritual Church by the concubine. They were permitted to do so because they were the kind of men with whom conjugial love did not exist; so that to them marriage was not marriage but merely copulation for the sake of begetting off-spring. With such persons those permissions were possible without any harm being done to love or consequently to the conjugial covenant. But such permissions are never possible among people with whom good and truth are present and who are internal people, or potentially so. For as soon as good and truth, and internal things, exist with the human being, such permissions come to an end. This is why Christians are not allowed, as the Jews were, to take a concubine in addition to a wife, and why such is adultery. Regarding the adoption of those who are spiritual by the Lord's Divine Human, see what has been stated and shown already on the same subject in 2661, 2716, 2833, 2834.

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