146. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna. That this signifies that to those who conquer in temptations will be given the delight of heavenly love from the Divine Human of the Lord is evident from the signification of him that overcometh, as being those who conquer in temptations; for such are treated of in what is written to the angel of this church (as may be seen above, n. 130); also from the signification of I will give to eat, as being to be appropriated and conjoined by love and charity (concerning which see Arcana Coelestia 2187, 2343, 3168, 3513, 5643), and because it is said concerning the hidden manna, by which is meant the Lord as to the Divine Human; by eating thereof, is here signified the delight of heavenly love, for this is appropriated from the Divine Human of the Lord by those who receive Him in love and faith; and from the signification of the hidden manna, as being the Lord as to the Divine Human.

That this is what is meant by manna is evident from the words of the Lord Himself in John:

"Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. The bread of God is he who cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is that bread which cometh down from heaven, that he that eateth of it may not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven, if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever. The bread that I will give is my flesh" (6:31-58).

That it is the Lord Himself who is meant by manna and by bread, He plainly teaches, for He says, "I am the bread of life that came down from heaven." That it is the Lord as to the Divine Human, He also teaches when He says, "The bread which I will give is my flesh."

[2] The Lord taught the same when He instituted the holy supper:

"Jesus took bread, and blessed, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body" (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19).

To eat of this bread is to be conjoined to Him by love, for to eat signifies to appropriate and be conjoined, as said above; and love is spiritual conjunction. The same thing is signified by eating in the kingdom of God, in Luke:

"Blessed is he that eateth bread in the kingdom of God" (14:15).

Again:

"Ye shall eat and drink at my table in the kingdom of God" (22:30).

In Matthew:

"Many shall come from the east and west, and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom" of God (8:11).

(That by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is meant the Lord, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 1893, 4615, 6098, 6185, 6276, 6804, 6847.)

And in John:

"Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man will give unto you" (6:27).

[3] (That the Son of man is the Lord as to the Divine Human, may be seen above, n. 63.) The reason why it is called hidden manna is, because the delight of heavenly love, which those receive who are conjoined to the Lord by love is quite unknown to those who are not in heavenly love; and this delight no one can receive but he who acknowledges the Divine Human of the Lord; for it proceeds from this. Because this delight was unknown to the sons of Israel in the desert, they therefore called it manna, as is evident in Moses:

"Jehovah said unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And in the morning the dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the desert there lay a small round thing; and when they saw it, they said, It is manna (What is this?). Moses said unto them, This is the bread which Jehovah hath given you to eat. And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna" (Exodus 16:3 to the end).

"Jehovah fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live" (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The reason why this delight, which is meant by manna, was unknown to the sons of Israel was, that they were in bodily delight more than other nations; and those who are in this delight cannot know anything at all of heavenly delight. (That the sons of Israel were of such a character may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 248.) It is called delight, and by this is meant the delight of love; for all the delight of life is from love.

[4] Because it is the delight of heavenly love that is signified by eating of the hidden manna, it is therefore called the bread of the heavens in David:

"Jehovah commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of the heavens; and rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them of the corn of the heavens" (Psalm 78:23, 24).

And in another place:

"Jehovah satisfied them with the bread of the heavens" (Psalm 105:40).

It is called the bread of the heavens because it rained down from heaven with the dew, but in the spiritual sense it is called the bread of the heavens because it flows down from the Lord through the angelic heaven; in this sense, no other heaven is meant, and no other bread than that which nourishes the soul of man. That bread is here meant in this sense is evident from the words of the Lord himself in John, where He says, that

He is the manna or bread which came down from heaven (John 6:31-58).

And in Moses, where it is said

that Jehovah fed them with manna that He might teach that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every utterance of the mouth of Jehovah (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The utterance of the mouth of Jehovah is everything that proceeds from the Lord, and this, specifically, is Divine truth united with Divine good (as may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 13, 133, 139, 140, 284-290).

[5] This delight is also described by correspondences in Moses:

The manna was "like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like a cake made with honey" (Exodus 16:31).

And in another place:

"They made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as of the juice of oil" (Numbers 11:7, 8).

The reason why the manna had such an appearance and taste was, that the white seed of coriander signifies truth from a celestial origin, a cake the good of celestial love, honey its external delight, oil that love itself, and its juice, whence was the taste, its internal delight, and the rain with the dew, in which the manna was, the influx of Divine truth in which that delight is contained. (That seed signifies truth from a heavenly origin, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 3038, 3373, 10248, 10249: that white is said of that truth, n. 3301, 3993, 4007, 5319; that cake signifies the good of heavenly love, n. 7978, 9992, 9993; that oil signifies that love itself, n. 886, 3728, 9780, 9954, 10261, 10269; hence its juice signifies its delight, because the taste is therefrom and the taste is the delight and pleasantness, see n. 3502, 4791-4805. But more may be seen concerning these things in the explanation of chapter 16 of Exodus in Arcana Coelestia.) The reason why the delight of celestial love is signified by eating of the hidden manna, although by the hidden manna the Lord as to the Divine Human is signified, is that it is the same thing whether we say the Divine Human of the Lord, or the Divine love, for the Lord is Divine love itself, and what proceeds from Him is Divine good united to Divine truth; both belong to love, and are also the Lord in heaven. Therefore to eat of Him is to be conjoined to Him, and this is effected by love from Him. (But these things may be better understood from what is said and shown in the work, Heaven and Hell 13-19, 116-125, 126-140; and also in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 210-222 and 307.)

7601. 'And the flax' means the truth of the exterior natural. This is clear from the meaning of' the flax' as truth, but the truth of the exterior natural, dealt with below. The natural is exterior and interior, see 4570, 5118, 5497, 5649, and therefore the truth and good there are interior and exterior, 3293, 3294. The truth and good of the exterior natural are meant by 'the flax and the barley', and the good and truth of the interior natural by 'the wheat and the spelt'.

[2] This verse and the next deal with the truths and forms of good that were destroyed and laid waste, and the forms of good and truths that were not destroyed or laid waste. Thus they deal with the truths and forms of good that were stored away and placed in safe keeping for [future] use, and those which were not stored away and placed in safe keeping. For when those who are evil undergo vastation, that is, when they are being separated from truths and forms of good and are left with their own evils and falsities, those truths and forms of good that are present in the exterior natural - where they have become linked to falsities and evils - are what are laid waste. These truths and forms of good look downwards and cannot for that reason be safely stored away, as will be seen below in 7604, 7607. But the truths and forms of good of the interior natural are not laid waste but are taken to an even more interior position, where they are held in safe keeping for [future] use. Communication between the interior natural and the exterior is then closed to such an extent that no good or truth at all can pass from there into the exterior natural, apart from just a general kind of communication of them which enables those people to engage in reasoning and put together arguments to lend support to falsities and evils. Those forms of good and truths that are placed in safe keeping are meant in the Word by 'the remnant', dealt with in 468, 530, 560, 561, 576, 661, 798, 1738, 1906, 2284, 5135, 5342, 5344, 5897-5899, 6156, 7556. These then are the things which the two present verses deal with and which are meant by 'the flax and the barley were struck; for the barley was a ripening ear, and the flax a stem', and by 'the wheat and the spelt were not struck because they were hidden'.

[3] The meaning of 'flax' or 'linen' as truth has its origin in representatives in heaven. In heaven those who are guided by the truth of the natural are seen clothed in white, like the whiteness of linen. The actual truth of the natural is also represented there as fabric made from the finer kind of flaxen threads. These threads have the appearance of silken ones, and clothing made from them has a similar appearance - brilliant, wonderfully translucent, and soft - if the truth represented in that way is rooted in good. But on the other hand those threads which look flaxen do not have a translucent, brilliant, or soft appearance, but a hard and brittle appearance, though they are still white, if the truth that is represented in that way is not rooted in good.

[4] From all this one may now recognize what is meant when it says that the angels whom people saw appeared in garments of flax or linen, such as those referred to in John,

Out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in linen, white and splendid, and girded around their breasts with golden girdles. Revelation 15:6.

In Daniel,

I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, a man clothed in linen whose loins were girded with gold of Uphaz. Daniel 10:5.

In Ezekiel,

Behold, six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, each with a weapon of dispersion in his hand. But one man in the midst of them was clothed in linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. ¹ Ezekiel 9:2.

More is said about this angel [clothed in linen] in verses 3 and 4 of the same chapter and in Chapter 10:2-7. The same prophet also says, in reference to the angel who measured the new temple, that he had a line of flax and a measuring rod in his hand, Ezekiel 40:ff. Also, the angels who were seen in the Lord's tomb appeared clothed in white, splendid and flashing like lightning, Matthew 28:3; Mark 16:5; Luke 14:4; John 20:11-12.

[5] Since 'linen' or 'flax' meant the truth of the exterior natural, and the exterior natural is what clothes things more internal, that truth is what was represented by the linen garments with which angels were seen to be clothed. It is also meant by the linen garments worn by Aaron whenever he ministered in the Holy Place, spoken of in Moses as follows, When Aaron comes into the Holy Place, he shall put on the holy linen tunic, and gird himself with a linen sash, and place the linen turban on himself. These are holy garments. Leviticus 16:3-4.

Similarly in Ezekiel,

The priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, when they enter the gates of the inner court they shall put on the linen garments, and no wool shall come upon them. When they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within, the linen turbans shall be on their heads, the linen under garments shall be over their loins. Ezekiel 44:17-18.

This is referring to the new temple and the New Jerusalem, which mean the Lord's kingdom. For the same reason also the priests wore linen ephods, 1 Samuel 22:18; when the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord he wore a linen ephod, 1 Samuel 1:18; and David too wore a linen ephod when the ark was brought into his city, 2 Samuel 6:14.

[6] From all this one can also see why the Lord girded Himself with a linen towel when He washed the disciples' feet, and wiped their feet with the linen towel with which He was girded, John 13:4-5. Washing of the feet was a sign of purification from sins, which is accomplished by the truths of faith, since these teach a person how he ought to live.

[7] 'Linen' means truth in the following places too: In Jeremiah,

Jehovah said to the prophet, Go, buy yourself a linen girdle, and place it over your loins; but you are not to pass it through water. Take the girdle, and arise, go away to the Euphrates, and hide it in the cleft of a rock. At the end of many days, when he took the girdle from where he had hidden it, behold, the girdle was spoiled; it was profitable for nothing. Jeremiah 13:1-7.

'The linen girdle over the loins' represented truth arising from good, as it is in the beginning when the Church is established by the Lord, and as it becomes subsequently, when around the end it is has become spoiled and profitable for nothing. In Isaiah,

Those that make linen out of silk threads, and the weavers of curtains, will blush. Isaiah 19:9.

This refers to Egypt. 'Making linen out of silk threads' stands for counterfeiting truths.

[8] In Moses,

You shall not plough with an ox and an ass together. You shall not put on a mingled garment made of wool and linen together. Deuteronomy 22:10-11.

'Ox' means the good of the natural, 'ass' its truth; and much the same is meant by 'wool and linen'. Their being forbidden to plough with an ox and ass together or to put on a mingled garment made of wool and linen together meant that they were forbidden to be in two states at the same time, that is to say, in a state of good from which they looked to truth and at the same time in a state of truth from which they looked to good. These prohibitions embody much the same as those declared by the Lord in Matthew,

Let him who is on the roof of the house not go down to take anything out of his house; and let him who is in the field not turn back to get his clothing. Matthew 24:17-18.

Regarding these prohibitions see 3652 (end). For those who look from good to truth are in the inner part of heaven, whereas those who look from truth to good are in the outer part. The latter look from the world towards heaven, the former from heaven towards the world. Consequently they are in a kind of inverse ratio to each other, and therefore if they were put together the one would destroy the other.

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