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Eichah 3:36

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36 לעות אדם בריבו אדני לא ראה׃ ס

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Stone

  

Stones in the Bible in general represent truths, or things we know concerning the Lord and what He wants from us and for us in life. This is why the people of Israel built altars of stone, and is also why stoning was a principal form of capital punishment (using truth to destroy falsity, or in the negative sense using falsity to destroy truth). It is also why precious stones are described in such detail on Aaron's breastplate and ephod, and also in the New Jerusalem in Revelation; precious stones represent true ideas directly from the Lord with the various colors showing various forms of love. Stones are not alone in representing truth, of course -- it sometimes seems that almost everything in the Bible represents either true ideas or desires for good. But that makes sense, since our thoughts and our desires together are everything we are in life, and the interplay between them is what life is all about. The many ways they are represented in the Bible reflect the incredible variety in our feelings and thoughts, though we can only distantly understand how those representations work. In the case of stones, in their weight, strength and permanence they tend to represent true ideas that come from a desire for good, the understanding we can have if we are truly good and loving -- and in the highest sense the exalted ideas that come from the Lord's love. Those ideas are ones that are not easily moved or changed, and make wonderful foundations for the things we want to build in our spiritual lives.

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

True Christian Religion # 219

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219. (iii) THE PRECIOUS STONES IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, IN WHICH THE KING OF TYRE IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN, HAVE A SIMILAR MEANING.

We read in Ezekiel:

King of Tyre, you who set the seal upon your measured space, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, God's garden; every kind of precious stone was your covering, ruby, topaz and diamond, chrysolite, sardonyx and jasper, sapphire, chrysoprase and emerald, and gold, Ezekiel 28:12-13.

Tyre in the Word means the church in respect of its knowledge of good and truth; king means the church's truth, the garden of Eden wisdom and intelligence derived from the Word. Precious stones mean truths with light shining through them from good, of the sort found in the literal sense of the Word. It is because these were the meanings of those stones that they are called his covering. The literal sense is a covering for the interiors of the Word; see above (213).

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.