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Ezekiel 16:18

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18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.

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In general, birth order in the Bible reflects the progression of spiritual states, but the specifics of those states depends greatly on context: who the people in question are, and whether we’re talking about spiritual states as they flow to us from the Lord, or spiritual states as we advance through them to approach the Lord. For example, Esau was older than Jacob (by minutes, but it mattered), and as the elder represents a more internal spiritual state: the desire for good, and the ideas that flow from that desire. Jacob represents a more external state: the understanding of ideas that lead to good. The switched blessing, with Jacob getting the blessing Isaac meant for Esau, shows that to progress in life we need to put our understanding first for a while, though ultimately our loves will catch up and ultimately determine our true character. A similar thing happens when Jacob crosses his hands to give Ephraim, the younger of Joseph’s sons, the primary blessing over his older brother Manasseh. Both those cases describe blessings coming from the Lord, with the highest states coming from Him and extending down through lower states to get to us. There is a sort of opposite dynamic in the story of Leah and Rachel. There Jacob (representing the Lord himself, as a human, in His childhood) is advancing from more external states to more internal ones. In this case, then, the older daughter, Leah, represents a more external state which He had to work through to reach the more internal state represented by Rachael.

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Arcana Coelestia # 622

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622. The relating of 'to corrupt' to persuasions is clear in Isaiah,

They will not do evil, and they will not corrupt in all My holy mountain, for the land will be full of the knowledge from Jehovah. Isaiah 11:9.

And similarly in Isaiah 65:25, where 'doing evil' has regard to the will or evil desires, 'to corrupt' to the understanding or false persuasions. In the same prophet,

Woe to a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, sons who deal corruptly! Isaiah 1:4.

Here, as elsewhere, 'nation' and' seed of evil-doers stand for evils constituting the will, which are evil desires, while 'people' and 'sons who deal corruptly' stand for falsities constituting the understanding which are persuasions. In Ezekiel,

You were more corrupt than they in all your ways. Ezekiel 16:47.

Here 'to corrupt' relates to things of the understanding, reason, or thought, for 'way' is a term meaning truth. In David,

They have done what is corrupt, and they have done an abominable deed. Psalms 14:1.

Here 'corrupt' stands for dreadful persuasions and 'abominable' for the filthy desires which lie within the deed, or from which the deed originates. In Daniel,

After sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. And the people of the leader who is to come will corrupt the city and the sanctuary, and his end will come with a flood. Daniel 9:26.

In a similar way 'to corrupt' stands for false persuasions, to which 'a flood' has reference.

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