Face
“The eyes are the windows of the soul.” That's a sentiment with roots somewhere in murky antiquity, but one that has become hopelessly cliché because it is both poetic and obviously true. We feel that if we can look in someone's eyes, we can truly know what they are inside. And it's not just the eyes; really it is the face as a whole that conveys this. As Swedenborg puts it, the face is “man's spiritual world presented in his natural world” (Heaven and Hell, No. 91). Our faces reveal our interior thoughts and feelings in myriad ways, which is why psychologists, poker players and criminal investigators spend so much time studying them. It makes sense, then, that people's faces in the Bible represent their interiors, the thoughts, loves and desires they hold most deeply. We turn our faces to the ground to show humility when we bow in worship; we turn them to the mountains when seeking inspiration; we turn them toward our enemies when we are ready to battle temptation. When things are hard, we need to “face facts,” or accept them internally. When the topic is the Lord's face, it represents the Lord's interiors, which are perfect love and perfect mercy. And when people turn away from the Lord and refuse his love, it is described as the Lord “hiding his face.”
(Odkazy: Heaven and Hell 91)
Daniel 4:10-16
10
Thus were the visions of my head on my bed: I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the earth; and its height was great.
11
The tree grew, and was strong, and its height reached to the sky, and its sight to the end of all the earth.
12
The leaves of it were beautiful, and its fruit much, and in it was food for all: the animals of the field had shadow under it, and the birds of the sky lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.
13
I saw in the visions of my head on my bed, and behold, a watcher and a holy one came down from the sky.
14
He cried aloud, and said thus, Cut down the tree, and cut off its branches, shake off its leaves, and scatter its fruit: let the animals get away from under it, and the fowls from its branches.
15
Nevertheless leave the stump of its roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of the sky: and let his portion be with the animals in the grass of the earth:
16
let his heart be changed from man's, and let an animal's heart be given to him; and let seven times pass over him.
