434. They had hair like women's hair. (9:8) This symbolically means that they seemed to themselves to have an affection for truth.

In the Word a man symbolizes an understanding of truth, and a woman an affection for truth, because a man is by birth a form of the intellect, and a woman a form of affection, as we say in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Marriage. ¹ Hair in the Word symbolizes the lowest level of a person's life, which is the sensual level, as said in no. 424. It is on this level that it seems to these people that they have an affection for truth, when in fact they have an affection for falsity, since they believe it to be true.

That a woman symbolizes an affection for truth can be seen from many passages in the Word. So it is that the church is called a wife, woman, daughter, and virgin. The church, moreover, is a church by virtue of its love or affection for truth, for this is what gives rise to an understanding of truth.

[2] The church is called a woman in the following places:

...there were two women, the daughters of one mother, (who) committed harlotry in Egypt..., Oholah (being) Samaria, and Oholibah (being) Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 23:2-4)

...Jehovah has called you like a woman forsaken and afflicted in spirit, and a youthful woman... (Isaiah 54:6-7)

...Jehovah has created a new thing in the earth - a woman shall encompass a man. (Jeremiah 31:21-22)

The woman clothed with the sun, whom the dragon pursued (Revelation 12), symbolizes the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem.

Women symbolize affections for truth, by virtue of which the church is a church, in many other places, as in the following:

The women of My people you cast out from its delightful house. (Micah 2:9)

(The families of the houses shall mourn by themselves,) and... women by themselves... (Zechariah 12:11-13)

Rise up, you women at ease, hear... my speech. (Isaiah 32:9)

Why do you do... evil..., to cut off from you man and woman...? (Jeremiah 44:7)

...I will scatter man and woman... (Jeremiah 51:22)

A man and woman, here and elsewhere, mean, symbolically in the spiritual sense, an understanding of truth and an affection for truth.

Poznámky pod čarou:

3132. 'And so it was, when he saw the nose-jewel and the bracelets on his sister's hands' means when it recognized Divine Good and Divine Truth within the power of the affection for truth, meant by 'a sister'. This is clear from the meaning of 'seeing' as recognizing, dealt with in 2150, from the meaning of 'a nose-jewel' as Divine Good, dealt with in 3103, 3104, from the meaning of 'bracelets' as Divine Truth, also dealt with in 3103, 3105, from the meaning of 'hands' as power, dealt with in 878, 3091, and from the meaning of 'a sister' as the affection for truth, dealt with in 2508, 2524, 2556. From these paragraphs it is evident that 'seeing the nose-jewel and the bracelets on his sister's hands' means recognizing Divine Good and Divine Truth within the power of the affection for truth.

[2] The truth of the matter is that Divine Good and Divine Truth joined together within the Lord constitute the Divine marriage itself, from which the heavenly marriage springs, which in a similar way is a marriage of good and truth. From this too conjugial love springs, see 2727-2759. Consequently when a marriage is the subject in the Word the heavenly marriage is meant in the internal sense, which is the marriage of good and truth, and in the highest sense the Divine marriage which exists within the Lord. For this reason nothing else is meant here by the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. The marriage itself exists when good and truth have been joined together, but the betrothal of the two, or the state preceding the marriage, when one is being introduced into the other. But it is the state preceding the betrothal that is described here. In this state, as it is in the power of a [marriageable] girl to become betrothed, and subsequently as a wife to be joined to a husband, so it is in the power of the affection for truth to be introduced into Divine Truth and so to be joined to Divine Good. What is more, in the initial affection for truth and after that in every affection for it, with the Lord, Divine Good itself and Divine Truth itself were inmostly present because Jehovah Himself was present there. This was the source of the power which is the subject here.