“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)

2218. That 'the men rose up [from there]' means that that perception came to an end becomes clear from the meaning of 'rising up' as going away, and from that of 'the men', dealt with above. The coming of the three men or of Jehovah to Abraham represented the Lord's Divine Perception, as shown above. The Lord's Perception from the Divine at that time was first His Perception regarding the Divine Trinity of the Divine itself, the Divine Human, and that which Proceeds from these, and then regarding His Human, that it was to put on the Divine. Now there follows His Perception from the Divine regarding the character of the human race at that time. These three considerations are what this chapter deals with, and they come in the following order - the Divine assumed the Human, and made this Divine, so that He might save the human race. Regarding the first two considerations it is said that the Perception came to an end, which is what is meant in the internal sense by the words 'the men rose up'. But that Perception regarding the character of the human race is meant in the internal sense by the words 'they looked towards the face of Sodom, and Abraham went with them'; and the fact that He had no wish to remain any longer in that Perception is meant by the words 'he went with them to send them on their way'. But a better sight of these matters may be gained from the preliminary Contents above, ¹ and also from the explanation given below of what follows.

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