2959. 'The land [is worth] four hundred shekels of silver' means the price of redemption by means of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'four hundred shekels', dealt with below, and from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2048, 2937. The reason 'four hundred shekels' means the price of redemption is that 'four hundred' means vastation and 'a shekel' price. What vastation is, see 2455 (end), 2682, 2694, 2699, 2702, 2704, where it is shown that there are two types of vastation. The first takes place when the Church altogether ceases to exist, that is, when there is no longer any charity or faith. At that point the Church is said to be vastated or laid waste. The second takes place when those who belong to the Church are reduced to a state of ignorance and also of temptation, for the reason that the evils and falsities residing with them are to be set apart and so to speak dissipated. Those who emerge from this vastation are those who are specifically called the redeemed, for at that point they are taught the goods and truths of faith, and are reformed and regenerated by the Lord, as shown in the paragraphs quoted. Now since the number four hundred, when used to specify a period of time - such as four hundred years - means the duration and also the state of vastation, so that same number, when used to specify the number of shekels, means the price of redemption; and when the word 'silver' is mentioned together with this number, the price of redemption by means of truth is meant.

[2] That 'four hundred years' means the duration and the state of vastation becomes clear also from what Abraham was told,

Jehovah said to Abraham, ¹ Know for sure that your seed will be strangers in a land not theirs. And they will serve them, and these will afflict them for four hundred years. Genesis 15:13.

There it may be seen that 'four hundred years' is used to mean the duration of the stay of the children of Israel in Egypt. Yet it is not the duration of their stay in Egypt that is meant but something that is not evident to anyone except from the internal sense. This becomes clear from the fact that the duration of the stay of the children of Israel in Egypt was no more than half the stated period, as becomes quite clear from the descendants of Jacob down to Moses. For the facts are that Levi was descended from Jacob, Kohath from Levi, Amram from Kohath, and Aaron and Moses from Amram, Exodus 6:16-20; Levi and his son Kohath went down to Egypt together with Jacob, Genesis 46:11; and Moses came two generations later, and was eighty years old when he spoke to Pharaoh, Exodus 7:7. These facts show that the period of time from Jacob's entry into Egypt until his sons' departure from that land was approximately two hundred and fifteen years.

[3] That 'four hundred' is used in the Word to mean something other than its numerical value in the historical sense is clearer still from its being said that

The length of time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years, and at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, it happened on that same day, that all the armies of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt. Exodus 12:40-41.

The duration of the stay of the children of Israel in that land was in fact only half that number of years; but it was from Abraham's entry into Egypt that the four hundred and thirty years were measured. Consequently what is said at this point in Exodus is for the sake of the internal sense Lying within those words. In the internal sense the sojourn of the sons of Jacob in Egypt represents and means the vastation of the Church, the state and duration of which are described by the number four hundred and thirty years. Thirty describes the state of vastation of the sons of Jacob as being no vastation at all, for they were such as could not be reformed through any state of vastation (for the meaning of the number thirty, see 2276); and 'four hundred years' represents the general state of vastation of those who belonged to the Church.

[4] Those therefore who come out of that vastation are referred to as the redeemed, as is also evident from the words addressed to Moses,

Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from beneath the burdens of Egypt, and I will rescue you from their slavery, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgements. Exodus 6:6.

And elsewhere,

Jehovah has brought you out by means of a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Deuteronomy 7:8; 13:5.

And elsewhere,

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, but Jehovah your God redeemed you. Deuteronomy 15:15; 24:18.

In Samuel,

Your people whom You redeemed for Yourself from Egypt. 2 Samuel 7:23.

Since those who emerge from the state of vastation are referred to as the redeemed, 'four hundred shekels' therefore means the price of redemption.

[5] As regards 'a shekel' meaning the price or valuation, this is clear from the following places in the Word: In Moses,

All your valuations shall be according to the shekel of holiness. Leviticus 27:25.

And elsewhere,

If a soul commits a trespass and has sinned inadvertently in the holy things of Jehovah, he shall bring his guilt offering to Jehovah, a ram without blemish out of the flock, according to your valuation in silver shekels, according to the shekel of holiness. Leviticus 5:15.

From this it is evident that 'a shekel' means the price or valuation. It is called 'the shekel of holiness' because the price or valuation has regard to truth and good from the Lord - truth and good from the Lord being, within the Church, holiness itself. Consequently it is called 'the shekel of holiness' many times elsewhere, as in Exodus 30:24; Leviticus 27:3; Numbers 3:47, 50; 7:13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, 49, 55, 61, 67, 73; 18:16.

[6] That 'a shekel' is the price of what is holy is quite evident in Ezekiel when the holy land and the holy city are the subject. There the shekel is referred to as follows,

The shekel there shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh (pound). Ezekiel 45:12.

Anyone may see that here 'shekel', 'pound', and the numbers mentioned mean holy things, that is, good and truth, for the holy land and the holy city or new Jerusalem, which are the subject there, mean nothing else than the Lord's kingdom where neither shekel, nor gerahs, nor pound, nor the numbering of them occurs. But the number itself, from the meaning it has in the internal sense, determines the valuation or price of good and truth.

[7] In Moses it is said that every man (vir) should give a ransom for his soul, so that there would be no plague. He had to give half a shekel, according to the shekel of holiness, a shekel being twenty gerahs. Half a shekel was to be the thruma (offering) to Jehovah, Exodus 30:12-13. Here ten gerahs, which make half a shekel, are remnants which are received from the Lord. Remnants are goods and truths stored away with a person - such remnants, being meant by 'ten', see 576, 1738, 1906, 2284. That remnants are goods and truths from the Lord that are stored away with a person, see 1906, 2284. Consequently they are also called 'the thruma (or offering) to Jehovah', and it is said that by means of this a soul will be redeemed. The reason it is stated several times that a shekel was twenty gerahs, as in these verses from Exodus, and also in Leviticus 27:25; Numbers 3:47; 18:16; and elsewhere, is that the shekel of twenty gerahs means the valuation of the good preserved in remnants - twenty meaning the good preserved in remnants, see 2280. Also therefore a shekel was a weight according to which the price of both gold and silver was determined, Genesis 24:22; Exodus 38:24; Ezekiel 4:10; 45:12 - the price of gold because 'gold' means good, 113, 1551, 1552, and the price of silver because 'silver' means truth, 1551, 2048. From this it is now evident that 'the land [is worth] four hundred shekels of silver' means the price of redemption by means of truth. The reason it is called 'the land' is that the spiritual Church is the subject, which is reformed and regenerated by means of truth received from the Lord, 2954. That 'the land' means the Church, see 662, 1066, 1068, 1262, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end).

Poznámky pod čarou:

2682. 'And she put the boy under one of the shrubs' means despair that no truth or good at all was perceived. This is clear from the meaning of 'the boy' as spiritual truth, dealt with in 2669, 2677, and from the meaning of 'a shrub' or a bush as perception, yet so small as to be scarcely anything at all - that smallness being the reason for the use of the expression, 'under one of the shrubs' (for by 'shrubs' the same is meant, though in a minor degree, as by trees, which mean perceptions, see 103, 2163) - and also from the feeling expressed in the action, which is the feeling of despair. From this it is evident that 'she put the boy under one of the shrubs' means despair that no truth or good at all was perceived. That being put under one of the shrubs means being left desolate so far as truth and good are concerned, to the point of despair, is evident in Job,

In poverty and in hunger, one all alone. They were fleeing to the drought, to the previous night's desolation and devastation, picking mallows on the shrub; in the cleft of the valleys to dwell, in holes of the dust and rocks; among the shrubs they were groaning, under the wild thistle they were joined together. Job 30:3-4, 6-7.

This is a reference to the desolation of truth, which is described by means of expressions used commonly in the Ancient Church - for the Book of Job is a book of the Ancient Church - such as 'in poverty and in hunger, one all alone', 'fleeing to the drought, the previous night's desolation and devastation', 'in the clefts of valleys and rocks to dwell', as well as 'picking mallows on the shrubs', and 'groaning among the shrubs'. So also in Isaiah,

They will come and all of them will rest in rivers of desolations, in the clefts of rocks, and on all bushes, and in all water-courses. Isaiah 7:19.

This also is a reference to desolation, which is described by means of similar forms of expression, namely 'resting in rivers of desolations, in the clefts of rocks, and on bushes'.

[2] In this present verse the subject is the second state of those who are being reformed, which is a state when they are reduced to ignorance, so that they do not know any truth at all, even to the point of despair. The reason they are reduced to such ignorance is so that the persuasive light which shines from the proprium may be extinguished. This light is such that it illuminates falsities as much as it does truths and so leads to a belief in what is false by means of truths and a belief in what is true by means of falsities, and at the same time to trust in themselves. They are also reduced to such ignorance in order that they may be led through actual experience into a recognition of the fact that no good or truth at all originates in themselves or what is properly their own but in the Lord. Those who are being reformed are reduced to ignorance, even to the state of despair, at which point they receive comfort and enlightenment, as is clear from what follows. For the light of truth from the Lord cannot flow into the persuasive thinking that originates in the proprium; indeed its nature is such as to extinguish that light. In the next life that persuasive thinking presents itself as the light in winter, but with the approach of the light of heaven a kind of darkness consisting in ignorance of all truth takes the place of that wintry light. This state with those who are being reformed is called a state of desolation of truth, and is also frequently the subject in the internal sense of the Word.

[3] But few are able to know about that state because few at the present day are being regenerated. To people who are not being regenerated, it is all the same whether they know the truth or whether they do not, and also whether what they do know is the truth or whether it is not, provided that they can pass a thing off as the truth. But people who are being regenerated give much thought to doctrine and to life since they give much thought to eternal salvation. Consequently if truth deserts them, they grieve at heart because truth is the object of all their thought and affection. The nature of the state of those who are being regenerated and the nature of those who are not may become clear from the following consideration: While in the body a person lives as to his spirit in heaven and as to his body in the world. He is born into both and has been so created that he is in effect able as to his spirit to be with angels, and at the same time to be with men through the things which belong to the body. But since those who believe that they have a spirit which will continue to live after death are few in number those who are being regenerated are few. To those who do believe that they have a spirit the next life forms the whole of their thought and affection, and the world in comparison none at all. But to those who do not believe that they have a spirit the world forms the whole of their thought and affection and the next life in comparison none at all. The former are those who can be regenerated, but the latter those who cannot.