601. Verse 3. And cried out with a great voice, as a lion roareth, signifies the testification of grievous distress on account of the desolation of Divine truth in the church. This is evident from the signification of "crying out with a great voice," as being the testification of grievous distress (of which presently); and from the signification of "as a lion roareth," as being on account of the desolation of Divine truth in the church; for a "lion" signifies Divine truth in its power (See above, n. 278), and "to roar" signifies the result of distress because of the desolation of truth.

[2] That this is the signification of "crying out with a great voice, as a lion roareth," can be seen from what follows in this chapter, where the desolation of Divine truth in the church is treated of; for "a strong angel coming down out of heaven" means the Lord in relation to the Word, which is Divine truth, of whom it is said afterwards that "the angel lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth unto the ages of the ages, that there shall be time no longer," which signifies that there shall be no longer any understanding of Divine truth, and thence no state of the church.

[3] And afterwards it is said, "In the days of the voice of the seventh angel the mystery of God shall be finished," which signifies the Last Judgment that was to come when there should be no faith in Divine truth because there would be no good of charity. From this it can be seen that "He cried out with a great voice, as a lion roareth," signifies the testification of grievous distress on account of the desolation of Divine truth in the church.

[4] Moreover, a "lion" is often mentioned in the Word; and in the highest sense a "lion" signifies the Lord in relation to Divine truth, likewise heaven and the church in respect to Divine truth from the Lord; and from this a "lion" signifies Divine truth in respect to power (See above, n. 278). This makes evident what "to roar" or "the roaring of a lion" signifies, namely, an ardent affection for defending heaven and the church, and thus for saving the angels of heaven and the men of the church, which is done by destroying the falsities of evil by means of Divine truth and its power; but in the contrary sense "to roar" or "the roaring of a lion" signifies an ardent desire to destroy and devastate the church, which is done by destroying Divine truth by means of the falsities of evil. Such is the signification of a "lion's roaring," because when a lion is hungry and seeks its prey, and also when it is enraged with anger against its enemy, it is its habit to roar.

[5] That this is the signification of "to roar" and "roaring" in the Word can be seen from the following passages. In Isaiah:

Thus Jehovah said unto me, Like as the lion, and the young lion roareth over his prey, when a multitude of shepherds goeth out against him, and he is not dismayed at their voice nor affected by their tumult, so shall Jehovah of Hosts come down to wage war upon Mount Zion and upon the hill thereof (Isaiah 31:4).

Jehovah is compared to a lion roaring, because a "lion" signifies the Lord in relation to Divine truth and its power, and "to roar" signifies the eagerness to defend the church against evils and falsities; therefore it is said, "so shall Jehovah of Hosts come down to wage war upon Mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof," "Mount Zion" meaning the celestial church, and "the hill thereof" (or Jerusalem) the spiritual church; the "prey over which the lion roareth" signifies deliverance from hell.

[6] In Joel:

Jehovah shall roar out of Zion, and shall give forth His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall quake; but Jehovah shall be a shelter for His people, and a stronghold for the sons of Israel (Joel 3:16).

The protection of the faithful by the Lord by means of Divine truth is described by "Jehovah shall roar out of Zion, and shall give forth His voice from Jerusalem;" the vehement power of Divine truth, and consequent terror, are described by "the heavens and the earth shall quake;" and salvation and protection by "Jehovah shall be a shelter for His people, and a stronghold for the sons of Israel;" "the people of Jehovah" and "the sons of Israel" being the faithful who are of the church.

[7] In Hosea:

I will not return to destroy Ephraim. They shall go after Jehovah; He shall roar like a lion, for He shall roar, and sons from the sea shall draw near with honor, with honor shall they come as the bird out of Egypt and as the dove out of the land of Assyria; and I will make them to dwell upon their houses (Hosea 11:9-11).

"Ephraim" signifies the church in respect to the understanding of truth, concerning which therefore what follows is said. "To go after Jehovah" signifies to worship the Lord and to live from Him; "He shall roar like a lion, for He shall roar," signifies the protection of such by the Divine truth; "the sons from the sea shall draw near with honor," signifies that those who are in natural good shall draw near to the church; "with honor shall they come as a bird out of Egypt," signifies their natural thought from true knowledges [scientifica]; the "bird" meaning thought, and "Egypt" knowledge, which is natural truth; "and as the dove out of the land of Assyria," signifies that they shall have rational good and truth, a "dove" meaning rational good, and "the land of Assyria" the church in respect to rational truth; for in man there are both natural and rational good and truth; the natural is lower or exterior, looking to the world, the rational is higher or interior, conjoining the natural with the spiritual; the natural is meant by "Egypt," the rational by "Assyria," and the spiritual by "Israel." "To make them to dwell upon their houses" signifies life from the will of good and from the understanding of truth; the human mind, which consists of these, is meant by a "house," and "to dwell" signifies to live.

[8] In Amos:

The Lord Jehovih will not do ¹ a word unless He shall reveal His secret unto His servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord Jehovih hath spoken, who will not prophesy? (Amos 3:7, 8).

"The Lord Jehovih will not do a word unless He hath revealed His secret to His servants the prophets" signifies that the Lord opens the interior things of the Word and of doctrine to those who are in truths from good; "to reveal a secret," signifies to enlighten and to open the interior things of the Word; "His servants the prophets" signify those who are in the truths of doctrine and who receive; "the lion hath roared, who will not fear?" signifies a powerful revelation and manifestation of Divine truth; "the Lord Jehovih hath spoken, who will not prophesy?" signifies its reception and manifestation. The Lord is called "Lord Jehovih" when good is treated of.

[9] In Zechariah:

The voice of the howling of the shepherds that their magnificence is devastated; the voice of the roaring of the young lions that the pride of Jordan is devastated (Zechariah 11:3).

"The voice of the howling of the shepherds that their magnificence is devastated" signifies the grief of those who teach, because the good of the church has perished; those are called "shepherds" who teach truth and by truth lead to the good of life, and "magnificence" means the good of the church; "the voice of the roaring of the young lions that the pride of Jordan is devastated" signifies grief, because of the desolation of Divine truth in the church. Those are called "lions" who are in Divine truths; "roaring" signifies grief; "the pride of Jordan, which is devastated," signifies the church in respect to Divine truth which introduces.

[10] In Job:

God roareth with His voice; He thundereth with the voice of His majesty; nor yet doth He overthrow when His voice is heard; God thundereth marvelously with His voice (Job 37:4, 5).

"To roar" and "to thunder with the voice" signify the power and efficacy of Divine truth or the Word.

[11] In the passages that have been cited, "to roar" signifies in a broad sense the ardent affection of protecting heaven and the church, or the angels of heaven and the men of the church, which is done by destroying the falsities of evil by means of Divine truth and its power. But in the contrary sense, "to roar" signifies an eager cupidity for ruining and destroying the church, which is done by destroying Divine truth by means of the falsities of evil. In this sense "to roar" is used in the following passages. In Jeremiah:

Babylon shall become heaps, the abode of dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing. They shall roar together like lions; they shall growl like lions' whelps; when they are heated I will set ² their feasts, and I will make them drunken that they may exult and may sleep the sleep of an age and not awake (Jeremiah 51:37-39).

The destruction of Babylon so that there may be in it no truth or good, is signified by "Babylon shall become heaps, the abode of dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing." "Babylon" signifies those who abuse holy things for the sake of dominion; their eager cupidity for destroying Divine truth by means of the falsities of evil is signified by "they shall roar together like lions, they shall growl like lions' whelps." The eagerness of those who unite in doing this crime is signified by "when they are heated I will set their feasts;" that such will become insane from the falsities of evil is signified by "I will make them drunken that they may exult." That they will never understand anything of truth, and therefore will not see life, is signified by "that they may sleep the sleep of an age and not awake."

[12] In the same:

Is Israel a servant? Is he one born of the house? Why has he become a prey? The young lions roar against him, they give forth their voice, they reduce his land to a waste; his cities are burned, even so that there is no inhabitant (Jeremiah 2:14, 15).

"Is Israel a servant? Is he one born of the house?" signifies the church that had been in truths and goods, but is so no longer. "Israel" signifies the church; a "servant" those who are in truths, and "one born of the house," those who are in goods; "why has he become a prey?" signifies its devastation; "the young lions roar against him, they give forth their voice" signifies the desolation of Divine truth in the church by the falsities of evil; "they reduce his land to a waste" signifies the destruction of the church itself by evils; "his cities are burned even so that there is no inhabitant" signifies the destruction of the doctrinals also of the church by evils, so that there is no good of the church left.

[13] In Ezekiel:

One of the whelps of the lioness grew up, it became a young lion, and it learned to tear the prey; it devoured men. It ravished widows and devastated their cities, and the land was devastated ³ and the fullness thereof by the voice of his roaring (Ezekiel 19:3, 7).

This is said of the Jewish Church, which is here meant by "the mother of lions." A "young lion" signifies the falsity of evil in eagerness to destroy the truth of the church; "to tear the prey" signifies the destruction of the truth and good of the church. "It devoured men, it ravished widows, and devastated cities," signifies the destruction of all the understanding of truth and of good desiring truth, likewise of doctrinals; "men" signifying the understanding of truth, "widows" good desiring truth, and "cities" doctrinals; "the land was laid waste and the fullness thereof by the voice of his roaring" signifies the devastation of the church and the extinction of all truth from the Word by the falsity of evil, "land" meaning the church, "fullness" its truths from the Word, and "the voice of roaring" the falsity of evil destroying.

[14] In Jeremiah:

I call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the land. Therefore say unto them, Jehovah shall roar from on high, and give forth His voice from the abode of His holiness; in roaring He shall roar against their habitations; a tumult cometh even to the end of the earth; for Jehovah hath a controversy against the nations. He shall enter judgment with all flesh, He shall give the wicked to the sword (25 Jeremiah 25:29-31).

The vastation of the church is attributed to Jehovah, although men are the cause of it. "I call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the land" signifies falsity destroying every truth in the universal church. "Jehovah shall roar from on high, and give forth His voice from the abode of His holiness," signifies the testification of grief in heaven on account of the vastation of Divine truth. "In roaring He shall roar against their habitations" signifies great grief and lamentation over all things of the church; "a tumult cometh even to the end of the earth" signifies the disturbance of all things of the church from first to last; "for Jehovah hath a controversy against the nations, He shall enter judgment with all flesh," signifies visitation and judgment upon all who are in evils; "He shall give the wicked to the sword" signifies their destruction by falsities.

[15] In Amos:

Jehovah shall roar from Zion, and give forth His voice from Jerusalem; that the habitations of the shepherds may mourn, and the head of Carmel dry up (Amos 1:2).

"Roaring from Zion" signifies grievous distress, and "the voice from Jerusalem" lamentation; "the mourning of the habitations of the shepherds, and the drying up of the head of Carmel," signifies because of the vastation of all the goods and truths of the church; "the habitations of shepherds" signifying all the goods of the church; "the head of Carmel" all its truths, and "mourning" and "drying up" vastation. "The head of Carmel" signifies the truths of the church, because in Carmel there were vineyards, and "wine" signifies the truth of the church.

[16] In Isaiah:

The anger of Jehovah is kindled against His people. He hath lifted up an ensign to the nations from far, and hath hissed to him from the end of the earth. His roaring is like that of a lion, He roareth like young lions; He growleth and seizeth the prey, he shall snatch and none shall deliver, and he growleth against him like the growling of the sea; and if He shall look unto the earth, behold darkness and distress, and the light is darkened in the ruins thereof (5 Isaiah 5:25-30).

Here, too, "the roaring like that of a lion, and like that of young lions," signifies grief and lamentation over the vastation of Divine truth in the church by the falsities of evil. "He seizeth the prey and none shall deliver" signifies the deliverance and salvation of those who are in truths from good. The vastation itself is described by "behold darkness, distress, and the light is darkened in the ruins thereof;" "darkness" meaning falsities; "distress" evil; "the darkening of the light" the disappearance of Divine truth, and "ruins" total overthrow.

[17] In David:

The enemy hath destroyed all things in the sanctuary; the adversaries have roared in the midst of thy feast (Psalms 74:3, 4).

"The enemy" signifies evil from hell; "the sanctuary" the church, and "feast" worship. This makes clear what is signified by these words in series. That roaring signifies grievous lamentation from grief of heart can be seen from these passages. In David:

When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day (Psalms 32:3).

In the same:

I am weakened and crushed exceedingly; I have roared by reason of the roaring of my heart (Psalms 38:8).

And in Job:

My sighing cometh before bread, and my roarings are poured out like the waters (Job 3:24).

Poznámky pod čarou:

8364. 'I will not put on you any sickness that I put on the Egyptians' means that they are to be withheld from the evils present among those who uphold separated faith and lead a life of evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'sickness' as evil, dealt with below; from the representation of 'the Egyptians' as those who uphold separated faith and lead a life of evil, dealt with in 7097, 7317, 7926, 8148; and from the meaning of 'not putting on you' - when used in association with 'sickness', which means evil - as withholding from evil. For Jehovah, that is, the Lord, does not take away evil but withholds a person from it and maintains him in good, 929, 1581, 2256, 2406, 4564, 8206. So it is that 'not putting a sickness on them' means that they are to be withheld from evils.

[2] The reason why 'sickness' means evil is that in the internal sense the kinds of things that attack spiritual life are meant. The sicknesses which attack it are evils, and they are called evil desires and cravings; and the components of spiritual life are faith and charity. That life is sick when falsity exists instead of the truth of faith and evil instead of the good of charity, because they lead to the death of that life, which is called spiritual death and is damnation, just as sicknesses lead to the death of natural life. This is why in the internal sense 'sickness' means evil, and 'the sicknesses of the Egyptians' means the evils which those upholding separated faith and leading a life of evil cast themselves into, and which they used to molest the upright. Those evils have been dealt with in what has gone before, where the plagues in Egypt were the subject.

[3] Evils are again meant by 'sicknesses' elsewhere in the Word, as in Moses,

If you keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgements which I am commanding you today, Jehovah will take away all sickness from you, and will not put on you any of the evil diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on [all] who hate you. Deuteronomy 7:11, 15.

In the same author,

If you will not obey the voice of Jehovah your God, taking care to do all His commandments and His statutes, Jehovah will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, ¹ until you are destroyed, because of the wickedness of your deeds by which you have forsaken Me. Jehovah will make the pestilence cling to you, until He has consumed you from upon the land. Jehovah will strike you with consumption, and hot fever, and burning fever, and raging fever, and drought, and blight, and mildew, which will pursue you until you perish. Jehovah will strike you with the sores of Egypt, and with hemorrhoids, and the scab, and the itch, so that you cannot be healed. Jehovah will strike you with madness, and blindness, and stupefaction. ² You will be made mad by what your eyes will see ³ . Jehovah will strike you with evil sores on the knees and on the thighs, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. He will throw back onto you every disease of Egypt, also every sickness and every plague that is not written in the book of this Law. Jehovah will give you a trembling heart, failing ⁴ of eyes, and distress of soul. Deuteronomy 28:15, 20-22, 27-28, 34-35, 60-61, 65.

All the sicknesses mentioned here mean spiritual sicknesses, which are evils destructive of the life of a will desiring what is good and falsities destructive of the life of an understanding seeing what is true, in short things destructive of spiritual life composed of faith and charity. Natural sicknesses also correspond to such things, for every sickness present among the human race has its origin in spiritual ones, because each exists as a result of sin, 5712, 5726. Each sickness furthermore corresponds to its own evil. The explanation for this is that everything composing a person's life originates in the spiritual world. If therefore his spiritual life is sick, evil spreads from it into his natural life and becomes a sickness there. See what has been stated from experience in 5711-5727 about the correspondence of sicknesses with evils.

[4] The same things are meant by 'sicknesses' elsewhere, as in Moses,

You shall worship Jehovah your God, in order that He may bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness out of your midst. Exodus 23:25.

In the same author,

If you despise My statutes, and if your soul abhors My judgements, so that you do not do all My commandments, while you make void My covenant, I will appoint terror over you, along with consumption, and burning fever, which will consume the eyes and torment the soul. Leviticus 26:15-16.

'Consumption' stands for the decrease of truth and the increase of falsity, 'burning fever' for the desire for evil. Further still, in Isaiah,

Why will you also defect? ⁵ The whole head [departs] into sickness, and the whole heart is diseased. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and scars, and recent blows. They are not pressed out, nor bound up, nor softened with oil. Isaiah 1:5-6.

Here nobody can fail to see that 'sickness', 'wounds', 'scars', and 'blows' are used to mean sins. Similarly in Ezekiel,

Woe to the shepherds of Israel! The weak sheep you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, and the broken you have not bound up. Ezekiel 34:2, 4.

In David,

My iniquities have gone over my head. My wounds have become putrid, they have rotted away because of my foolishness. For my intestines are full of burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. Psalms 38:4-7.

[5] Since the disorders and evils of spiritual life are meant by 'sicknesses', the various kinds of disorders and evils of that life are meant by the various kinds of sicknesses. 'Pestilence' means the vastation or laying waste of goodness and truth, see 7102, 7505; and 'leprosy' means the profanation of truth, 6963. In general 'sicknesses' means sins, as may also be seen in Isaiah,

... a man of sorrows, and acquainted with sickness, on account of which as it were men hid their faces from Him. He was despised, so that we did not esteem Him. Nevertheless He has borne our sicknesses and carried our sorrows, and through His wounds healing has been given to us. Isaiah 53:3-5.

This refers to the Lord.

[6] Since sicknesses represented the unrighteous ways and the evils of spiritual life the sicknesses which the Lord healed have as their meaning deliverance from the different kinds of evil and falsity that were molesting the Church and human race and that would have brought spiritual death. Divine miracles are distinguishable from other miracles by the fact that they involve and have regard to states of the Church and the heavenly kingdom; and this is why the Lord's miracles were primarily healing of sicknesses. These miracles are meant by the Lord's words addressed to the disciples sent by John,

Tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind see and the lame walk; lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead rise again and the poor hear the gospel. Matthew 11:4-5.

This is why it says so many times that the Lord healed every sickness and every disease among the people, Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 14:14, 35-36; Luke 4:40; 5:15; 6:17; 7:21; Mark 1:32-34; 3:10.

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