8540. 'And an omer is the tenth part of an ephah' means the amount of good then. This is clear from the meaning of 'an omer', in that it was the tenth part of an ephah, as the sufficient amount, for 'ten' means that which is complete, 3107, so that 'the tenth part' means the sufficient amount, 8468; and from the meaning of 'an ephah' as good. The reason why 'an ephah' means good is that the ephah and the homer were used to measure dry commodities that served as food, such as wheat, barley, or fine flour; and things that serve as food mean forms of good. And the bath and the hin were used to measure liquid commodities that served as drink; therefore these latter measures mean truths. The container takes its meaning from it contents.

[2] The fact that 'an ephah' was used as a measure is evident from the following places: In Moses,

You shall have a just ephah, and a just hin. Leviticus 19:36.

In Ezekiel,

You shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath. Ezekiel 45:10.

In the same prophet, The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, for the ephah is a tenth of a homer. Ezekiel 44:11.

A like use of it as a measure occurs in Amos 8:5.

[3] The meaning of 'an ephah' as good is evident from places where the minchah is referred to; the amount of flour or fine flour for it is measured by the ephah, for example at Leviticus 5:11; Numbers 5:15; 28:5; Ezekiel 45:24; 26:7, 11. And 'minchah' too means good, 4581. That meaning is also evident from the following in Zechariah,

The angel talking to me said to me, Lift your eyes now; what is this going out? And I said, What is this? He said, This is an ephah going out. He said further, This is their eye in all the earth. And behold, a talent of lead was lifted up, and at the same time a woman ¹ sitting in the middle of the ephah. Then he said, She is wickedness. ² And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah, and threw a stone of lead ³ over the mouth of it. And I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, two women going out, and the wind was in their wings. Each had two wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven. And I said to the angel talking to me, Where are they taking away the ephah? And he said to me, To build her a house in the land of Shinar; and she will be prepared and will remain there on her seat. Zechariah 5:5-11.

[4] No one can ever know what all this means except from the internal sense. He will never know unless he knows from that sense what 'an ephah' means, and what 'the woman in the middle of it', 'the stone of lead over the mouth of the ephah', and also 'Shinar' mean. Once these particular meanings have been brought to the surface it is plain that the profanation existing in the Church at that time is meant. For 'an ephah' means good; 'the woman' means wickedness or evil, as it is explicitly stated there; and 'a stone of lead' means falsity arising from evil which shuts it away, 'a stone' being outward truth, and therefore in the contrary sense falsity, 643, 1298, 3720, 6426, and 'lead' evil, 8298. So it is that the woman in the middle of the ephah, over the mouth of which a stone of lead was placed, means evil shut up in good by falsity, which is the same thing as profanation. For profanation is evil joined to good, 6348. The two women lifting up the ephah between earth and heaven are Churches, 252, 253, by which the profanation was banished. 'Shinar', to which the woman in the ephah was taken away, is external worship that has profanity within it, 1183, 1292

Poznámky pod čarou:

1008. 'Requiring the soul of man' is avenging profanation. This is clear from what has been stated in the previous verse and in the present one, for the subject is the eating of blood, which means profanation. Few know what profanation is, still less what the penalty for it may be in the next life. Profanation takes many forms. A person who totally denies the truths of faith does not profane them any more than gentiles do who live outside of the Church and outside of all knowledge of them. That person profanes however who does know the truths of faith, and still more one who acknowledges them, bears them on his lips, proclaims them, and persuades others of the truth of them, while at the same time he leads a life of hatred, revenge, cruelty, robbery, and adultery, and confirms such behaviour in himself by many statements which he scrapes together from the Word. He profanes by perverting the truths of faith, and so immerses them in those foul deeds. This is the person who profanes, and these are the things that above all else spell death to a person. That they spell death becomes clear from the fact that in the next life unholy things are completely separated from holy, the unholy being in hell, and the holy in heaven. When this type of person enters the next life, every idea within his thought contains holy things clinging to unholy, as it was during his lifetime. There he is unable to produce one idea of what is holy without the unholy that clings to it being seen clear as daylight; for such perception of another person's ideas exists in the next life. So in every detail of his thinking profanation manifests itself, and because heaven has such a horror of profanation he is inevitably forced down into hell.

[2] The nature of ideas is hardly known to anyone. People imagine that there is nothing complex about them, when in fact every idea within thought contains countless elements variously linked together so as to produce a certain form and consequent picture image of the person, the whole of which is perceived and even seen with the eyes in the next life. Take this merely as an example: When the idea of a place comes to mind - whether of a region, or a city, or a house - the idea and an image of all the things the person has ever done in that place crop up at the same time, and spirits and angels see them all. Or, if the idea of somebody whom he has hated presents itself, the idea of all he has thought, said, and done against that person arises at the same time. The same applies to ideas of all things, but when these present themselves every single detail that he has conceived of and impressed upon himself regarding a particular matter becomes apparent. For instance, if he has been an adulterer, when the idea of marriage crops up, all the muck and filth of adultery, even of thought about it, does so too, likewise all the arguments used to confirm adulterous practices, whether based on the evidence of the senses, or on rational grounds, or on the Word. And the way in which he has adulterated and perverted the truths of the Word crops up too.

[3] Furthermore, the idea of one thing merges into the idea of the next and colours it just as a tiny quantity of black placed in water darkens the whole volume of water. Consequently a spirit is recognized by his ideas, and what is remarkable, each one of his ideas bears his own image or likeness. When such an idea is presented visually it is so ugly that it is horrible to look at. All this makes clear the nature of the state of people who profane holy things, and the image they present in the next life. But people who in simplicity have believed statements made in the Word can never be said to profane holy things, not even if they have believed statements which are not literally true; for what is said in the Word is expressed in accordance with appearances, about which see 589.