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Hosea 8

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1 Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.

2 Israel shall cry to me, My God, we know thee.

3 Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him.

4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made for themselves idols, that they may be cut off.

5 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; my anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocence?

6 For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.

7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if it shall yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

8 Israel is swallowed up: now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel in which is no pleasure.

9 For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.

10 Yes, though they have hired among the nations, now will I gather them, and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes.

11 Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be to him to sin.

12 I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.

13 They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of my offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepteth them not; now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.

14 For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fortified cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 242

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242. The second living creature like a calf. This symbolizes the Divine truth of the Word in respect to its affection.

Beasts of the earth symbolize various natural affections. They are also embodiments of them. And a calf symbolizes an affection for knowing. This affection is represented by a calf in the spiritual world, and in the Word it is consequently also symbolized by a calf, as in Hosea,

...we repay (to Jehovah) the calves of our lips. (Hosea 14:2)

"Calves of the lips" are confessions from an affection for truth.

In Malachi:

To you who fear My name the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in its wings... that you may grow fat like fattened calves. (Malachi 4:2)

A comparison is made with fattened calves because they symbolize people who are filled with concepts of truth and goodness owing to an affection for knowing them.

In the book of Psalms:

The voice of Jehovah... makes (the cedars of Lebanon) dance like a calf... (Psalms 29:5, 6)

The cedars of Lebanon symbolize concepts of truth. That is why the passage says that the voice of Jehovah makes them dance like a calf. The voice of Jehovah is Divine truth, in the process here of affecting.

[2] Since the Egyptians loved knowledge, they therefore made themselves calves as a sign of their affection for it. But after they began to worship the calves as deities, then calves in the Word symbolized affections for knowing falsities, as in Jeremiah 46:20-21). Therefore we are told in Hosea:

...they have made for themselves a molten image... of their silver... Sacrificing a human being, they kiss the calves. (Hosea 13:2)

To make for oneself a molten image of silver means, symbolically, to falsify truth. To sacrifice a human being means, symbolically, to destroy wisdom. And to kiss calves means, symbolically, to accept falsities out of an affection for them.

In Isaiah:

There the calf will feed; there it will lie down and consume its branches. (Isaiah 27:10)

The same is symbolically meant by the calf in Jeremiah 34:18-20.

[3] Since all Divine worship springs from affections for truth and goodness and so for concepts of them, therefore the sacrifices in which the worship of the church primarily consisted among the children of Israel used various animals, such as lambs, she-goats, kids, sheep, he-goats, calves, and oxen; and calves were used because they symbolized an affection for knowing truths and goods, which is the first natural affection. This affection was symbolically meant by the sacrifices of calves in Exodus 29:11-12, 1 1 Samuel 1:25; 16:2, 1 Kings 18:23-26, 33.

The second living creature looked like a calf because the Divine truth of the Word, which it symbolizes, affects hearts, and so teaches and instills.

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1. Prima editio: 29.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.