The White Horse - Appendix # 1
1. APPENDIX to THE WHITE HORSE 1
Since today it must inevitably appear strange that a horse means the understanding of truth, and in a contrary sense, reasonings coming as it were from the understanding which confirm falsehood, I should like to quote more passages still from the Word where the horse is mentioned. Let these suffice:
Is Thine indignation against the sea, O Jehovah, when Thou dost ride upon Thy horses! Thy chariots are salvation. Thou didst trample the sea with Thy horses, the surging of the waters, Habakkuk 3:8, 15.
The hoofs of Jehovah's horses are reckoned as flint, Isaiah 5:28.
At Thy rebuke both chariot and horse lay stunned, Psalm 76:5-6.
I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will overthrow the chariot and those that ride in it, and the horses and their horsemen shall go down, Haggai 2:22.
I will cut off the horse from Jerusalem: he shall speak peace to the nations, Zechariah 9:10.
In these places the Church's understanding of truth is meant by the horse, and doctrine derived from it by the chariot; and those who are able to understand and learn from the Word are meant by riders and horsemen. The matter is plainer still from these places:
Gather yourselves from all around to My sacrifice; you shall be satisfied at My table with horse and chariot. So I will set My glory among the nations, Ezekiel 39:17, 20-21.
Gather yourselves to the great supper of God, and you shall eat the flesh of horses and of those seated on them, Revelation 19:17-18.
The subject here is the New Church that is to be established by the Lord. At that time the understanding of the Word will be opened and from it men will be taught the doctrine of truth. What else would the statements that they were to be filled at the Lord's table with horse and chariot, and that they were to eat the flesh of horses and of those seated on them, be but utter absurdities! In addition to the examples already brought forward, the meaning of horse and chariot is obvious from these places:
Gird on Thy sword, O Mighty One! Mount, and ride on the Word of truth, Psalm 45:3-4.
Sing, lift up a song to Him Who rides upon the clouds, Psalm 68:4.
Jehovah comes riding upon a cloud, Isaiah 19:1.
Sing to the Lord Who is riding on the highest heaven of old, Psalm 68:33-34.
God rode on a cherub, Psalm 18:10.
Then you shall take delight in Jehovah, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth, Isaiah 58:14; Deuteronomy 32:13.
I will make Ephraim ride, Hosea 10:11.
By riding in these passages is meant teaching and being taught the truths of doctrine, and thus being wise. By the heights of the earth are meant the summits of the Church, and by Ephraim also the understanding of the Word. Like matters are meant by horses and chariots, by the four chariots coming out between the mountains of bronze, and by the four horses harnessed to them, which were red, black, white, and dappled grey, and which are also called spirits and are said to have gone forth from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole earth, Zechariah 6:1-8, 15.
Things of a similar nature are meant by these words as well:
When the Lamb opened the seals of the book horses went out in order, first a white horse, second a red horse, third a black horse, and fourth a pale horse, Revelation 6:1-8.
It is obvious that by the book whose seals the Lamb opened the Word is meant, out of which nothing else could come except the understanding of it. What other meaning could horses coming out of an opened book have!
It is clear that a horse means the understanding of truth and a chariot doctrine from the same words when they are used in a contrary sense. A horse then means the understanding falsifying truths by means of mere reasonings, and a chariot consequent doctrine, that is, heresy, as in the following places:
Woe to those who go down into Egypt for help and rely on horses and do not look to the Holy One of Israel! For Egypt is man and not God, and his horses are flesh and not spirit, Isaiah 31:1, 3.
You shall set over Israel a king whom Jehovah shall choose, only let him not multiply horses for himself nor lead the people back into Egypt to multiply horses, Deuteronomy 17:14-16.
These matters have been stated because by Egypt is meant the natural man, who corrupts the truths of the Word by mere reasonings from the physical senses. What else could the horses of Egypt being flesh and not spirit, and the king not having to multiply horses, that is, falsehoods that have to do with religion, mean?
Assyria will not save us, we will not ride upon a horse, Hosea 14:3.
Some boast of the chariot and others of horses but we will boast of the name of our God, Psalm 20:7-8.
A horse is a vain thing for safety, Psalm 33:17.
The Holy One of Israel said, In trust shall be your strength. But you said, No. We will flee on a horse, we will ride on a swift one, Isaiah 30:15-16.
Jehovah will set Judah like a glorious horse; they shall put to shame those riding on horses, Zechariah 10:3-5.
I will bring against Tyre the king of Babylon, with horse and with chariot, and with horsemen. Their horses shall be so many that their dust will cover you, and the noise of horse and chariot so much that your walls will be shaken. With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets, Ezekiel 26:7-11.
By Tyre in the Word is meant the Church as regards its cognitions of good and truth, and by the king of Babylon the falsification and profanation of them. Hence it says here that he will come with horse and chariot and horsemen, and that the horses will be so many that their dust will cover him. Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies, with whinnying horse and bounding chariot, Nahum 3:1-4.
By the bloody city is meant doctrine derived from truths of the Word that have been falsified. And in other places as well, such as Isaiah 5:26, 28; Jeremiah 6:23, 8:16, 46:4, 9, 50:37-38, 42; Ezekiel 17:15, 23:6, 20; Habakkuk 1:6, 8-10; Psalms 66:11-12, 147:10. A falsified and ruined understanding of truth that is in the Word is also meant by the red, black, and pale horses of Revelation 6:4-5, 8. Since therefore a horse means an understanding of truth, and in a contrary sense, an understanding of falsehood, it is clear what the Word is like in its spiritual sense.
It is well known that hieroglyphics existed in Egypt and that these were inscribed on columns and temple walls, etc., and that nobody knows nowadays what they meant. They were nothing else but correspondences of natural and spiritual things, to which the Egyptians applied themselves more than any other peoples of their own times in Asia, and it was according to these correspondences that the ancient Greeks composed their fables. The most ancient style was nothing else but this. To all these matters let me add one that is new: All things that manifest themselves in the spiritual world to angels and spirits are without exception correspondences, and for that very reason the whole of the Sacred Scripture has been written by means of correspondences [in the margin: in order that by means of it, as this is the nature of it, men of the Church would be conjoined with angels of heaven]. But because the Egyptians, and others with them in the kingdoms of Asia, began to turn those correspondences into forms of idolatry which the children of Israel tended to favour, the latter were forbidden to call them back into any use at all, as is quite plain from the first of the Ten Commandments where these words appear:
You shall not make for yourself any carved image which is in the heavens above or which is on the earth beneath or which is in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I am Jehovah your God, Deuteronomy 5:8-9.
And there are many more examples elsewhere. From that time on the knowledge of correspondences was blotted out. This happened by stages, in so much that nowadays its existence in the past is almost unknown, or that there is such a thing. Now however because a New Church is to be established by the Lord, one that is to be based on the Word, and which is understood by the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, the Lord has been pleased to reveal that knowledge, and so to open up the Word to show what it is like inside in its inmost parts, that is, to show what it is in the spiritual sense. This has been done by means of myself in ARCANA COELESTIA, published in London, and afterwards in APOCALYPSE REVEALED, published in Amsterdam. Since for men of early times that knowledge was the greatest knowledge of all, and from it came their wisdom, it is important that some member of your academy should devote his labours to that knowledge, which can be done chiefly from the correspondences disclosed in APOCALYPSE REVEALED and proved from the Word. If there is a demand for it I am willing to unravel the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which are nothing else but correspondences, and have the matter published. Nobody else can do it.
Em. Swedenborg
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. [NCBSP Editor's note: This very brief work of Swedenborg's, which may have been a draft of a letter, was not published by him. It is an appendix to "The White Horse", which Swedenborg had published in 1758. Here's a link to that work: The White Horse 1.
Numbers 31
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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
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"Avenge the children of Israel for the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people."
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Moses spoke to the people, saying, "Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian, to execute Yahweh's vengeance on Midian.
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Of every tribe one thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, you shall send to the war."
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So there were delivered, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.
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Moses sent them, one thousand of every tribe, to the war, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand.
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They warred against Midian, as Yahweh commanded Moses; and they killed every male.
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They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain: Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they killed with the sword.
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The children of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and all their livestock, and all their flocks, and all their goods, they took for a prey.
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All their cities in the places in which they lived, and all their encampments, they burnt with fire.
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They took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of man and of animal.
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They brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the children of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan at Jericho.
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Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them outside of the camp.
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Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who came from the service of the war.
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Moses said to them, "Have you saved all the women alive?
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Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, and so the plague was among the congregation of Yahweh.
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Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
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But all the girls, who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
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"Encamp outside of the camp seven days: whoever has killed any person, and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day, you and your captives.
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As to every garment, and all that is made of skin, and all work of goats' [hair], and all things made of wood, you shall purify yourselves."
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Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who went to the battle, "This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded Moses:
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however the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,
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everything that may withstand the fire, you shall make to go through the fire, and it shall be clean; nevertheless it shall be purified with the water for impurity: and all that doesn't withstand the fire you shall make to go through the water.
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You shall wash your clothes on the seventh day, and you shall be clean; and afterward you shall come into the camp."
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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
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"Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and of animal, you, and Eleazar the priest, and the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the congregation;
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and divide the prey into two parts: between the men skilled in war, who went out to battle, and all the congregation.
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Levy a tribute to Yahweh of the men of war who went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, [both] of the persons, and of the cattle, and of the donkeys, and of the flocks:
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take it of their half, and give it to Eleazar the priest, for Yahweh's wave offering.
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Of the children of Israel's half, you shall take one drawn out of every fifty, of the persons, of the cattle, of the donkeys, and of the flocks, [even] of all the livestock, and give them to the Levites, who perform the duty of the tabernacle of Yahweh."
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Moses and Eleazar the priest did as Yahweh commanded Moses.
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Now the prey, over and above the booty which the men of war took, was six hundred seventy-five thousand sheep,
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and seventy-two thousand head of cattle,
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and sixty-one thousand donkeys,
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and thirty-two thousand persons in all, of the women who had not known man by lying with him.
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The half, which was the portion of those who went out to war, was in number three hundred thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep:
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and Yahweh's tribute of the sheep was six hundred seventy-five.
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The cattle were thirty-six thousand; of which Yahweh's tribute was seventy-two.
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The donkeys were thirty thousand five hundred; of which Yahweh's tribute was sixty-one.
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The persons were sixteen thousand; of whom Yahweh's tribute was thirty-two persons.
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Moses gave the tribute, which was Yahweh's wave offering, to Eleazar the priest, as Yahweh commanded Moses.
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Of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided off from the men who warred
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(now the congregation's half was three hundred thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep,
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and thirty-six thousand head of cattle,
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and thirty thousand five hundred donkeys,
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and sixteen thousand persons),
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even of the children of Israel's half, Moses took one drawn out of every fifty, both of man and of animal, and gave them to the Levites, who performed the duty of the tabernacle of Yahweh; as Yahweh commanded Moses.
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The officers who were over the thousands of the army, the captains of thousands, and the captains of hundreds, came near to Moses;
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and they said to Moses, "Your servants have taken the sum of the men of war who are under our command, and there lacks not one man of us.
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We have brought Yahweh's offering, what every man has gotten, of jewels of gold, armlets, and bracelets, signet rings, earrings, and necklaces, to make atonement for our souls before Yahweh."
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Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of them, even all worked jewels.
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All the gold of the wave offering that they offered up to Yahweh, of the captains of thousands, and of the captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred fifty shekels.
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([For] the men of war had taken booty, every man for himself.)
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Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold of the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and brought it into the Tent of Meeting, for a memorial for the children of Israel before Yahweh.
