116. Internal Meaning of Jeremiah, Chapter 50

Of those who have adulterated and falsified the goods and truths of the church, who are meant by Babylon and Chaldea. (3)

1-3 They will no longer have any good or truth. (3)

4-7 Then those who are in ignorance of good and truth, because of a lack of them, will be brought to the Lord. (11)

8 They will depart from Babylon. 11 (11)

9-10 Babylon will perish, (3)

11 because they have vastated the church. (3)

12-13 It is without any truth. (3, 4)

14-16 Their destruction at the time of judgment, (15)

17 because she has destroyed the church. (15, 3)

18-20 After Babylon has been destroyed, a new church will be established, which will be acceptable to the Lord. (3, 11)

21-24 Babylon will be destroyed because she is against the Lord. (3)

25-30 They are to be wholly destroyed, (3)

31-32 on account of the love of ruling, (3)

33-34 because they do not refrain from destroying the church which the Lord establishes and redeems. (3)

35-38 All things appertaining to them from firsts to lasts have been destroyed by means of falsities. (3)

39-40 They have horrible falsities and evils. (3)

41-46 The last judgment upon them. (15)

Chaldea was a land lying along the Euphrates river near its mouth, south of Babylon, part of what is now southern Iraq. It was a land of the Lord's second great church, the Ancient Church, which at its height had a wealth of knoweldge through its own sacred scriptures and the correspondences of nature. But as this church declined Chaldea came to represent people who use truths for evil purposes and thus profane and falsify them. Abram was born in Chaldea because of the greatness it had represented, but had to leave because of what it had become.