2162. 'Wash your feet' means that they were to take on something natural so that during the state He was then passing through His perception might be improved. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'feet' as natural things, and also in a like manner from the train of thought. That arcana lie concealed here becomes clear to a certain extent from the fact that Abraham besought the three men to take a little water and wash their feet, and to relax under a tree, even though he knew that it was the Lord or Jehovah; also from the fact that if it was not so such details would not have been mentioned.

[2] That 'feet' means natural things becomes clear from the representatives in the next life, and consequently from representatives derived from these that existed among the most ancient people and so occur in the Word. Celestial and spiritual things are represented by 'the head' and the parts of the head; by 'the breast' and the parts of the breast are represented rational concepts and aspects of these; by 'the feet and the parts of the feet are represented natural things and the different kinds of these. Consequently 'the sole' and 'the heel' of the foot mean the lowest natural things, regarding which see 259, while 'a shoe' means the lowest things of all, which are filthy, regarding which see 1748.

[3] Similar things are meant by the representations in the dreams and visions in the Prophets, such as the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar, the head of which was fine gold, the breast and arms were silver, the belly and thighs were bronze, the legs were iron, and the feet were partly iron and partly clay, Daniel 2:32-33. In this case 'the head' means celestial things, which are inmost and are 'gold', as shown in 113, 1551, 1552; 'the breast and arms' spiritual or rational things, which are 'silver', as shown in 1551; but 'the feet' means lower things, which are natural, the truths of which are meant by 'iron' and the goods by 'clay' or mud. As regards 'iron' meaning truth, see 425, 426, and 'clay' good, 1300, both of which in the present case are natural. These things come in the same order in the Lord's kingdom in heaven, and in the Church which is the Lord's kingdom on earth, and also in every individual who is a kingdom of the Lord.

[4] It is similar with the vision which Daniel himself saw, of which the following is said,

I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, a man clothed in linen whose loins were girded with gold of Uphaz and whose body was like tarshish, ¹ and whose face was like the appearance of lightning, and whose eyes were like fiery torches, and whose arms and feet like the shine of burnished bronze. Daniel 10:5-6.

Specifically these words mean the interiors of the Word as to goods and truths. 'The arms and feet' are its interiors, which constitute the sense of the letter, for natural things occur there, since natural things are the source from which the exteriors of the Word are drawn. What further is meant by each of these parts, namely the loins, body, face, eyes, and many others in man, becomes clear from the representatives in the next life, which will in the Lord's Divine mercy be spoken of when the Grand Man - which is the Lord's heaven - and the representatives that originate in heaven but occur in the world of spirits are dealt with.

[5] That which one reads about Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders seeing the God of Israel, under whose feet there was so to speak a paved work of sapphire stone, like the substance of the sky for pureness, Exodus 24:9-10, means that they saw, represented in natural things, merely the external features of the Church, and also the literal sense of the Word, in which too, as has been stated, external things are represented by natural things. And these external things are 'the feet' under which there is so to speak 'a paved work of sapphire stone, like the substance of the sky itself'. It is clear that it was the Lord whom they saw, though only in those lower or natural things, since He is called 'the God of Israel', whom all things of the Church represented and whom all things of the Word in the internal sense meant. For the Lord is presented visually in accordance with the things that are meant at the time. When, for example, in John, He was seen as a Man on a white horse, the Word was in this case meant by Him, as is explicitly stated in Revelation 19:11, 13.

[6] The living creatures seen by Ezekiel, which were cherubs, are described as regards celestial and spiritual things by their faces and wings, and also many other things. But as regards natural things they are described as follows, by their feet, a straight foot, and the soles of their feet being like the sole of a calf's foot, and sparkling like the shine of burnished bronze, Ezekiel 1:7. The reason their feet, that is, natural things, are said to have sparkled like burnished bronze is that 'bronze' means natural good, dealt with in 425, 1551. It was similar when the Lord appeared to John as the Son of Man: His eyes were like a flame of fire and His feet were like burnished bronze, Revelation 1:14-15; 2:18.

[7] That 'feet' means natural things is further evident from the following places: In John, who saw,

A mighty angel coming down out of heaven, wrapped in a cloud, and a rainbow around his head, his face was like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. In his hand he had a little book opened, and he set his right foot on the sea and his left on the land. Revelation 10:1-2.

This angel in a similar way means the Word. The nature of the Word in the internal sense is meant by 'the rainbow around his head' and by 'his face being like the sun'; but the external sense, or sense of the letter, is meant by his 'feet'. 'The sea' is natural truths, 'the land' natural goods, from which it is clear what is meant by his setting his right foot on the sea and his left on the land.

[8] Reference is made in various places in the Word to 'a footstool', but no one knows what is meant by this in the internal sense; as in Isaiah,

Jehovah said, The heavens are My throne and the earth My footstool. Where is this house which you are going to build for Me and where is this place of My rest? Isaiah 66:1.

'The heavens' means the celestial and spiritual things, and so the inmost things, both of the Lord's kingdom in heaven and of the Lord's kingdom on earth, which is the Church. Also meant by 'the heavens' are those same things as they exist with every individual who is a kingdom of the Lord or a Church. Thus 'the heavens' also means the celestial and spiritual things regarded in themselves which are matters of love and charity and of faith that springs from these, and so means all things that belong to internal worship and similarly all things that belong to the internal sense of the Word. These things are meant by 'the heavens' and are called 'the Lord's throne', but by 'the earth' are meant all lower things corresponding to those meant by 'the heavens'. By 'the earth' lower rational and natural things are meant, which from correspondence are likewise referred to as celestial and spiritual things, such as those that exist in the lower heavens and also in the Church, and those things which belong to external worship and also those present in the literal sense of the Word. In short, all things that stem from internal things and manifest themselves in external are, being natural things, called 'the earth' and 'the Lord's footstool'. What heaven and earth mean in the internal sense of the Word, see also 82, 1733. What the new heaven and new earth mean, see 2117, 2118 (end). And that man is a miniature heaven, see 911, 978, 1900.

[9] Similarly in Jeremiah,

In His anger the Lord covers the daughter of Zion with a cloud, He has cast down from heaven to earth the splendour of Israel, and has not remembered His footstool on the day of His anger. Lamentations 2:1.

Also in David,

Exalt Jehovah our God, and bow down at His footstool. Holy is He! Psalms 99:5.

Elsewhere in the same author,

We will enter His dwelling-places, we will bow down at His footstool. Psalms 132:7.

People in the representative Church - and thus the Jews - imagined that God's house and the temple were His footstool. They did not know that by the Lord's house and the temple was meant external representative worship. What the internal features of the Church were, meant by 'heaven' or God's throne, they had no knowledge at all.

[10] In the same author,

Jehovah said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand till I make your enemies a stool for your feet. Psalms 110:1; Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42-43.

Here 'footstool' in a similar way means natural things - both sensory impressions and factual knowledge, and man's rational ideas formed from these - which are called 'enemies' when worship is perverted by them (which is done from the literal sense of the Word). As a result worship exists solely in things that are external, and no internal worship - or rather only internal worship that is defiled - exists, concerning which see 1094, 1175, 1182. When these have became perverted and defiled in this manner they are called 'enemies'; but because, regarded in themselves, they have reference to internal worship, when this is restored, they become - both the things that belong to external worship and those that belong to the sense of the letter of the Word - 'a footstool', as stated already.

[11] In Isaiah,

The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the fir, the pine, and the box tree together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary; and I will make the place of My feet glorious. Isaiah 60:13.

This refers to the Lord's kingdom and Church, the celestial-spiritual things of which are meant by 'the glory of Lebanon', that is, cedar trees, but the celestial-natural things of it by 'the fir, the pine, and the box', as also in other places in the Word. Thus it is the external aspects of worship that are referred to when it is said that 'I will make the place of My feet glorious'; and this cannot he made glorious by the fir, the pine, and the box, but by the things meant by these.

[12] That 'feet' means these things is also clear from the representatives in the Jewish Church, for example, by the requirement that Aaron and his sons were to wash their hands and feet before entering the tabernacle, Exodus 30:19-20; 40:31-32. No one is able to see that arcana were represented by this, for what is such washing of the hands and feet but some external act which does not do anything at all if the internal is not pure and clean? Nor can the internal be made pure and clean by such a washing. But because all the forms of ritual of that Church meant internal things that are celestial and spiritual, so it was with this form; that is to say, it meant the cleanliness of external worship, which is clean when internal worship is present within it. This explains why their lavers were made of bronze, and also the large laver which was called 'the bronze sea', together with the ten smaller ones made of bronze around Solomon's temple, 1 Kings 7:23, 38. They were made of bronze because 'bronze' represented good present in external worship, which is the same as natural good. Regarding this meaning of bronze, see 425, 1551.

[13] Similarly representative was the prohibition that no man among Aaron's descendants who had a broken foot or a broken hand should draw near to offer fire-offerings to Jehovah, Leviticus 21:19, 21. 'Broken feet and hands' represented those people whose external worship was perverted.

[14] That 'feet' means natural things is also evident from various other places in the Prophets, as in these prophetical utterances in Moses,

Blessed above sons be Asher; let him be acceptable among his brothers, and dipping his foot in oil. Your shoes will be iron and bronze. Deuteronomy 33:24-25.

These words will not be understood by anybody unless he knows what the meaning of oil, foot, iron, bronze, and shoe are in the internal sense. 'Foot' is the natural; 'shoe' the still lower natural, such as that which is connected with the senses and the body, see 1748; 'oil' is the celestial, 886; 'iron' natural truth, 425, 426; and 'bronze' natural good, 425, 1551. From these places it is evident what these words embody.

[15] In Nahum,

The way of Jehovah is in storm and tempest, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. Nahum 1:3.

Here 'the dust of the feet' means the natural and bodily things with man which give rise to clouds. The same is also meant by these words in David,

Jehovah bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under His feet. Psalms 18:9.

[16] When goods and truths of faith are perverted by natural light, as people call it, it is described in the Word as the feet and hoofs of a beast which trouble waters and trample on food, as in Ezekiel,

You have come forth into the rivers, and have troubled the waters with your feet and trampled their rivers. I will destroy all its beasts from over many waters, and the foot of man will not trouble them any longer, nor will the hoofs of beast. Ezekiel 32:2, 13.

This refers to Egypt, which meant forms of knowledge, as shown in 1164, 1165, 1462. Thus by 'feet and hoofs which trouble the rivers and water' are meant facts gained from sensory and from natural things, on the basis of which people reason about the arcana of faith and do not believe anything until they grasp it by this method. This amounts to not believing at all, for the more such people go on reasoning, the less believing they are; see what is said in 128-130, 215, 232, 233, 1072, 1385. From all these quotations it is now evident that 'feet' in the Word means natural things. But what further meaning 'feet' may have is evident from the context in which the expression occurs.

Poznámky pod čarou:

3701. 'And behold, the angels of God going up and coming down on it' means an infinite and eternal communication and the consequent joining together - a going up, so to speak, from what is lowest, and after that, when order has been inverted, a coming down to it. This is clear from the meaning of 'the angels' as some aspect of the Lord's Divine meant by the expression 'angels' when used in the Word, dealt with in 1925, 2319, 2821, 3039. The aspect meant here is Divine Truth. This is clear from the fact that they are called 'the angels of God', for the name God is used when truth is the subject in the internal sense, but Jehovah when good is the subject, see 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822. This is why although the name Jehovah is used directly after this in the phrase 'Jehovah standing above it', they are nevertheless referred to here as 'the angels of God', since the subject is truth from which good springs, represented by 'Jacob' here, as stated many times above. As regards the expression 'going up and coming down on the stairway' meaning in the highest sense infinite and eternal communication and the consequent joining together, this is clear without further explanation. But one cannot speak of a communication between, and the consequent joining together of the Lord's Divine itself and His Divine Human unless at the same time one calls these attributes infinite and eternal, for in the Lord everything is infinite and eternal - infinite so far as Being (Esse) is concerned and eternal so far as Manifestation (Existere) is concerned. From what has been stated up to now it is evident that 'a stairway set up on the earth, and its top reaching to heaven, and behold, the angels of God going up and coming down on it' means in a nutshell a going up so to speak from what is lowest, and after that, when order is inverted, a coming down to it.

[2] The nature of this going up and coming down becomes clear from what has been stated and shown above in 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3607, 3610, 3665, 3690. But because this order - which comes into effect when a person is being regenerated and which is described in the internal sense here and in what follows - is completely unknown in the Church, let the nature of it be illustrated further: It is well known that a person is born into the same disposition as his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, going back for centuries, and so into hereditary evil gradually accumulated by all those before him, so much so that there is nothing but evil in what he does when he acts from himself. As a consequence both his understanding and his will have been totally spoiled and of himself he does not will anything good at all and therefore does not understand anything true at all. That which he calls good, indeed believes to be good, is in fact evil, and that which he calls the truth, indeed believes to be the truth, is in fact falsity. Take, for example, loving himself more than others, wanting things to be better for himself than for others, desiring what belongs to someone else, and considering only himself and not others unless he himself will benefit. Because he desires these things of himself he indeed calls them good and also true. And what is more, if anyone harms or tries to harm these things which by him are called good and true, he hates him and is also filled with thoughts of revenge. He desires and also seeks that person's ruin, and takes delight in this insofar as he actually strengthens such intentions in himself, that is, as frequently as he actually puts them into effect.

[3] When such a person enters the next life his desires remain the same. The actual disposition which he has acquired in the world by the life he led remains, and that delight is perceived plainly by others. Consequently he is unable to be in any heavenly community where everyone wants things to be better for others than for himself; but he is in some community of hell whose delight is similar to his own. It is that disposition of his which needs to be rooted out while he is living in the world, something that cannot possibly be achieved except through regeneration from the Lord, that is, through receiving quite another will and therefore quite another understanding - by becoming a new person so far as both those powers of mind are concerned. But for this to come about he must first of all be born like a young child again, learn what evil and falsity are, and learn what good and truth are, for without knowledge or awareness of these he is unable to have any good conferred on him. Indeed of himself he does not acknowledge anything else as good except that which is evil, nor anything else as truth except that which is false.

[4] To make a person new, cognitions are instilled into him such as are not completely contrary to those he has already - for example, the idea that all love starts in himself; the idea that one should consider oneself first and others only after that; the idea that those people who are outwardly poor and wretched should be helped irrespective of what they are like inwardly; and that similarly widows and orphans should be helped solely because they are called such; and at length the idea that enemies in general should be helped irrespective of who they may be; and also the idea that by acting in these ways one is able to merit heaven. These and other ideas like them are the cognitions proper to the early childhood of his new life. They are such that because they derive to some extent from his previous life, or the disposition belonging to his previous life, they also derive to some extent from his new life into which he is being led in this way. They are consequently such as allow into themselves things that contribute towards the formation of a new will and of a new understanding. They are the lowest forms of good and truth, and it is with these that people who are being regenerated start out. And because these lowest forms of good and truth allow more interior truths into themselves, that is, truths closer to Divine truths, falsities which a person had previously believed to be truths are also rooted out.

[5] People who are being regenerated however do not learn such things simply as matters of knowledge but as matters of life, for they practice those truths. But their practice of them has its beginnings in the new will which the Lord is instilling, though they are totally unaware of it. And to the extent they welcome that new will they also welcome those cognitions, put them into practice, and believe them. But to the extent they do not welcome that new will they are indeed able to learn such truths but not to put them into effect since they consider them purely as matters of knowledge and not of life.

[6] That state is the state of early and later childhood as regards the new life which is to replace the previous life, but the state of the early and later youth of that life is a state when no attention is paid to any person's outward presentation of himself but to what he is like with regard to good - first of all with regard to it in public affairs, then in private affairs, and at length in spiritual, at which point he starts to possess and to love good first and foremost, and from good the person. And when after that he is more perfect still his concern is to aid those who are governed by good, his help depending on the kind of good present with those whom he helps. At length he takes delight in helping them. And because he takes delight in good he also takes pleasure in ideas that support it. Those supporting ideas he acknowledges as truths, which also constitute the truths of his new understanding which flow from the forms of good which belong to his new will.

[7] To the same extent as he takes delight in that good and takes pleasure in those truths he also feels an aversion to the evils of his previous life and a displeasure in its falsities. This is why things belonging to the previous will are now separated from those belonging to the new will, and those belonging to the previous understanding from those belonging to the new understanding. The determining factor in this separation is not the affection for knowing them, but the affection for doing them. As a consequence he now sees that the truths belonging to his early childhood in relation one to another have existed inversely and that those same truths have been reorganized little by little into another order, that is to say, their interrelationship has been changed so that those which initially occupied the first place now occupy the last. In this way he sees that by means of those truths which belonged to his early and later childhood the angels of God so to speak went up by means of a stairway from earth to heaven, whereas now by means of the truths belonging to his adult life the angels of God so to speak come down by means of the stairway from heaven to earth.