862. We have said that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people attempted to destroy everything connected with the New Church, both its truths and goods and its fundamental doctrine regarding the Lord and life, as stated in the preceding number. This is the symbolic meaning because the camp of the saints symbolizes all the truths and goods of the church which is the New Jerusalem.

That a camp in the spiritual sense symbolizes everything connected with the church with respect to its truths and goods can be seen from the following passages:

The sun and moon grew dark, and the stars diminished their brightness. Jehovah uttered His voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for numberless are those who obey His Word. (Joel 2:10-11)

I will encamp for My house some of the army... (Zechariah 9:8)

...God has scattered the bones of them who encamp against you..., because God has rejected them. (Psalms 53:5)

The angel of Jehovah encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. (Psalms 34:7)

(An angel of God met Jacob, and said to Jacob,) "This is God's camp." Therefore he called the name of that place Mahanaim (Two Camps). (Genesis 32:1-2)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 29:3, Ezekiel 1:24, Psalms 27:3.

That an army or host in the Word symbolizes the church's truths and goods, and also its falsities and evils, may be seen in nos. 447, 826, 833; and so, too, does a camp.

[2] Since the children of Israel and their twelve tribes symbolize the church in respect to all its truths and goods (nos. 349, 350), they were therefore called the armies or hosts of Jehovah (Exodus 7:4; 12:41, 51), and the places where they stopped and assembled were called camps, as in Leviticus 4:12; 8:17; 13:46; 14:8; 16:26, 28; 24:14, 23; Numbers 1; 2; 3; 4:5 ff., 5:2-4; 9:17-23; 10:1-10, 11-28; 11:31-32; 12:14-15; 21:10-15; 33:1-49; Deuteronomy 23:9-14; Amos 4:10.

It is apparent from this now that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people tried to destroy all the truths and goods of the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, and also its doctrine regarding the Lord and life.

The same symbolism is found in these verses in Luke:

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near... (At length) Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:20, 24)

This is said in reference to the end of the age, which is the final period of the church. Jerusalem here also symbolizes the church.

That Gog and Magog, that is, people who engage in external worship divorced from any internal worship, will then invade the church and try to destroy it, is something we are told also in Ezekiel 38:8-9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 39:2, and that the New Church will then be established by the Lord, Ezekiel 39:17-29.

358. 1. Viewed in itself, zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze. One cannot know what jealousness is unless one knows what zeal is; for jealousness is the zeal of conjugial love. Zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze, because zeal is an expression of love, and love is spiritual warmth, which in its origin is a kind of fire.

As regards the first point, that zeal is an expression of love - this people know. When they speak of being zealous and acting from zeal they mean nothing else than an intensity of love. But because it does not appear as love when it manifests itself, but as antagonistic and hostile - being militant and combative against one who does injury to the love, therefore it may also be called the defender and protector of love. For it is the nature of all love to erupt into indignation and anger, even into rage, whenever it is dislodged from its delights. So it is that if love is interfered with, especially a governing one, there results a disturbance of the mind. And if that interference does injury, it becomes a white-hot fury. It can be seen from this that zeal is not the highest degree of love, but that it is love set ablaze.

When one person's love finds a corresponding love in another, they are like two confederates; but when one person's love rises up against another's love, they become as enemies. The reason is that love is the very being of a person's life. Consequently, anyone who attacks another's love, attacks his very life; and this results in a state of white-hot fury against the attacker, like the state of anyone who encounters another trying to kill him.

Every love is capable of such fury, even the most peaceable, as is plainly evident from the behavior of hens, geese, and birds of every kind and the way they fearlessly rise up against and fly at those who injure their young or make off with their food. People know that some animals are prone to anger, and wild animals to rage, if their cubs are attacked or their prey taken from them.

Love is said to blaze like fire, because love is nothing but spiritual warmth, arising from the fire of the angelic sun, which is pure love. That love is warmth, as though from a fire, is clearly apparent from the warmth of living bodies, whose warmth is from no other source than the love in them. So, too, human beings grow warm and are set on fire in the measure that their loves are aroused.

It is apparent from this that zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze.