Apocalypse Revealed #405
405. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died. (8:9) This symbolically means that those who had lived that faith and continued to live it could not be reformed and receive life.
A third symbolizes all such, as said above. Creatures mean people who can be reformed (no. 290). The reason is that to create means, symbolically, to reform (no. 254). Their living means, symbolically, to be able by reformation to receive life. That they died means, symbolically, that people who live that faith alone cannot receive life. They cannot, because people are all reformed by a faith united to charity, thus by a faith accompanying charity, and none by faith alone; for charity is the life of faith.
[2] Since in the spiritual world the affections and consequent perceptions and thoughts of spirits and angels appear at a distance in the forms of animals or creatures on the earth called beasts, of creatures in the air called birds, and of creatures in the sea called fish, therefore the Word so often mentions beasts, birds, and fish, which nevertheless have precisely the meaning stated. So for example in the following places:
...Jehovah has a quarrel with the inhabitants of the land, for there is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God... And everyone who dwells in it will waste away along with the beast of the field and the bird of the air; even the fish of the sea will be gathered up. (Hosea 4:1, 3)
I will consume man and beast..., the bird of the heavens, the fish of the sea, ...the stumbling blocks along with the impious... (Zephaniah 1:3)
There shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel, and the fish of the sea, the bird of the heavens, and the beast of the field... shall tremble before Me. (Ezekiel 38:18-20)
You have made Him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet... the beasts of the fields, the bird of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the path of the seas. (Psalms 8:6-8)
The latter is said of the Lord.
Pray ask the beasts, and they will teach you; or the birds of the air, and they will inform you...; and the fish of the sea will tell you. Who of all these does not know that the hand of Jehovah has done this? (Job 12:7-9)
And in many other places as well.
[3] Fish, moreover, and creatures of the sea, as they are called here, mean the affections and consequent thoughts of such people as are concerned with general truths, and so who take more from a natural source than from a spiritual one. These people are meant by fish in the preceding passages, and also in the following ones:
By My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness; their fish stink... and die of thirst. (Isaiah 50:2)
...the king of Egypt, a great whale, you who lie in the midst of your rivers, you said, "The river is mine; I made myself..".. (Therefore) I will cause the fish of your rivers to stick to your scales..., and I will leave you in the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers. (Ezekiel 29:3-5)
This was addressed to the king of Egypt, because Egypt symbolizes the natural level divorced from the spiritual one, and so the fish of his rivers mean people governed by doctrines, who because of them are caught up in faith separated from charity, a faith that is simply knowledge.
Because of that separation, moreover, one of the miracles in Egypt was the turning of their waters into blood, so that the fish died (Exodus 7:17-25, Psalms 105:29).
[4] Furthermore:
Why do You make mankind like fish of the sea...? Everyone draws them up with a hook, and gathers them in a net... (Habakkuk 1:14-16)
Fish here stand for people concerned with general truths and caught up in faith divorced from charity. In contrast, fish stand for people concerned with general truths and governed by a faith conjoined with charity in Ezekiel:
He said to me: "These waters flowing to the eastern boundary... enter the sea, (from which comes) every living soul that creeps... and very much fish... ...fishermen will stand by it... with a spreading of their nets. Its fish will be of the same kinds as the fish of the Great Sea, exceedingly many. (Ezekiel 47:1, 8-10)
In Matthew:
(Jesus said,) the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, and they gathered (fish).... And they put the good ones into vessels and threw the bad away. (Matthew 13:47-49)
And in Jeremiah:
I will bring (the children of Israel) back into their land... And I will send for many fishermen...(who) shall fish them. (Jeremiah 16:15-16)
[5] Consequently, anyone who knows that fish symbolize people and things of the kind stated, can see the following: Why the Lord chose fishermen to be His disciples, and said,
Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:18-19)
Why the disciples, with the Lord's blessing, caught a huge multitude of fish, and the Lord said to Peter,
Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men. (Luke 5:2-10)
Why, when they wished to exact tribute from the Lord, He told Peter to go to the sea and draw out a fish, and to give them the coin found in it for Him and for himself (Matthew 16:24-27).
Why, after His resurrection, the Lord gave His disciples fish and bread to eat (John 21:2-13).
And why He told them to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). For the nations they were converting possessed only general truths, and were concerned more with natural things than spiritual ones.
Ezekiel 46
1
Thus says the Lord Yahweh: The gate of the inner court that looks toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
2
The prince shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate outside, and shall stand by the post of the gate; and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate: then he shall go forth; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.
3
The people of the land shall worship at the door of that gate before Yahweh on the Sabbaths and on the new moons.
4
The burnt offering that the prince shall offer to Yahweh shall be on the Sabbath day six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish;
5
and the meal offering shall be an ephah for the ram, and the meal offering for the lambs as he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.
6
On the day of the new moon it shall be a young bull without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram; they shall be without blemish:
7
and he shall prepare a meal offering, an ephah for the bull, and an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs according as he is able, and a hin of oil to an ephah.
8
When the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of the gate, and he shall go forth by its way.
9
But when the people of the land shall come before Yahweh in the appointed feasts, he who enters by the way of the north gate to worship shall go forth by the way of the south gate; and he who enters by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate by which he came in, but shall go forth straight before him.
10
The prince, when they go in, shall go in with of them; and when they go out, he shall go out.
11
In the feasts and in the solemnities the meal offering shall be an ephah for a bull, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs as he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.
12
When the prince shall prepare a freewill offering, a burnt offering or peace offerings as a freewill offering to Yahweh, one shall open for him the gate that looks toward the east; and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he does on the Sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.
13
You shall prepare a lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering to Yahweh daily: morning by morning you shall prepare it.
14
You shall prepare a meal offering with it morning by morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of a hin of oil, to moisten the fine flour; a meal offering to Yahweh continually by a perpetual ordinance.
15
Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meal offering, and the oil, morning by morning, for a continual burnt offering.
16
Thus says the Lord Yahweh: If the prince give a gift to any of his sons, it is his inheritance, it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance.
17
But if he give of his inheritance a gift to one of his servants, it shall be his to the year of liberty; then it shall return to the prince; but as for his inheritance, it shall be for his sons.
18
Moreover the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance, to thrust them out of their possession; he shall give inheritance to his sons out of his own possession, that my people not be scattered every man from his possession.
19
Then he brought me through the entry, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy rooms for the priests, which looked toward the north: and behold, there was a place on the hinder part westward.
20
He said to me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass offering and the sin offering, [and] where they shall bake the meal offering; that they not bring them forth into the outer court, to sanctify the people.
21
Then he brought me forth into the outer court, and caused me to pass by the four corners of the court; and behold, in every corner of the court there was a court.
22
In the four corners of the court there were courts enclosed, forty [cubits] long and thirty broad: these four in the corners were of one measure.
23
There was a wall around in them, around the four, and boiling places were made under the walls all around.
24
Then he said to me, These are the boiling houses, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people.
