9051. 'Eye for eye' means if anything is injured by them in the inner part of the understanding. This is clear from the meaning of 'the eye' as the understanding, in this instance the inner part of it, the life of which is the life of faith. A person's understanding has an outer part and an inner part The outer part of his understanding is where thought that enters his awareness is, whereas the inner part is where thought that does not enter his awareness is, though it enters that of the angels. This part of the understanding is what the Lord enlightens when a person receives faith, for it exists in the light of heaven and holds within it a person's spiritual life. This is not made plainly evident to the person while in the world, but it is made so to that person in the next life when he becomes an angel among angels in heaven. In the meanwhile that life lies hidden within the thought belonging to the outer part of the understanding, producing there the holiness and reverence for the Lord, for love and faith in Him, for the Word, and for everything else that is the Church's. The reason why 'the eye' means the understanding is that the eye corresponds to the understanding; for the understanding sees in the light of heaven, but the eye sees in the light of the world. The things that the former eye, that is, the understanding, sees are spiritual, and its field of vision is the factual knowledge contained in the person's memory. But the things which the physical eye sees are earthly, and its field of vision consists in every object that appears in the world. Regarding 'the eye', that in the spiritual sense it means the understanding, and also faith since faith composes the life of the inner part of the understanding, see 2701, 4403-4421, 4523-4534.

[2] Anyone who does not know that 'the eye' is used in the Word to mean the understanding cannot know what the meaning is of the things which the Lord spoke concerning the eye in the Gospels, first of all these,

If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into the Gehenna of fire. Matthew 5:29; Mark 9:47.

Everyone recognizes that the eye should not be plucked out even if it does cause a person to stumble, and that no one enters the kingdom of God with only one eye. But 'the right eye' means falsity in a person's belief about the Lord; this is what must be plucked out. Then there are these things spoken by the Lord,

The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is evil your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! Matthew 6:22-23; Luke 11:34.

Nor is 'the eye' used here to mean the eye, but an understanding composed of the truth of faith. This is why the eye is called 'the lamp of the body' and why the Lord says, 'If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!' For 'darkness' in the spiritual sense is falsities constituting faith, 1839, 1860, 4418, 4531, 7688, 7711.

[3] There are these words too spoken by Him,

Why do you notice the speck which is in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank that is in your own eye? Matthew 7:3-5.

'Noticing a speck in a brother's eye' means seeing something erroneous in a person's understanding of truth; 'the plank in one's own eye' is huge evil of falsity, since 'wood' in the internal sense means good and in the contrary sense evil, 643, 2784, 2812, 3720, 8354. Good is also represented in the next life by a plank, which is why those who pretend to have good within themselves are seen carrying a plank, walking in safety as they do so. If 'eye' and 'plank' did not have these meanings, would 'seeing a plank in an eye' have any meaning at all? If it is not known that 'eye' in the Word means the understanding of truth, which is faith, neither can it be known what is implied by the Lord's action when He healed the blind man,

He spat on the ground and made clay with His saliva, and said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. John 9:6-7.

Since all the Lord's miracles, like all Divine miracles, had to do with those things that belong to the Lord's kingdom and the Church, 7337, 8364, so did this miracle too.

7337. 'And the magicians of Egypt did the same with their enchantments' means that [by a misuse of order] the falsifiers among them produced something that looked the same. This is clear from the meaning of 'Egyptian magic' and 'enchantments' as misuses of Divine order, dealt with in 5223, 6052, 7296. As regards miracles, it should be recognized that Divine miracles are as different from miracles involving the use of magic as heaven is from hell. Divine miracles spring from Divine Truth and take place in accordance with true order. Effects on lowest levels are miracles when it pleases the Lord that they should present themselves in that form. Thus it is that all Divine miracles represent states of the Lord's kingdom in heaven, and of the Lord's kingdom on earth, which is the Church. And this is the inward form that Divine miracles take. This is the situation with all the miracles performed in Egypt, as it is with all the rest that are referred to in the Word. All the miracles too which the Lord Himself performed when He was in the world were signs of the future state of the Church. Opening the eyes of the blind, for example, and the ears of the deaf, loosing the tongues of the dumb, enabling the lame to walk, and making the maimed whole and the leprous too, were signs that the kind of people meant by the blind, deaf, dumb, lame, maimed, and leprous would receive the Gospel and be spiritually restored to health, which would be accomplished by the Lord's Coming into the world.

[2] This is what Divine miracles are like as to the inward form they take. But miracles involving the use of magic hold nothing at all like that; they are performed by the evil to gain power over others, and in outward form seem to be the same as Divine miracles. The reason why they seem to be the same is that they start from order, and on its lowest level, where miracles present themselves, order always looks the same. Take for example the consideration that Divine Truth coming forth from the Lord has all power within it. This being so, truths also on the last and lowest levels of order have power within them, and therefore the evil use truths to gain power and exercise control over others.

[3] To give another example, it is in accordance with order that in the next life states of affection and thought give rise to people's ideas of spatial position and distance, and that the distances seen to separate people from one another are determined by the differences in their states. The purpose behind this law of order from the Divine is that all within the Grand Man should be distinct from one another. But magicians in the next life misuse this law of order, for they bring about changes of state in others and then move them about, at one time to a position high up, at another to a position low down, and also force them into communities where they can serve as the magicians' subordinates. They misuse order in countless other ways like this. From all this it is evident that although in outward form miracles involving the use of magic seem to be the same as Divine miracles, inwardly they nevertheless have a contrary end in view. That is to say, they have in view the destruction of things of the Church, whereas Divine miracles have inwardly as their end in view the building up of things of the Church. They are like two beautiful women, one of whom because of her promiscuity is wholly rotten within, while the other because of her chastity or true matrimonial love is wholly pure within. Outwardly those women are alike, but inwardly they are as different as heaven and hell.