426. The symbolism of iron as earthly truth is established not only by the places just cited but also by Ezekiel's words concerning Tyre:
Tarshish 1 was your dealer, on account of the vastness of all your affluence; for silver, iron, tin, and lead they sold your merchandise. Dan and Javan and Meuzal for your trade goods gave polished iron; cassia and calamus were in your market. (Ezekiel 27:12, 19)
From these verses and those before and after them in the same chapter it can be seen clearly that heavenly and spiritual riches are being symbolized and that each item named means some specific entity. So do the personal names. The Lord's Word, after all, is spiritual, not mere words.
[2] In Jeremiah:
Will anyone crush iron, iron from the north, and bronze? Your resources and treasures I will turn into plunder, [in exchange] not for a price but for all your sins. (Jeremiah 15:12-13)
Iron and bronze stand for earthly truth and goodness. What comes from the north symbolizes the level of the senses and the earthly level, because the earthly level in respect to the spiritual and heavenly level is like northern darkness in relation to southern sunlight. Or it is like a shadow, which Zillah (Tubal-cain's mother) also symbolizes here. 2 Plainly the resources and treasures mean heavenly, spiritual riches.
[3] In Ezekiel:
Take yourself an iron griddle and put it as an iron partition between yourself and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be for a siege, and tighten the siege against it. (Ezekiel 4:3)
Clearly iron symbolizes truth here. Truth is considered strong because nothing can resist it. So iron, which symbolizes truth, or the verities of faith, is said to crush and bruise, as in Daniel 2:33, 40. And in John it says:
To those who conquer I will give authority over the nations, to shepherd them with an iron rod, as if clay pots were being crushed. (Revelation 2:26-27)
In the same author:
The woman delivered a male child, who is to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod. (Revelation 12:5)
[4] An iron rod is the truth in the Lord's Word, as John himself explains:
I saw the sky opened, when look! A white horse. And the one sitting on it was called faithful and true, and he judges and fights in justice. He was dressed in a garment dyed with blood, and his name is called God's Word. From his mouth issues a sharp saber, and with it he will strike the nations, and he will shepherd them with an iron rod. (Revelation 19:11, 13, 15)
Footnotes:
1. For the place called Tarshish, see note 2 in §117. [RS]
2. The name Zillah itself also means "shadow." In identifying the north with darkness and the south with light, Swedenborg presumes a readership in the northern hemisphere. [LHC]
