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Ézéchiel 41:5

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5 Il mesura le mur de la maison, six coudées, et la largeur des chambres latérales tout autour de la maison, quatre coudées.

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Two

  

The number "two" has two different meanings in the Bible. In most cases "two" indicates a joining together or unification. This is easy to see if we consider the conflicts we tend to have between our "hearts" and our "heads" -- between what we want and what we know. Our "hearts" tell us that we want pie with ice cream for dinner; our "heads" tell us we should have grilled chicken and salad. If we can bring those two together and actually want what's good for us, we'll be pretty happy. We're built that way -- with our emotions balanced against our intellect -- because the Lord is built that way. His essence is love itself, or Divine Love, the source of all caring, emotion and energy. It is expressed as Divine Wisdom, which gives form to that love and puts it to work, and is the source of all knowledge and reasoning. In His case the two aspects are always in conjunction, always in harmony. It's easy also to see how that duality is reflected throughout creation: plants and animals, food and drink, silver and gold. Most importantly, it's reflected in the two genders, with women representing love and men representing wisdom. That's the underlying reason why conjunction in marriage is such a holy thing. So when "two" is used in the Bible to indicate some sort of pairing or unity, it means a joining together. In rare cases, however, "two" is used more purely as a number. In these cases it stands for a profane or unholy state that comes before a holy one. This is because "three" represents a state of holiness and completion (Jesus, for instance, rose from the tomb on the third day), and "two" represents the state just before it.

Des oeuvres de Swedenborg

 

Apocalypse Explained #218

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218. That no one take thy crown, signifies lest intelligence should perish. This is evident from the signification of "crown," as meaning wisdom (of which see above, n. 126, here intelligence, because those who are in spiritual love or in charity and faith therefrom, are in intelligence; while those who are in celestial love, or in love to the Lord, and in the perception of truth therefrom, are in wisdom. "That no one take thy crown" signifies lest intelligence should perish, since evils and falsities therefrom take away man's intelligence; for intelligence pertains to truth, and this is taken away from man by evil spirits when he is in evils, because he is then associated with them; and what is thus taken away perishes.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.