Apocalypse Revealed #898
898. 21:12 It had a great and high wall. This symbolizes the Word in its literal sense from which the doctrine of the New Church comes.
Since the holy city Jerusalem means the Lord's New Church in respect to its doctrine, its wall can only mean the Word in its literal sense, from which its doctrine comes; for the literal sense protects the spiritual meaning that lies within, as a wall protects a city and its inhabitants.
That the literal sense is the foundation, containing vessel, and buttress of the Word's spiritual meaning may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 27-36; and that the literal sense serves as a safeguard to keep the Divine truths within from being injured - truths which constitute the Word's spiritual meaning - may be seen in no. 97 of the same work. Also, that the church's doctrine is to be drawn from the Word's literal sense and verified by it, in nos. 50-61 there.
The wall is said to be great and high because it means the Word in respect to its Divine goodness and Divine truth, for greatness is predicated of goodness, and height of truth, as in no. 896 above.
[2] A wall symbolizes something that protects, and when mentioned in reference to the church, it symbolizes the Word in its literal sense, as it does also in the following places:
I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall not keep silent day or night, who make mention of Jehovah... (Isaiah 62:6)
They shall call you the City of Jehovah, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel... And you shall call your walls salvation, and your gates praise. (Isaiah 60:14, 18)
(Jehovah) will be a wall of fire all around her, and... the glory in her midst. (Zechariah 2:5)
Men of Arvad... were on your walls..., and the men of Gammad... hung their shields on your walls all around, and made your beauty perfect. (Ezekiel 27:11)
The last is said of Tyre, which symbolizes the church in respect to its concepts of truth from the Word.
Run about through the streets of Jerusalem, and see... if there is anyone who... seeks the truth... Go up on her walls and cast them down. (Jeremiah 5:1, 10)
Jehovah has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion... ...He has caused the rampart and wall... to lament, to languish together... The Law and her prophets are no more... (Lamentations 2:8-9)
They will run about in the city, they will run on the wall; they will climb up into the houses, they will enter through the windows... (Joel 2:9)
These passages refer to falsifications of truth.
Day and night (the impious) go around (in the city) on its walls... Destructions are in their midst. (Psalms 55:10-11)
And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 22:5; 56:5; Jeremiah 1:15; Ezekiel 27:11; Lamentations 2:7.
That a wall symbolizes the Word in its literal sense is clearly apparent from the following verses in the present chapter, which describe at some length the wall of the city and its gates, foundations and dimensions. That is because the doctrine of the New Church, which the city symbolizes, comes only from the Word's literal sense.
Lamentations 2
1
How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, And hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
2
The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3
He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.
4
He has bent his bow like an enemy, he has stood with his right hand as an adversary, Has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.
5
The Lord is become as an enemy, he has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
6
He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he has destroyed his place of assembly: Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, Has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.
7
The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary; He has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Yahweh, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
8
Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
9
Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.
10
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11
My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
12
They tell their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
13
What shall I testify to you? what shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?
14
Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity, but have seen for you false oracles and causes of banishment.
15
All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying], Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16
All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.
17
Yahweh has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
18
Their heart cried to the Lord: wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; Give yourself no respite; don't let the apple of your eye cease.
19
Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
20
Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21
The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, [and] not pitied.
22
You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; There was none that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up has my enemy consumed.
