“The eyes are the windows of the soul.” That's a sentiment with roots somewhere in murky antiquity, but one that has become hopelessly cliché because it is both poetic and obviously true. We feel that if we can look in someone's eyes, we can truly know what they are inside. And it's not just the eyes; really it is the face as a whole that conveys this. As Swedenborg puts it, the face is “man's spiritual world presented in his natural world” (Heaven and Hell, No. 91). Our faces reveal our interior thoughts and feelings in myriad ways, which is why psychologists, poker players and criminal investigators spend so much time studying them. It makes sense, then, that people's faces in the Bible represent their interiors, the thoughts, loves and desires they hold most deeply. We turn our faces to the ground to show humility when we bow in worship; we turn them to the mountains when seeking inspiration; we turn them toward our enemies when we are ready to battle temptation. When things are hard, we need to “face facts,” or accept them internally. When the topic is the Lord's face, it represents the Lord's interiors, which are perfect love and perfect mercy. And when people turn away from the Lord and refuse his love, it is described as the Lord “hiding his face.”

(Reference: Heaven and Hell 91)

40. Who can deny that the universe was created for the sake of the human race, in order that from it should be formed an angelic heaven, wherein God might dwell in the dominion of His glory? To promote and accomplish this end, what mediate cause is there but religion? and what else is religion but a walking with God? Moreover, religion is like a seed producing just and true desires, and hence judgments and acts, in spiritual things, and by means of these in moral things, and by means of the latter and the former in civil things. In order, therefore, that it may be known what is the quality of the man who has religion, and what of him who has not religion, it shall be stated. The man who has religion is, in spiritual things, like a pelican, nourishing its young with its own blood; but the man who has not religion, is in those things like a vulture, in a state of starvation devouring its own offspring. The man who has religion is, in moral things, like a turtle-dove in the nest with its mate, sitting on its eggs or young; but the man who has not religion is, in these things, like a kite or hawk in the coop of a dove-cot. The man who has religion is, in political things, like a swan flying with a bunch of grapes in its mouth; but he who has not religion, is in these matters like a basilisk with a poisonous herb in its mouth. The man who has religion is, in judiciary matters, like a tribune riding on a noble horse; but the man who has not religion, is in those things like a serpent in the desert of Arabia biting its tail in its mouth, and hurling itself, thus enfolded, upon a horse to coil itself about its rider. The man who has religion is, in other civil affairs, like a prince, the son of a king, who exhibits the marks of charity and the graces of truth; but the man who has not religion, is like the three-headed dog Cerberus at the entrance to the court of Pluto, foaming out poison from its triple mouth.