645. Crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the hour has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth has dried." This symbolizes a supplication by angels in heaven to the Lord to bring things to an end and execute judgment, because the church had now reached its last state.

To cry with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud symbolizes a supplication by angels in heaven to the Lord, because they lacked anything corresponding to them on earth. For the church on earth is to the angelic heaven like the foundation on which a house rests, or like the feet on which a person stands and which he uses to walk. When the church on earth has been destroyed, therefore, the angels lament and supplicate the Lord. Their supplication is that He may bring the church to an end and raise up a new one. The angel's crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud accordingly symbolizes a supplication by angels in heaven to the Lord.

That He who sat on the cloud symbolizes the Lord in relation to the Word may be seen just above in no. 642. That to thrust in a sickle and reap means, symbolically, to put an end to something and execute judgment - this, too, may be seen in nos. 642, 643 above. For the hour has come to reap means symbolically that the church is at an end. For the harvest has dried means symbolically that the church has reached its last state. A harvest symbolizes the state of the church with respect to Divine truth. The reason is that a harvest yields the grain used to make bread, and grain and bread symbolize the church's goodness, which is achieved through truths.

[2] That this is the symbolic meaning of these words can be more clearly seen from passages in the Word where a harvest, reaping, or sickle are mentioned, as in the following:

...I will sit to judge all the... nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe... For their wickedness is great. (Joel 3:12-13)

Cut off the sower..., and him who handles the sickle at harvest time. (Jeremiah 50:16)

The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor...; a little while yet till the time of her harvest comes. (Jeremiah 51:33)

It shall be when the standing grain of the harvest is gathered, and his arm reaps the ears... ...in the morning your seed flourishes..., the harvest a heap in the day of your possession and desperate sorrow. (Isaiah 17:5-6, 11)

Be ashamed, you farmers..., because the harvest of the field has perished. (Joel 1:11)

(Jesus said to His disciples:) "There are still four months until the harvest comes. ...lift up your eyes and behold the fields, that they are already white for harvest! ...I sent you to reap...." (John 4:35-38)

(Jesus) said to His disciples, "The harvest... is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray... the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest." (Matthew 9:37-38, Luke 10:2)

In these places, and also in Isaiah 16:9, Jeremiah 5:17; 8:20, the harvest symbolizes the church with respect to Divine truth.

[3] Everything contained in these verses in the present chapter, however, and also in the following two chapters, was foretold by the Lord in the parable of a sower and his gathering in of the harvest, and because it shows and illustrates what the symbolism is, we will quote it here:

(Jesus said:) "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but... his enemy came and sowed tares... ...when the plants sprouted..., ...the tares also appeared....

"The servants said..., 'Do you want us to... gather them up?'

"But he said, 'No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn...." ' "

And His disciples came to (Jesus), saying, "Explain to us the parable...."

(Jesus) said...: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man (or the Lord). The field is the world (the church), the... seeds are the sons of the kingdom (the church's truths), the tares are the sons of the evil one (falsities from hell), the enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the culmination of the age (the end of the church), the reapers are the angels (Divine truths). Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the culmination of this age (at then end of the church)." (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

440. And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but who in Greek has the name Apollyon. (9:11) This symbolically means that those caught up in falsities springing from lusts, who by a total falsification of the Word destroyed the church, are in a satanic hell.

The angel of the bottomless pit as king does not signify that some angel is king there, but that falsity reigns in it. For a king in its genuine sense symbolizes someone who possesses truths owing to an affection for goodness, and abstractly truth itself (no. 20); and in an opposite sense, therefore, a king symbolizes someone who is caught up in falsities owing to a lust for evil, and abstractly falsity itself. The bottomless pit symbolizes the satanic hell where such people reside (nos. 387, 421). A name symbolizes the character of someone's or something's state (nos. 81, 122, 165).

Abaddon in Hebrew is someone who destroys, or a destroyer, and likewise Apollyon in Greek, and this is falsity of the most fundamental sort, which by a total falsification of the Word has destroyed the church.

Abaddon in the Hebrew text means destruction in the following places:

Your truth in destruction? (Psalms 88:11)

Hell is naked before Him, and destruction has no covering. (Job 26:6)

For it will be a fire that consumes to destruction... (Job 31:12)

Destruction and death say... (Job 28:22)

Elsewhere hell and the devil are called destruction or a destroyer (Isaiah 54:16, Ezekiel 5:16; 9:1, Exodus 12:13), but by using another term.