16
Og alle de som blir igjen av alle de hedningefolk som angrep Jerusalem, skal år efter år dra op for å tilbede Kongen, Herren, hærskarenes Gud, og for å delta i løvsalenes fest.
Sakarias 14:16
Apocalypse Revealed #493
493. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. (11:4) This symbolizes love and intelligence, or charity and faith, both of which people have in them from the Lord.
An olive tree symbolizes love and charity, as explained below. And a lampstand symbolizes enlightenment in truths (no. 43), thus intelligence and faith, inasmuch as intelligence comes from an enlightenment in truths, and faith in turn from this. To stand before God means, symbolically, to hear and do what He has commanded (no. 366). Here, therefore, it means that these two characteristics in them come from the Lord who is God of the earth, that is, in people who possess the two essential elements of the New Church, as described above. It is apparent from this that the statement that the two witnesses were the two olive trees and two lampstands means, symbolically, that they were love and intelligence, or charity and faith. For these two form the church - love and charity forming its life, and intelligence and faith its doctrine.
[2] An olive tree symbolizes love and charity because the olive tree symbolizes the celestial church, and thus an olive, being its fruit, symbolizes celestial love, which is love toward the Lord. Because of this, that love is symbolized also by olive oil, with which all the holy accouterments of the church were anointed. The oil called holy oil 1 was extracted from olives and mixed with spices (Exodus 30:23-24). Olive oil was also used to light the lamps of the lampstand in the Tabernacle every evening (Exodus 27:20, Leviticus 24:2).
The olive tree and olives have similar symbolic meanings in Zechariah:
Two olive trees were by (the lampstand), one at the right of the bowl, the other at its left..., (and) two olive berries... These are the two offspring of the olive tree, which stand before the Lord of the whole earth. (Zechariah 4:3, 11-12, 14)
In the book of Psalms:
I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. (Psalms 52:8)
And in Jeremiah:
Jehovah called your name, Green Olive Tree, lovely, of beautiful fruit. (Jeremiah 11:16-17)
And so on elsewhere.
[3] Since Jerusalem symbolized the church, therefore many things in it and about it also symbolized such things as are connected with the church. Near it, too, was the Mount of Olives, and it symbolized Divine love, which is why Jesus "was during the days in the temple teaching, and at night He went out and spent the night on the Mount of Olives?" (Luke 21:37, cf. 22:39, John 8:1). It is also why Jesus spoke with His disciples on that mountain regarding the end of the age and His coming then (Matthew 24:3ff., Mark 13:3ff.). It was also from that mountain that He went to Jerusalem and suffered the cross (Matthew 21:1; 26:30, Mark 11:1; 14:26, Luke 19:29, 37). Moreover, this accorded with the prediction in Zechariah:
In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. (Zechariah 14:4)
Because the olive tree symbolized the celestial component of the church, therefore the cherubim inside the Temple at Jerusalem were made of olive wood, and so, too, were the doors to the inner sanctuary, and the doorposts (1 Kings 6:23-33).
Note a piè di pagina:
1. Exodus 30:25, 31; 37:29
1 Kings 6:23-33
23
In the oracle he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high.
24
Five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the other wing of the cherub: from the uttermost part of the one wing to the uttermost part of the other were ten cubits.
25
The other cherub was ten cubits: both the cherubim were of one measure and one form.
26
The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was it of the other cherub.
27
He set the cherubim within the inner house; and the wings of the cherubim were stretched forth, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; and their wings touched one another in the midst of the house.
28
He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
29
He carved all the walls of the house around with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, inside and outside.
30
The floor of the house he overlaid with gold, inside and outside.
31
For the entrance of the oracle he made doors of olive wood: the lintel [and] door posts were a fifth part [of the wall].
32
So [he made] two doors of olive wood; and he carved on them carvings of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he spread the gold on the cherubim, and on the palm trees.
33
So also made he for the entrance of the temple door posts of olive wood, out of a fourth part [of the wall];
