79. There are many passages in the prophets about our understanding of the Word, passages about the church, where it tells us that the church exists only where the Word is properly understood, and that the quality of a church depends on the quality of the understanding of the Word among its members. There are also many passages in the prophets that describe the church among the Israelite and Jewish people, a church that was utterly destroyed and annihilated by the distortion of the Word’s meaning or message, for this is exactly what destroys a church.

[2] The name Ephraim in the prophets, especially in Hosea, symbolizes both true and false understandings of the Word, because Ephraim in the Word means the understanding of the Word in the church. It is because the understanding of the Word makes a church that Ephraim is called “a precious child, and one born of delights” (Jeremiah 31:20), “the firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9), “the strength of Jehovah’s head” (Psalms 60:7; 108:8), “powerful” (Zechariah 10:7), and “filled with a bow” (Zechariah 9:13); and the children of Ephraim are called “armed” and “bow-shooters” (Psalms 78:9). The bow means a body of teaching from the Word fighting against what is false.

So too, Ephraim was transferred to the right of Israel and blessed, and accepted in place of Reuben (Genesis 48:5, 11, and following; [1 Chronicles 5:1]). And therefore Ephraim, together with his brother Manasseh, was exalted over all by Moses in his blessing of the children of Israel in the name of their father Joseph (Deuteronomy 33:13-17).

[3] The prophets, especially Hosea, also use “Ephraim” to describe what the church is like when its understanding of the Word has been lost, as we can see from the following:

Israel and Ephraim will stumble. Ephraim will be desolate. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment. I will be like a lion to Ephraim: I will tear them and leave; I will carry them off and no one will rescue them. (Hosea 5:5, 9, 11, 14)

What shall I do to you, Ephraim? Your holiness goes away like a cloud at dawn and like the morning dew that falls. (Hosea 6:4)

[4] They will not dwell in the land of Jehovah: Ephraim will go back to Egypt and will eat what is unclean in Assyria. (Hosea 9:3)

The land of Jehovah is the church, Egypt is the preoccupation of the earthly self with mere facts, and Assyria is rationalizing based on those facts; all of which lead to distortion of the Word in regard to the way it is understood. That is why it says that Ephraim will go back to Egypt and will eat what is unclean in Assyria.

[5] Ephraim feeds on the wind and chases the east wind. Every day he increases lies and devastation. He makes a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried down into Egypt. (Hosea 12:1)

To feed on the wind, chase the east wind, and increase lies and devastation is to distort what is true and in this way destroy the church.

[6] Much the same is also meant by Ephraim’s whoredom, since whoredom means distortion of the way the Word is understood - that is, distortion of its genuine truth. See the following passages:

I know Ephraim; he has committed whoredom in every way and Israel has been defiled. (Hosea 5:3)

I have seen something foul in the house of Israel: Ephraim has committed whoredom there, and Israel has been defiled. (Hosea 6:10)

Israel is the church itself and Ephraim is the understanding of the Word that is the source of the church and that determines its quality, so it says that Ephraim has committed whoredom and Israel has been defiled.

[7] Since the church among Jews had been completely destroyed because of its distortions, it says of Ephraim,

Am I to give you up, Ephraim? Am I to hand you over, Israel? Like Admah? Shall I make you like Zeboiim? (Hosea 11:8)

Since the book of the prophet Hosea, from the first chapter to the last, is about the distortion of the Word and the consequent destruction of the church, and since whoredom means the distortion of truth in the church, the prophet was commanded to represent that state of the church by taking a whore as his wife and fathering children by her (chapter 1); and also by forming a relationship with a woman who was committing adultery (chapter 3).

[8] These instances have been presented so that readers may know and be assured from the Word that the quality of a church depends on the quality of the understanding of the Word in it - outstanding and priceless if its understanding comes from genuine truths from the Word, but in ruins, actually filthy, if it comes from distortions.

For further evidence that Ephraim means the understanding of the Word, and in its opposite sense a distorted understanding leading to the destruction of the church, you may check some other passages that deal with Ephraim: Hosea 4:17-18; 7:1, 11; 8:9, 11; 9:11-13, 16; 10:11; 11:3; 12:1, 8, 14; 13:1, 8, 14; Isaiah 17:3; 28:1; Jeremiah 4:15; 31:6, 18; 50:19; Ezekiel 37:16; 48:5; Obadiah verse 19; Zechariah 9:10.

9093. 'And divide the silver from it' means that its truth will be dispersed. This is clear from the meaning of 'dividing' as banishing and dispersing, dealt with in 6360, 6361; and from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2048, 5658, 6112, 6914, 6917, 7999. The reason why 'dividing' means dispersing is that if things existing in association are divided they are also scattered, as when a person destroys his mind by dividing it. For the human mind consists of two parts existing in association; one part is called the understanding, the other part is called the will. A person who divides these two parts scatters what belongs to each part individually; for one part must receive its life from the other, and therefore when one perishes, so does the other. It is similar when someone divides truth from good, or what amounts to the same thing, faith from charity; when anyone does this he destroys both. In short, all the things which ought to be a single whole perish if they are divided.

[2] This division is meant by the Lord's words in Luke,

No one can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will prefer the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Luke 16:13.

That is, it is not possible to serve the Lord through belief in Him and at the same time serve the world by loving it, thus to acknowledge truth and at the same time to do evil. Anyone who behaves in this way has his mind divided, as a result of which it is destroyed. From all this it is evident why it is that 'dividing' means dispersing; and the same is clearly the meaning in Matthew also,

The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and in an hour he does not know. And he will divide him and assign him his part with the hypocrites. Matthew 24:50-51.

'Dividing' here means separating and removing from forms of good and truths, 4424, thus dispersing them.

[3] In Moses,

Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is hard. ¹ I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49:7.

These words occur in Israel's prophetic utterance regarding Simeon and Levi. 'Simeon' and 'Levi' here represent those steeped in faith separated from charity, 6352; and 'Jacob' and 'Israel' represent the external and the internal Church, also the external and the internal man, 4286, 4598, 5973, 6360, 6361. 'Dividing them in Jacob' means banishing them from the external Church, and 'scattering them in Israel' from the internal Church, thus dispersing the Church's forms of good and its truths residing with them.

[4] It is also evident that 'dividing' has this meaning from the words written on the wall when Belshazzar king of Babel, together with his nobles, wives, and concubines, drank wine out of the vessels of gold and of silver that had belonged to the Temple in Jerusalem, Daniel 5:2-4, 25, 28. What was written said, 'Numbered, numbered, weighed, and divided,' 'divided' here meaning separated from the kingdom. Those verses show how all things at that time were representative. They describe the profanation of goodness and truth, which is meant by 'Babel'. Profanation is meant by 'Babel', see 1182, 1283, 1295, 1304-1308, 1321, 1322, 1326. Forms of the good of love, also the truths of faith, received from the Lord, are meant by 'the vessels of gold and silver', 1551, 1552, 5658, 6914, 6917. Profanation is meant by drinking out of them, and by praising then the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone (as verse 4 says there), which are a string of evils and falsities, 4402 (end), 4544, 7873, 8941. 'The Temple in Jerusalem' from which the vessels had come means in the highest sense the Lord, and in the representative sense His kingdom and Church, 3720. Belshazzar's kingdom when it had been divided was a sign of the dispersion of goodness and truth, and his being killed that very night a sign of deprivation of the life of truth and good, which is damnation. For 'being divided' is being dispersed; 'king' is the truth of good, 1672, 2015, 2069, 3009, 3670, 4575, 4581, 4966, 5044, 5068, 6148, the same thing being meant by 'kingdom', 1672, 2547, 4691; 'being killed' means being deprived of the life of truth and good, 3607, 6767, 8902; and 'the night' in which he was killed is a state of evil and falsity, 2353, 7776, 7851, 7870, 7947. From this it is evident that all things there were representative.

[5] It says in David,

They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing cast lots. Psalms 22:18.

And in Matthew,

They divided the garments (the Lord's), casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was said by the prophet. Matthew 27:35.

Also in John,

The soldiers took the garments and made four parts; and the tunic. The tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said regarding it Let us not divide it, but cast lots for it, whose it may be - so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. John 19:23-24.

The person who reads these things, knowing nothing about the internal sense of the Word, is unaware of any arcanum that lies concealed within them, when in fact every detail holds a Divine arcanum. The arcanum was that Divine Truths had been dispersed by the Jews. For the Lord was Divine Truth, which is why He is called the Word in John 1:1 and the following verses, 'the Word' being Divine Truth. His garments represented truths in the outward form they take, His tunic truths in their inward form; and the dividing of the garments represented the dispersing of the truths of faith by the Jews. For the meaning of 'garments' as truths in the outward form they take, see 2576, 5248, 5954, 6918, and for that of 'tunic' as truth in its inward form, 4677. Truths in their outward form are truths as they exist in the literal sense of the Word, but truths in their inward form are truths as they exist in the spiritual sense of the Word. 'Dividing the garments into four parts' meant total dispersion, in the same way that dividing does in Zechariah 14:4, and elsewhere. Dividing into two parts - as it says in Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38, regarding the veil of the Temple - has a like meaning. The splitting apart of the rocks also at that time, Matthew 27:51, represented the dispersing of all matters of faith; for 'rock' means the Lord in respect of faith, and therefore means faith received from the Lord, 8581.

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