686. "You are righteous, O Lord, the One who is and who was, and holy, because You have judged these things." This symbolically means that this judgment is of the Divine providence of the Lord, who is and was the Word, and Divine truth itself, which otherwise would be profaned.

"You are righteous, O Lord, because you have judged these things," means symbolically that this is of the Lord's Divine providence, as will be seen below. "Who is and who was" symbolically means the Lord in relation to the Word, as embodying and having embodied the Word, in accordance with John 1:1-2, 14. ¹ The Lord as an embodiment of the Word is meant here because the subject is the understanding of the Word in people who are of the church. More on the symbolic meanings of is and was, beginning and end, first and last, alpha and omega, when referring to the Lord, may be seen in nos. 13, 29, 30, 31, 38, 57 above. And that He is holy means symbolically that He is Divine truth itself (nos. 173, 586, 666).

It is apparent from this that "You are righteous, O Lord, the One who is and who was, and holy, because You have judged these things," symbolically means that this is of the Divine providence of the Lord, who is and was the Word, and Divine truth itself.

[2] It is of the Lord's Divine providence that people caught up in faith alone falsify the Word's truths, because if they were to know them, to the point of thinking deeply about them, they would profane them. For they are caught up in evils, because they do not refrain from evils as being sinful, nor do they turn directly to the Lord. Consequently, if they were to accept the genuine truths in the Word, they would commingle them with their evil practices, and this would give rise to a profanation of what is holy.

One of the laws of permission, therefore, which are also laws of Divine providence, is that people like this of themselves falsify truths, and this to the extent that they are caught up in evil practices.

It is a matter of Divine providence that people caught up in evil practices cannot but be caught up in falsities as to doctrine, in order to keep them from profaning the Word's Divine truths. See Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, nos. 221-233 and no. 257 at the end.

脚注:

38. Saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last." (1:11) This symbolically means, who is the one and only reality from firsts to lasts, from whom springs all else, thus who is the one and only love, the one and only wisdom, and the one and only life in itself, and so the one and only Creator, Savior and Enlightener from Himself, and therefore the all in all of the church and heaven, who alone is infinite and eternal, and Jehovah, and who is the Lord.

That these words contain all these ideas, and infinitely more, may be seen in nos. 13 and 29 above. We said there that in the spiritual world the characters or letters of the alphabet all have symbolic meanings, and that the Lord therefore describes His Divinity and infinity by alpha and omega, which symbolically mean that He is the all in all things of heaven and the church.

Since every letter has a symbolic meaning in the spiritual world and so in the language of angels, therefore David composed the 119th Psalm in a progression ordered according to the letters of the alphabet, beginning with aleph and ending with tau, as can be seen from the beginnings of the verses there. Something similar is seen in the 111th Psalm, but not so obviously.

On this account, too, Abram was called Abraham, and Sarai was called Sarah, which came to pass because in heaven Abraham and Sarah were not taken to mean those people, but something Divine, as is also the meaning, for H involves infinity, because it is simply an aspirate sound.

More on this subject may be seen in no. 29 above.