In Obadiah 1, the sole chapter in this book, there's a prophecy of destruction for Edom. The people of the land of Edom -- the Edomites -- were descendants of Esau, so they were cousins and neighbors of the Jewish people.

In Swedenborg's sketch of the internal sense of this part of the Word, (The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms 213), we find this:

- Edom represents people who are in self-intelligence and who pervert the sense of the letter of the word.

- In Obadiah 1:1-3, They must be combated, because they believe themselves to be more intelligent than others.

- In 1:4-5, They defend falsities by natural light, but they will perish, and with them, the falsities themselves.

- In 1:6, They have pride.

- In 1:7, They have no truths.

- In 1:8-9, They will perish on the day of judgment, because they have oppressed the church.

- In 1:10-14, They destroy the church still further, and this is their delight.

- In 1:15-16, Destruction will come upon them on the day of judgment.

- In 1:17, A new church will come into existence.

- In 1:18, in place of the former church, which is condemned.

- In 1:19-21, The new church will be in the understanding of truth, and those that are in it will be saved.

This story was written around 2600 years ago. There were people alive then who were impressed with their own intelligence. They didn't respect the Word's inner meaning, and twisted its literal meaning. In Obadiah 1:10, we see them even taking delight in destroying true ideas.

Today, maybe it's easier than ever to be impressed by our own intelligence, because we can do so much. We're putting vehicles on Mars, and making robots that can do back flips. But how should we regard the Word? We need to look at its deep meaning, to really understand spiritual truths -- so that we have the fundamental spiritual wisdom to hold and harness our intelligence -- and to be part of the Lord's church, where we're open to receiving his good and truth, and living by it.

2089. 'Twelve princes will he beget' means the first and foremost commandments [of faith] inhering in charity. This is clear from the meaning of 'twelve' as all things belonging to faith, and from the meaning of 'princes' as first and foremost features. King and princes are mentioned in various places in the Word, but in the internal sense they nowhere mean king or princes but the first and foremost features of the subject under discussion. That 'kings' means truths taken as a whole has been shown already in 2015, and that 'princes' means the first and foremost aspects of truth, which are commandments, in 1482. For this reason angels, especially spiritual angels, are called principalities, because they are governed by truths. Princes have reference to truths which go with charity because, as stated above in 2088, spiritual people receive charity from the Lord through truths which to them look like truths, and through charity they receive conscience.

[2] Up to now the world has not known that 'twelve' means all things of faith. Yet every time the number twelve occurs in the Word, in historical or in prophetical sections, it has no other meaning. The twelve sons of Jacob, and therefore the twelve tribes named after them, have no other meaning. And the same applies to the Lord's twelve disciples. Each one of Jacob's sons and each of the disciples represented some essential and primary aspect of faith. What each son of Jacob represented, and therefore what each tribe of Israel represented, will in the Lord's Divine mercy be discussed later on at Genesis 29, 30, where the sons of Jacob are the subject.