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Arcana Coelestia#7891

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7891. And there shall be to you in the first day a holy convocation. That this signifies that in the beginning all shall be together, is evident from the signification of “the first day,” as being the beginning, namely, of liberation from those who have infested, and thus from damnation; and from the signification of “a holy convocation,” as being that all shall be together. Convocations took place in order that the whole assemblage of Israel might be together, and might thus represent heaven; for they were then all distinguished into tribes, and the tribes into families, and the families into houses. (That heaven along with the societies there was represented by the tribes, the families, and the houses of the sons of Israel, see n. 7836.) Therefore those convocations were called holy, and took place at every feast (Leviticus 23:27, 36; Numbers 28:26; 29:1, 7, 12). From this the feasts themselves were called “holy convocations,” for it was commanded that all the males should be present at them. That the feasts were called “holy convocations” is evident in Moses:

These are the set feasts of Jehovah, which ye shall call holy convocations, to offer a fire-offering unto Jehovah (Leviticus 23:37).

That at such times all males were to be present, in the same:

Three times in a year shall every male of thine appear together before Jehovah thy God, in the place which He shall choose; in the feast of unleavened things, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:16).

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

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Apocalypse Explained#83

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83. And was dead. That this signifies that He is rejected, is evident from this, that the Lord is said to be dead, when there are no longer faith in and love to Him; for the Lord lives with those who are in love and in faith to Him; but with those who are not in love and in faith He does not live, but is said to be dead, because rejected. This is what is here meant, in the internal sense, by "and was dead," but in the sense of the letter it denotes that He was crucified. The Lord's being crucified also similarly signifies, in the internal sense, that He was rejected and so treated by the Jews. For the Lord, when He was in the world, was Divine truth itself; and because Divine truth was altogether rejected by the Jews, therefore also the Lord, who was the Divine truth, suffered Himself to be crucified. Such things are signified by all the facts related by the Evangelists concerning the Lord's passion; the particulars relating thereto, even the most detailed, involve such a signification; therefore, when the Lord speaks of His passion, He calls Himself the Son of man, that is, Divine truth (as may be seen above, n. 63). That the Divine truth was entirely rejected by the Jews is well known, for they did not acknowledge anything said by Him, not even that He was the Son of God.

[2] From these considerations it can be known how those things also are to be understood which the Lord spake to His disciples concerning His rejection by the Jews. Thus in Luke:

"The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes" (9:22).

And again:

"The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation" (17:25).

In Mark:

"It is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought" (9:12).

In Luke:

"When Jesus took unto him the twelve, he said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things foretold by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished; that he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated, and spit upon; and afterwards they shall scourge him, and put him to death; and the third day he shall rise again" (18:31, 32, 33).

The particulars here mentioned show how the Jews treated the Divine truth, which was from the Word. Jerusalem, in this passage, is the Jewish church; to be delivered to the Gentiles, to be mocked, to be spitefully entreated, to be spit upon, to be scourged, to be put to death, denote the wicked ways in which they treated Divine truth; and because the Lord was Divine truth itself, as being the Word (John 1:14), and it was foretold in the prophets that Divine truth would be so treated in the end of the church, therefore it is said that all things should be accomplished which are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man.

[3] Similarly it is said in another passage:

"These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44).

That all things were accomplished, when Jesus was crucified, He Himself said, when He was upon the cross:

"When Jesus knew that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he saith, I thirst" (John 19:28).

The reason why He then said, I thirst, was, because He desired a new church, which should acknowledge Him. (That to thirst, in the spiritual sense, signifies to desire, and that it is said of the truths of the church, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 4958, 4976, 8568.)

These are also the things which are predicted by Daniel concerning vastation and desolation:

"After sixty and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, so that its end shall be with a flood. At last upon the bird of abominations shall be desolation, and even to the consummation and decision it shall drop upon the devastation" (9:26, 27).

Desolation and vastation signify reprobation and rejection of Divine truth, with those who are of the church (as may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 5360, 5376).

[4] That Divine truth, which is the Word, was so rejected by the Jews, is also meant by these words in Matthew:

"I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise also shall the Son of man suffer of them" (17:12).

By Elias is signified the Word (as may be seen in Arcana Coelestia, in the preface to Gen. chapter 18, and n. 2762, 5247), and also by John the Baptist, therefore he was called Elias (n. 7643, 9372). Hence it is plain what is signified by its being said that Elias was come, and that they had done to him whatsoever they listed, and that the Son of man would in like manner suffer of them.

How the Jews explained the Word, and thus rejected it, is evident from very many passages in the Evangelists, where the Lord makes it clear. From these considerations it is now evident, that by "I was dead," is signified that He was rejected. (That the Lord also by the passion of the cross, glorified His Human, that is, made it Divine, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 294, 295, 302, 305.)

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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Arcana Coelestia#5247

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5247. 'And he clipped [his hair and beard]' means a casting aside and the change made so far as the coverings of the exterior natural were concerned. This is clear from the meaning of 'clipping' - that is, clipping the head and beard - as casting aside the coverings of the exterior natural. For 'hair' which was clipped means the exterior natural, see 3301. Also, both hair on the head and that composing the beard correspond in the Grand Man to the exterior natural. This explains why in the light of heaven sensory-minded people - that is, those who have had no belief in anything apart from that which is natural, and have had no desire to understand how anything more internal or purer can exist apart from that which they can perceive with their senses - have a hairy appearance in the next life. They look so hairy that their faces are scarcely anything else than hairy beards. I have seen faces covered with hair like these on many occasions. But rationally-minded people, that is, spiritually-minded ones, with whom the natural has played a correctly subordinate role, are seen with tidy hair. Indeed from the state of people's hair in the next life one can tell what the natural with them is like. The reason spirits appear with hair on their heads is that in the next life spirits look exactly like people on earth. This too is why the Word sometimes includes a description of the hair of the angels people have seen.

[2] From all this one may now see what is meant by 'clipping', as in Ezekiel,

The priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, shall put off their garments in which they have been ministering and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments, and they shall not sanctify the people in their own garments. And they shall not shave their head and shall not let their hair grow long; they shall surely clip their heads. Ezekiel 44:15, 19-20.

This refers to a new Temple and a new priesthood, that is, to a new Church. 'Putting on other garments' means holy truths; 'not shaving their head, and not letting their hair grow long, but surely clipping their heads' means not casting aside the natural but taking measures to make it conformable, and so to make it subordinate. Anyone who believes that the Word is indeed holy can see that these and all the other details mentioned by the prophet which describe a new land, a new city, and a new Temple and priesthood must not be taken literally. The statement, for example, that the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, will minister there, at which time they will put off their ministerial garments and put on new ones, and will also clip their heads, is not meant literally; rather, each and all the details given by the prophet have as their meaning such things as are aspects of a new Church.

[3] The following rules were laid down for the high priest, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, in Moses,

The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been consecrated 1 to wear the garments, shall not shave his head or rend his garments. Leviticus 21:10.

The sons of Aaron shall not introduce any baldness on their head or shave the corner of their beard. They shall be holy to their God, and they shall not profane the name of their God. Leviticus 21:5-6.

You shall purify the Levites like this: Sprinkle over them the water of expiation, and they shall pass a razor over their flesh and wash their garments, and they shall be pure. Numbers 8:7.

These rules would never have been given unless they had held holy ideas within them. Can there be anything holy or anything of the Church in the actual rule forbidding the high priest to shave his head or rend his garments, or in the actual rule forbidding the sons of Levi to introduce any baldness on their head or shave the corner of their beard, or in that commanding the Levites to shave their flesh with a razor when they underwent purification? Rather, the possession of an external or natural man made subordinate to the internal or spiritual man, both of which have thereby been made subordinate to the Divine, is the holy idea within those rules; and it is also what angels perceive when man reads about them in the Word.

[4] The same goes for what is said about a Nazirite who was holy to Jehovah. If someone next to him happened to die suddenly and so defile his consecrated head, the Nazirite was required to clip his head on the day of his cleansing; on the seventh day he had to clip it. On the day that the days of his Naziriteship were completed he had to clip his consecrated head at the door of the Tent of Meeting and to take the hair from his head and put it on the fire which was under the sacrifice of peace offerings, Numbers 6:8, 9, 13, 18. For the meaning of a Nazirite and what aspect of holiness he represented, see 3301. No one can possibly understand why anything holy existed within the Nazirite's hair unless he knows from correspondence what is meant by 'the hair' and from this what aspect of holiness a Nazirite's hair corresponded to. Nor can anyone likewise understand how the source of Samson's strength lay in his hair, which he told Delilah about in the following description,

No razor has come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite of God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, my strength will depart from me, and I shall become weak and be like anyone else. And Delilah called a man who shaved off the seven locks of his hair; and his strength departed from him. After that, when the hair on his head began to grow, even as it had been shaved off, his strength returned to him. Judges 16:17, 19, 22.

Without any knowledge of correspondence who can see that the Lord's Divine Natural was represented by 'a Nazirite', or that 'Naziriteship' had no other meaning than this, or that Samson's strength was due to that representation?

[5] Anyone who does not know, and more so one who does not believe that the Word has an internal sense, and that the sense of the letter serves to represent the real things contained in the internal sense, will recognize scarcely anything holy at all in these matters, when in fact the greatest holiness lies within them. Anyone who does not know, and more so one who does not believe that the Word has an internal sense that is intrinsically holy cannot know what the following texts enfold within them: In Jeremiah,

Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth. Cut off the hair of your Naziriteship and throw it away. Jeremiah 7:28-29.

In Isaiah,

On that day the Lord will shave by means of a razor hired at the crossing-places of the River - by means of the king of Asshur - the head and the hair of the feet; and it will consume the beard also. Isaiah 7:20.

In Micah,

Make yourself bald, and shave your head for the children of your delight; extend your baldness like an eagle, for they have departed from you. Micah 1:16.

Nor will anyone know the aspect of holiness contained in the reference to Elijah's being a man covered with hair, who wore a skin girdle around his loins, 2 Kings 1:8. Nor will he know why the children who called Elisha baldhead were torn apart by the bears out of the forest, 2 Kings 2:23-24.

[6] Both Elijah and Elisha represented the Lord as to the Word, and so represented the Word itself, specifically the prophetical part, see Preface to Genesis 18, and 2762. Being covered with hair and having a skin girdle meant the literal sense, 'a man covered with hair' meaning that sense so far as truths were concerned, 'wearing a skin girdle around his loins' so far as forms of good were concerned. For the literal sense is the natural sense of the Word since it employs ideas formed from things that exist in the world, whereas the internal sense is the spiritual sense because it employs ideas formed from things existing in heaven. These two senses are related to each other in the way that the internal and the external are related in the human being. But because the internal can have no existence without the external, the external being the last and lowest degree of order within which the internal is held in being, the calling of Elisha 'baldhead' therefore meant the shameful accusation made against the Word that it lacked so to speak an external and so lacked a sense suited to man's capacity to understand it.

[7] From all this one may see that every particular detail in the Word is holy. However, this holiness within the Word is discerned by no one unless he is acquainted with the internal sense; yet an inkling of it flows from heaven into someone who believes that the Word is holy. The internal sense known to the angels is the channel through which that influx comes; and even if the person has no understanding of that sense it nevertheless stimulates an affection in him, because the affection felt by the angels who know that sense is communicated to him. From this it is also evident that the Word was given to man so that he might have a means of communication with heaven and so that by flowing into him Divine Truth in heaven might stimulate affection in him.

脚注:

1. literally, whose hand has been filled

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.