Arcana Coelestia # 9390
9390. 'And he sent boys of the children of Israel' means those things that belong to innocence and charity. This is clear from the meaning of 'boys of the children of Israel' as things which belong to innocence and charity among members of the Church. For 'sucklings', 'young children', and 'boys' mean those who have innocence and charity, or in the abstract sense, without reference to persons, those things which belong to innocence and charity, 430, 5236; and 'the children of Israel' means members of the Church, or in the abstract sense, without reference to persons, the Church itself, 9340.
Jeremiah 34:18-20
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I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts;
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the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, who passed between the parts of the calf;
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I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be for food to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth.
