Bibliorum

 

Ezekiel 16:49

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49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Commentarius

 

Husband

  
Älteres Paar im Kücheninterieur, by Friedrich Friedländer (1825–1901)

In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #5

Studere hoc loco

  
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5. For this to fall within the scope of the intellect, however, it must altogether be known that because the Lord is love in its very essence, or Divine love, He appears to angels in heaven as the sun, and that from that sun emanate warmth and light, the warmth emanating from it being, in its essence, love, and the light emanating from it being, in its essence, wisdom. Moreover, to the degree that angels are receptive of that spiritual warmth and that spiritual light, to the same degree they are embodiments of love and wisdom - not embodiments of love and wisdom of themselves, but from the Lord.

Not only do that spiritual warmth and that spiritual light flow into and affect angels, but they also flow into and affect people, to the degree that they become receptive. And they become receptive in the measure of their love toward the Lord and love for the neighbor.

[2] That sun itself, or Divine love, cannot by its warmth and light create anyone from itself directly, for such a one would in that case be love in its essence, which is the Lord Himself, but it can create someone out of substances and materials so formed as to be capable of receiving that warmth and light - even as the sun in the world cannot by its warmth and light produce sprouts in the earth directly, but out of materials in the soil in which it can be present by its warmth and light and cause growth.

(On the Lord's Divine love appearing as the sun in the spiritual world, and the emanation from it of spiritual warmth and spiritual light, from which angels have their love and wisdom, see the book Heaven and Hell, nos. Heaven and Hell 116-140.)

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.