Apocalypse Revealed #312
312. So I looked, and behold, a black horse. This symbolizes an understanding of the Word among them extinguished as to truth, thus extinguished as regards their doctrine.
We showed above that a horse symbolizes an understanding of the Word. Blackness symbolizes a lack of truth, thus falsity, because blackness is the opposite of whiteness, and whiteness is predicated of truth (nos. 167, 231, 232). Whiteness is also the result of light, while blackness results from darkness, thus from the absence of light, and light means truth.
In the spiritual world, however, blackness has a double origin, one resulting from the absence of a flaming light, the light possessed by inhabitants of the Lord's celestial kingdom, and the other resulting from the absence of a bright white light, the light possessed by inhabitants of the Lord's spiritual kingdom. The first kind of blackness has the same symbolism as a thick darkness, the second the same as a gloomy darkness. The two kinds differ from each other. One is dreadful, the other not so dreadful. It is the same with the falsities that they symbolize. The spirits who appear in a terrible darkness are called devils. They also abhor truth as owls do the light of the sun. In contrast, the spirits who appear in a darkness that is not so dreadful are called satanic spirits. They do not abhor truth, though they are still averse to it, and therefore they may be likened to barn owls, but the first to eagle owls.
The fact that blackness in the Word is predicated of falsity can be seen from the following passages:
Her Nazirites were brighter than snow... Darkened more than blackness is their form. (Lamentations 4:7-8)
...on the prophets... the day shall grow black. (Micah 3:6)
On the day that you go down to hell..., I will make Lebanon dark over you... (Ezekiel 31:15)
...the sun became as black as sackcloth of goat's hair... (Revelation 6:12)
The sun, moon and stars are darkened in Jeremiah 4:27-28, Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10; 3:15, and elsewhere.
It was the third living creature that displayed the black horse because it had a face like a human being, which symbolized the Divine truth of the Word in respect to its wisdom (no. 243). Consequently it was this living creature that displayed the fact that there was no longer any truth of wisdom in the people who were third in order.
Ezekiel 28
1
The word of the LORD came again to me, saying,
2
Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a GOD, I sit in the seat of GOD, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not GOD, though thou settest thy heart as the heart of GOD:
3
Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4
With thy wisdom and with thy understanding thou hast gained for thee riches, and hast gained gold and silver into thy treasures:
5
By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of GOD;
7
Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8
They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9
Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10
Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11
Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
12
Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17
Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thy iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19
All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
21
Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22
And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23
For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
24
And there shall be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are around them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25
Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26
And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yes, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them around them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.
