7324. 'And over their pools' means against the factual knowledge subservient to them. This is clear from the meaning of 'pools' as factual knowledge subservient to truths constituting religious teachings, and in the contrary sense factual knowledge subservient to falsities constituting religious teachings. When 'pools' are mentioned in the Word intelligence based on cognitions of goodness and truth is meant in the spiritual sense, for one takes 'pools' in the Word to refer to gatherings of water, or lakes, and gatherings of water and lakes are cognitions which, when concentrated together, contribute to intelligence, as in Isaiah,
Waters will break forth in 1
the wilderness, and streams in the plain of the wilderness; and the dry place will become a pool and the thirsty ground wellsprings of water. Isaiah 35:6-7.
[2] In the same prophet,
I will open streams on the sloping heights, and I will place springs in the midst of valleys; I will make the wilderness into a pool of water, and the dry land into well springs of water. Isaiah 41:18.
Here 'making the wilderness into a pool of water' stands for providing cognitions of goodness and truth, and therefore imparting intelligence, where they had not existed before. In the same prophet,
I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up every plant; and I will make streams into islands, and dry up pools. Isaiah 42:15.
'Pools' stands for much the same. Likewise in David,
Jehovah turns rivers into a wilderness, and streams of waters into a dryness. He turns a wilderness into a pool of water, and parched land into streams of water. Psalms 107:33-35.
In the same author,
At the presence of the Lord, you are in labour, O earth; at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of water. Psalms 114:7-8.
[3] In Isaiah,
The rivers of Egypt will diminish and dry up. Therefore the fishermen will mourn, and all who cast a hook into the river. Therefore its foundations will be broken to pieces - all those making their wages out of pools of the soul. Isaiah 19:6, 8, 10.
'Pools of the soul' stands for the things that constitute intelligence when it is based on cognitions; but since these verses refer to Egypt 'pools of the soul' are the things constituting intelligence when it is based on the facts known to the Church. For 'Egypt' is those facts, and known facts are cognitions, but a lower level of them.
[4] The meaning of 'pools of water' in the contrary sense as evils arising out of falsities, and consequent insanity, is evident in Isaiah,
I will cut off from Babel the name and residue, and son and grandson, and I will turn it into the inheritance of the duck, and into pools of water. Isaiah 14:21, 23.
Since 'pools' are in the contrary sense evils arising out of falsities, and consequent forms of insanity, the hell where such things reign is also meant by them. But in this case a pool is called 'a pool of fire' and 'a pool burning with fire and brimstone', as in Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14-15; 21:8. 'Fire and brimstone' stands for self-love and the desires that spring from it, for self-love and its desires are nothing other than fire, not elemental fire but the kind of fire that derives from spiritual fire; and this fire - spiritual fire - makes a person a living being. The fact that different types of love are life-giving fires is evident to anyone who thinks about it. These fires are what are meant by the holy fires that burn in heaven and by the fires of hell. Elemental fire does not exist in those places.
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