10038. 'You shall burn with fire outside the camp' means that those things must be banished to hell and be consumed by the evils of self-love. This is clear from the meaning of 'burning with fire' as consuming by means of the evils of self-love, for 'burning' means consuming or devouring and 'fire' the evil of self-love (for these meanings of 'burning' and 'fire', see 1297, 5071, 5215, 6314, 6832, 7324, 7575, 9141, 9434); and from the meaning of 'the camp' as heaven and the Church, and in the contrary sense the place where heaven and the Church do not exist, thus where hell exists, dealt with below. The reason why 'being burned with fire' means being consumed by the evils of self-love is that that love consumes every good or truth of faith. Scarcely anyone at the present day knows that self-love does this, nor consequently that this love constitutes hell with a person and that it is what should be understood by hell-fire.

[2] There are two fires of life that exist with a person; one is self-love, the other is love to God. Those in whom self-love predominates cannot be governed by love to God, for those loves are opposites. They are opposites because self-love gives rise to all evils, which are contempt for others in comparison with self, enmity towards those who do not treat oneself favourably, and in the end to hatred, vengeance, brutality, and cruelty; and these evils act in total opposition to Divine influx, consequently annihilate truths and forms of the good of faith and charity, these being the things that flow in from the Lord. Anybody who stops to reflect may know that everyone's love is the fire of his life - for without love there is no life, and the character of the love determines that of the life - and therefore that self-love gives rise to evils of every kind, doing so in the measure that he has only himself in view, that is, self-love reigns in him. The worst kind of self-love is the love of dominion over others for selfish reasons, that is, the love of possessing dominion solely for the sake of position and gain. Those in whom that love predominates may, it is true, make profession of faith and charity, but they do so with their lips, not with their heart; indeed the worst among them look on the things that belong to faith and charity, thus the holy things of the Church, as means to their own ends. But self-love and all the different types of it, also the evils that gush out of it, and the condition of the selfish in the next life, must in the Lord's Divine mercy be stated in detail somewhere else. They have been referred to here to enable people to know what 'being burned with fire outside the camp' means.

[3] The fact that 'the camp' where the children of Israel were encamped represented heaven and the Church, and therefore that 'outside the camp' represented the place where heaven and the Church did not exist, thus where hell was, becomes clear from those places in the Word which mention the camp and the encampment of the children of Israel in the wilderness, such as the following in Moses,

The children of Israel shall camp, [every] man by his own camp, and [every] man by his own standard, according to their armies. And the Levites shall camp around the dwelling-place of the Testimony, that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the children of Israel. Numbers 1:52-53; 2:2.

In addition, Numbers 2:1-end says that the tribes of Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun encamped to the east; the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad to the south; the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin to the west; and the tribes of Dan, Asher, and Naphtali to the north. But the Levites were in the middle of their camps. The like applied when they set out on their journeys, Numbers 2:17; 10:1-end. The reason why their encampments were arranged in that kind of order was so that they might represent heaven and the Church, 9320 (end). Moreover the tribes according to which the children of Israel set up their camps represented all the forms of good and all the truths in their entirety that belonged to heaven and the Church, 3858, 3926, 3939, 4060, 6335, 6337, 6397, 6640, 7836, 7891, 7996, 7997. This explains why it says that Jehovah dwells in the middle of the camps, Numbers 5:3, and that He walks in the middle of them and they will therefore be holy, Deuteronomy 23:14, and why, in the prophecy uttered by Balaam, when he saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes, he said, How good are your tabernacles, O Jacob, and your dwelling-places, O Israel! Numbers 24:2-3, 5.

[4] Since heaven and the Church was represented by the camp it follows that 'outside the camp' meant the place where neither heaven nor the Church existed, thus where hell was. That is why everyone who was unclean and also anyone who was guilty was sent out there, as may be recognized from the following,

You shall send out of the camp everyone who is leprous, and everyone suffering a discharge, and everyone unclean on account of a soul ¹ . Whether they are male or female ² you shall send them outside the camp, so that they may not defile the camps, in the middle of which Jehovah dwells. Numbers 5:2-3; Leviticus 13:45-46.

A man who is not clean by reason of an accident in the night shall go outside the camp and not come into the middle of the camp. When he has washed himself with water and the sun has set he shall enter the camp. There shall be a space for you outside the camp where you may go out, and you shall cover your excrement by means of a spade ³ , since Jehovah walks in the middle of the camp. Therefore the camp shall be holy. Deuteronomy 23:10-14.

And the stoning of people was done outside the camp, Leviticus 24:14; Numbers 15:35-36.

From all this it is now clear that 'you shall burn with fire the flesh, skin, and dung of the young bull, outside the camp' means that evils, meant by these things, must be banished to hell.

[5] The same thing as was represented by the camp and the area outside it was also represented by the land of Canaan and the lands around it after that land had been divided up as inheritances among the children of Israel. This is why in the Word 'the land of Canaan' or simply 'the land' means heaven and the Church, and 'the children of Israel' those who are in heaven and the Church. For the meaning of 'the land' as heaven and the Church, see the places referred to in 9325; and for that of 'the children of Israel' as those who are there, 9340.

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5215. 'And scorched by an east wind' means full of evil desires. This is clear from the meaning of 'being scorched by an east wind' as being consumed by the fire of evil desires. For an east wind' and the east' in the genuine sense mean love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, lot, 1250, 3249, 3708, 3762, and therefore in the contrary sense self-love and love of the world, and so cravings and evil desires since these spring from those loves. The word 'fire' is used to refer to such desires for the reason dealt with in 5071, and therefore 'being scorched' is used also.

[2] There are two sources of heat, as there are also two sources of light, the one source of heat being the sun of this world, the other source of heat being the sun of heaven, which is the Lord. It is a well known fact that the sun of this world pours out heat into its own world and onto everything there, but it is a less well known fact that the sun of heaven pours out heat into the whole of heaven. Yet this too may become an equally well known fact if one reflects merely on the heat which exists intrinsically in the human being but which has nothing in common with the heat of the world, that is, if one reflects on what is called vital heat. From this one could know that this heat is of a different nature from the world's heat. That is to say, the former is a living heat but the latter is not at all a living one; also the former, being a living one, fires a person interiorly, namely his will and understanding, imparting to him desires and loves, and affections too. This also explains why desires, loves and affections are spiritual forms of heat, and are also called such. The fact that they are forms of heat is quite evident, for heat is radiated from all parts of the bodies of live persons, even where it is intensely cold. More than that, when desires and affections, that is, when loves, increase, the body grows correspondingly warmer. This kind of heat is what is meant in the Word by 'heat', 'fire', and 'flame'; in the genuine sense celestial and spiritual love is meant, in the contrary sense bodily and earthly love. From this it becomes clear that here 'being scorched by an east wind' means being consumed by the fire of evil desires, and that when used in reference to known facts meant by 'heads' that are 'thin', facts full of evil desires are meant.

[3] 'The east wind' means the blasts of evil desires and of derivative false notions, as is clear from places in the Word where that wind is mentioned, for example, in David,

He caused an east wind to blow ¹ in the heavens, and by His power He brought forth the south wind; and He caused flesh to rain onto them like the dust, winged birds like the sand of the sea. Psalms 78:26-27.

'The flesh' which that wind brought meant cravings, and 'winged birds' resulting false notions, as is evident in Numbers 11:31-35, where it is said that the name of the place where the people were struck down for eating flesh was called 'the graves of craving, for there they buried the people who had the craving'.

[4] In Ezekiel,

Behold, the vine that was planted, will it thrive? When the east wind strikes it, will it not wither completely? It will wither on the small spaces where it began to grow. Ezekiel 17:10.

And in the same prophet,

The vine has been plucked up in anger, it has been cast down onto the ground, and the east wind has dried its fruit. They have been plucked out and have withered, each rod of its strength; fire has consumed each one. For fire has gone out from a rod of its branches and has consumed its fruit, so that there is no rod of strength in it, a sceptre for dominion. Ezekiel 19:12, 14.

Here 'the east wind' stands for the blasts of evil desires. In Isaiah,

He gave thought to His rough wind, on the day of the east wind. Isaiah 17:8.

[5] In Hosea,

An east wind will come, Jehovah's wind rising up from the desert, and his spring will become dry, and his fountain dried up. It will strip his treasury of every precious vessel. Hosea 13:15.

Here also 'an east wind' stands for blasts of evil desires. Similarly in Jeremiah,

Like an east wind I will scatter them before the enemy. Jeremiah 18:17.

[6] In David,

By means of an east wind You will shatter the ships of Tarshish. Psalms 48:7.

In Isaiah,

You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, because they have been filled from the east wind, and they are diviners like the Philistines. Isaiah 2:6.

In Hosea,

Ephraim feeds the wind, and pursues the east wind. All the day long he multiplies lies and devastation. Hosea 11:1.

'The wind' here stands for false notions, and 'the east wind' for evil desires. Something similar is also meant in the internal sense by 'an east wind' by means of which 'locusts were brought forth' and by means of which 'the locusts were cast into the sea', ² Exodus 10:13, 19, and also by means of which 'the waters of the sea Suph' were divided, Exodus 14:21.

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