The Bible

 

Ezekiel 41

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1 And he took me to the Temple, and took the measure of the uprights, six cubits wide on one side and six cubits wide on the other.

2 And the door-opening was ten cubits wide; and the side walls of the door-opening were five cubits on one side and five cubits on the other: and it was forty cubits long and twenty cubits wide.

3 And he went inside and took the measure of the uprights of the door-opening, two cubits: and the door-opening, six cubits; and the side-walls of the door-opening were seven cubits on one side and seven cubits on the other.

4 And by his measure it was twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide in front of the Temple: and he said to me, This is the most holy place.

5 Then he took the measure of the wall of the house, which was six cubits; and of the side-rooms round the house, which were four cubits wide.

6 And the side-rooms, room over room, were three times thirty; there were inlets in the wall of the house for the side-rooms round about, for supports in the wall of the house.

7 The side-rooms became wider as they went higher up the house, by the amount of the space let into the wall up round about the house, because of the inlets in the house; and one went up from the lowest floor by steps to the middle, and from the middle to the upper floor.

8 And I saw that the house had a stone floor all round; the bases of the side-rooms were a full rod of six great cubits high.

9 The wall supporting the side-rooms on the outside was five cubits thick: and there was a free space of five cubits between the side-rooms of the house.

10 And between the rooms was a space twenty cubits wide all round the house.

11 And the free space had doors opening from the side-rooms, one door on the north and one door on the south: and the free space was five cubits wide all round.

12 And the building which was in front of the separate place at the side to the west was seventy cubits wide; the wall of the building was five cubits thick all round and ninety cubits long.

13 And he took the measure of the house; it was a hundred cubits long; and the separate place and the building with its walls was a hundred cubits long;

14 And the east front of the house and of the separate place was a hundred cubits wide.

15 And he took the measure of the building in front of the separate place which was at the back of it, and the pillared walks on one side and on the other side; they were a hundred cubits long; and the Temple and the inner part and its outer covered way were covered in;

16 And the sloping windows and the covered ways round all three of them were of shakiph-wood all round from the level of the earth up to the windows;

17 And there was a roof over the doorway and as far as the inner house, and to the outside and on the wall all round, inside and outside.

18 And it had pictured forms of winged beings and palm-trees; a palm-tree between two winged ones, and every winged one had two faces;

19 So that there was the face of a man turned to the palm-tree on one side, and the face of a young lion on the other side: so it was made all round the house.

20 From earth level up to the windows there were winged ones and palm-trees pictured on the wall.

21 ...

22 The altar was made of wood, and was three cubits high and two cubits long; it had angles, and its base and sides were of wood; and he said to me, This is the table which is before the Lord.

23 The Temple had two doors.

24 And the holy place had two doors, and the doors had two turning leaves, two for one and two for the other.

25 And on them were pictured winged ones and palm-trees, as on the walls; and a ... of wood was on the front of the covered way outside.

26 And there were sloping windows and palm-trees on one side and on the other, on the sides of the covered way: and the side-rooms of the house and the ...

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #9659

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9659. 'And there shall be eight boards and their bases [made] from silver' means support in every respect from good and through truth that springs from good. This is clear from the meaning of 'eight' as what is so in every respect, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'boards' as good that lends support, dealt with in 9634; and from the meaning of 'bases [made] from silver' as support provided through truth from good, dealt with in 9643.

[2] 'Eight' means in every respect because this number has the same meaning as two and four, being the product of these when multiplied together. 'Two' and 'four' mean being joined together, completely so, 5194, 8423, 8877, and consequently also mean what is complete, 9103, and therefore what is so in every respect; for what exists in completeness does so in every respect. Another reason why 'eight' means what exists in completeness and in every respect is that since 'a week' means a whole period from beginning to end, 2044, 3845, 'the eighth day' means a complete state, from which a new beginning then commences. This explains why males had to be circumcised on the eighth day, Genesis 17:12; 21:4, for circumcision was a sign of purification from foul kinds of love by means of the truth of faith, 2039, 2046 (end), 2799, 3412, 3413, 4462. The foreskin corresponded to the defilement of good by those kinds of love, 4462, 7045, 7225, and the knife of flint with which circumcision was carried out was a sign of the truth of faith by means of which purification was accomplished, 2039 (end), 2046 (end), 2799, 7044.

[3] What exists in completeness and in every respect is also meant by 'eight' following 'seven' in Micah,

When Asshur comes into our land and treads our palaces we will set up over him seven shepherds and eight princes of men (homo), and they will feed 1 the land of Asshur with the sword; and he will deliver [us] from Asshur. Micah 5:5-6.

'Asshur' stands for reasoning on the basis of one's own intelligence about the Church's forms of good and its truths. Deliverance totally or in every respect from consequent falsity is meant by 'eight princes of men' who will bring destruction, 'princes of men' being the leading truths that rise out of good.

[4] The fact that 'eight' means completeness and in every respect is also clear from an experience I had involving the admission and reception of some communities into heaven, about which see 2130. I saw as many as twelve communities received first, and after them as many as eight more; for people admitted and received into heaven are those who have been purified from earthly things, that is, from all love of them, and have gone on to receive instruction. The number eight on that occasion was a sign of that which was complete.

[5] 'Eight' has a similar meaning elsewhere in the Word, for example where it says that the portico of the gateway was 'eight cubits' long from the house, and that there were 'eight steps' up to the house, in Ezekiel 40:9, 31, 41. The description there is of the new house, by which the Lord's New Church is meant, truths leading to good and from good back to truths being meant by 'the portico' and 'the steps'.

[6] Anyone who does not know that spiritual realities or real things are implied by the numbers used in the Word cannot possibly see any such reality nor thus anything holy in the measures and numbers where the tabernacle, Solomon's temple, and after these the new house, new temple, and new land in Ezekiel, are described, when yet not a syllable in the Word is devoid of spiritual meaning. Let all who have intelligence weigh up in their mind what the measures and numbers in Chapters 40-48 of Ezekiel really mean, also the measures and numbers in John, at Revelation 21:17, where it says that the angel measured the wall of the new Jerusalem, a hundred and forty-four cubits, and that this measure was that of a man (homo), that is, of an angel, and also in the following, besides many other places,

Let him who has intelligence reckon the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man (homo), that is, its number is six hundred and sixty-six. Revelation 13:18.

For more about all numbers in the Word, that they mean spiritual realities or real things, see 482, 487, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, 3252, 4264, 4495, 4670, 5265, 5291, 5335, 5708, 6175, 7973, and places where the specific meaning of certain numbers has been shown.

Footnotes:

1. i.e. destroy

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.