58. The state of consummation of the Israelitish Church is described in both the historical parts of the Word, and its prophetic parts: in the prophetic, by the atrocious deeds of the kings, first of those of the Israelites, and afterwards of those of the Jews, by whom and under whom the land is said to have been profaned. But it is needless to recite them, because they are well known; only those passages from the prophetic parts shall be adduced in which the consummation and devastation of that Church are treated of. In these passages by "earth" and "land," "Zion," "Jerusalem," "cities," "mountains," "hills," "valleys," and "rivers," similar things are signified as above (n. 55). The following are from the prophetic parts of the Word:

[2] I saw the earth, and behold it was empty and void; and towards the heavens, and their light was not.... I saw, when, behold, Carmel ¹ was a desert, and all the cities were desolated at the presence of Jehovah.... For thus hath Jehovah said, The whole land shall be wasteness, yet will I not make a consummation. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be blackened.

Thou, therefore, that art vastated, what wilt thou do? (Jer. 4:23-31; 5:10, 18).

The lion hath come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of nations... hath gone forth from his place, to reduce the land to a waste.... In that day... the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished (Jer. 4:7, 9).

In that day, every place where there were a thousand vines shall be... for thorns and briars,... because all the land shall be thorns and briars (Isa. 7:23-24).

A voice of the cry of the shepherds and... of the powerful ones of the flock, for Jehovah layeth waste their pastures: whence the sheepfolds of peace were devastated. Jehovah hath forsaken His tabernacle, for their land was reduced to a desolation (Jer. 25:36-38).

This house shall be like Shiloh, and Jerusalem shall be a devastation (Jer. 26:9; 27:17).

Jerusalem, and all the cities of Judah, shall be a desolation and a devastation in this day, because of the wickedness of your works; . . . your land is become a desolation, an astonishment and a curse (Jer. 44:2, 6, 22).

I will give the land to devastation, because they have committed transgression (Ezek. 15:8).

They shall be devastated in the midst of the devastated lands, and her cities in the midst of the desolated cities.... Then I will make the rivers drought,... the land into the hand of the evil, and I will vastate the land and the fulness thereof (Ezek. 30:7, 12).

When I shall extinguish thee, I will cover the heavens, and will make the stars thereof black. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine;... and I will set darkness upon the land... when I shall bring on thy breaking up (Ezek. 32:7-9);

in like manner as the Lord foretold concerning the consummation of the present Christian Church (Matt. 24:29).

[3] I will give Mount Seir to wasteness and to devastation.... I will make thee the wastes of eternity... (Ezek. 35:3-4, 7, 9, 12, 14-15).

In that day they shall bring up a proverb against you... and say, In vastating we are vastated (Micah 2:4).

Fear and the pit have taken hold of us, devastation and breaking up (Lam. 3:47).

The mountain of Zion is vastated (Lam. 5:18).

Thine iniquity is consummated, O daughter of Zion (Lam. 4:22).

Woe to the sinful nation, heavy with iniquity;... they have provoked the Holy One of Israel.... From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness;... your land is a solitude.... The daughter of Zion is left as a tent in a vineyard, as a besieged city (Isa. 1:4-8, and following verses).

What will ye do in the day of visitation and devastation? Consummation is finished, justice is overwhelmed; for the Lord Jehovih is making a consummation and decision in the whole land (Isa. 10:3, etc., Isa. 10:22-23).

I have heard a consummation and decision from the Lord Jehovih of hosts in the whole land (Isa. 28:22).

The prophet fell upon his face, and said, Lord Jehovih! Thou art making a consummation with the remnants of Israel (Ezek. 11:13).

My sanctuary was profaned, and the land of Israel was devastated (Ezek. 25:3).

Were even Noah, Daniel and Job in the midst of it,... they only shall be delivered, but the land shall become a desolation (Ezek. 14:14, 16).

[4] The completion of the consummation of the Israelitish and Jewish Church was accomplished when the Lord our Saviour, after receiving the sponge of vinegar, cried out upon the cross,

It is consummated (John 19:29-30);

for it is said in David:

They gave gall for My meat, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink:... let their habitation be devastated (Psalm 69:21, 25).

And in another place:

Without cause have they hid for Me the pit of the net; without cause have they digged for My soul. Let devastation come upon him before he is aware;... let him fall into devastation. Rescue My soul from their devastators, and My only one,-that is, the Church-from the lions' whelps (Psalm 35:7-8, 17).

I will make Jerusalem heaps, a habitation of dragons; I will reduce the cities of Judah to a waste;... behold, I am feeding them, even this people, with wormwood, and I will give them waters of gall to drink (Jer. 9:11-15).

Full consummation, after this, is described in Hosea thus:

The sons of Israel shall sit many days: no king, no prince, no sacrifice, no image, no ephod, and no teraphim (Hosea 3:4).

Such is their state at the present day. There is no need to adduce more passages. The passages in which the vastation, desolation and consummation of this Church are further mentioned, shall be only named: as, for example, Isa. 9:13-21; 22:4-14: Jer. 7:31-34; 25:33; 47:4: Ezek. 13:14-15; 14:8, 15; 19:7; 25:12-13; 26:2; 29:9-10, 12; 32:12, 15: Joel 1:15-20; 2:3; 3:19: Nahum 1:8-9: Zeph. 1:15; 2:9: Lam. 1:16: Psalm 73:17-19; 74:3.

The devastated are also called "thrust through" ² (Ezek. 11:6-7; 21:30, 34; 26:6; 28:8, 23; 31:17-18; 32:20-24, 28-32; 35:8: Zeph. 2:12: Lam. 4:9: Psalm 69:27: and in other places). They are said to be "thrust through" because a "sword," by which this is done, signifies falsity destroying truth.

Footnotes:

54. III. THE THIRD STATE OF THIS CHURCH WAS DECLINE FROM TRUE REPRESENTATIVE WORSHIP INTO IDOLATRY, AND THEN WAS ITS VASTATION, OR EVENING. Some notable things were adduced above respecting the difference between representative worship and idolatrous worship, from which it may be plainly seen, that, so long as the types, figures and signs, which were seized upon by the senses of the body as objects of religion by the men of the Noachian and Israelitish Churches, were not at the same time regarded from a higher, or interior, idea, nearly approaching to a spiritual one, truly representative worship easily declined with them into idolatry. As for example: If, in reference to the tabernacle, they did not think at the same time of heaven and the Church, and of God's dwelling-place in these; concerning the bread of faces (or shewbread) therein, they did not think at the same time of the heavenly bread for the nourishment of the soul; concerning the incense and the burning of it upon the golden altar there, they did not think at the same time about worship from faith and charity, that this is what ascends to Jehovah as a grateful odour; about the lights in the lamps of the golden candlestick, when lighted, they did not think at the same time of the enlightenment of the understanding in the objects of their religion; and about the eating of the holy things, so that they did not at the same time think about the appropriation of heavenly foods, and also about the holy refreshment of their spirits from the performance of the sacrifices: and in like manner with the other things. It is hence manifest, that, if the man of the representative Church did not at the same time look upon the things belonging to that worship with a rational spirit enlightened by heavenly light from the Lord, but only with a rational spirit informed by the natural light (lumen) of the world from self, he could easily be carried away from genuine representative worship into idolatrous worship, and so be vastated; for vastation is nothing else but a turning aside, decline and falling away from representative to idolatrous worship; which two kinds of worship are alike as to external appearance, but not as to internal appearance.

[2] On account of this proneness to fall away from one worship which in itself was heavenly, into another which in itself was infernal, the interior things of the Church and of religion-namely, concerning heaven and hell, the resurrection, and the life of their spirits after death, and, also, the immortality of their souls, regeneration, and, in short, the interior things respecting faith and charity; -could not be revealed before the Lord's Advent, and then by light from Him, inasmuch as they would have looked upon them scarcely otherwise than as one looks at birds over the head, or meteors in the air. And, further, they would have covered them over so thickly with the mere fallacies of the senses, that, moreover, not a single vestige of the spiritual things revealed would have been visible, except as much as the tip of the nose in respect to the face, or a fingernail in respect to the hands. They would also have so distorted them, that they would have appeared in the presence of the angels no otherwise than like a sea-monster dressed out in a cloak, a mitre on the head, and with a face, after being shaved and painted, like that of an ape-whose face is destitute of hair: and they would also have appeared before the angels like a statue fitted with movable joints and hollowed out; which, some accomplice being introduced into it, would walk about, act and speak, and at length cry out to the superstitious multitude, "Prostrate yourselves; call upon me; behold me, your tutelar deity, your protector, to whom belongs holiness and divine a power." [3] Could the ideas of the thought of these concerning the spiritual things of the Church be superior to the ideas of thought of Nicodemus, who was a teacher, on regeneration, which was that of the whole man being re-born in his mother's womb? for he said:

How can a man be born anew? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb?

To whom the Lord answered,

Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?... If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how will ye believe if I shall tell you more than heavenly things? (John 3:3-4, 9-10, 12).

They would have raved in like manner, if interior things, which in their essence are spiritual, concerning faith and charity, and also the life after death, and respecting the state of heaven and hell, had been disclosed to them. Wherefore, to open the internal sight of their mind or spirit, as to its higher region, which alone heavenly light illuminates, before the coming of the Lord-who came into the world as "the Light," as He Himself says (John 1-4; 8:12; 12:35-36, 46) - was as impossible as it is to make a horse fly and turn it into Pegasus, or a stag run in the air, or a calf upon the waters; yea, as it would be to convert an agate into a ruby, a crystal into a diamond, or to put a vein of silver into a common stone, or to make a laurel-tree produce grapes, a cedar olives, a poplar and an oak pears and apples; therefore, also, as impossible as to infuse the intelligence of the learned Oedipus into the listening Davus.