Hosea 4
1
Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land; for there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.
2
Swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, -- they break out; and blood toucheth blood.
3
For this shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowl of the heavens, yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.
4
Yet let no man strive, and let no man reprove; for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.
5
And thou shalt stumble by day; and the prophet also shall stumble with thee by night: and I will destroy thy mother.
6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; for thou hast rejected knowledge, and I will reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.
7
As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame.
8
They eat the sin of my people, and their soul longeth for their iniquity.
9
And it shall be as the people so the priest; and I will visit their ways upon them, and recompense to them their doings;
10
and they shall eat, and not have enough; they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: for they have left off taking heed to Jehovah.
11
Fornication, and wine, and new wine take away the heart.
12
My people ask counsel of their stock, and their staff declareth unto them; for the spirit of whoredoms causeth [them] to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God:
13
they sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oak and poplar and terebinth, because the shade thereof is good; therefore your daughters play the harlot and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
14
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your daughters-in-law for their committing adultery; for they themselves go aside with harlots, and they sacrifice with prostitutes: and the people that doth not understand shall come to ruin.
15
Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, let not Judah trespass; and come ye not unto Gilgal, neither go up to Beth-aven, nor swear [As] Jehovah liveth!
16
For Israel is refractory as an untractable heifer; now will Jehovah feed them as a lamb in a wide [pasture].
17
-- Ephraim is joined to idols: leave him alone.
18
Their drink is sour; they give themselves up to whoredom; her great men passionately love [their] shame.
19
The wind hath wrapped her up in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.
Arcana Coelestia #1860
1860. That 'there was thick darkness' means when hatred existed in place of charity is clear from the meaning of 'thick darkness'. In the Word 'darkness' means falsities, while 'thick darkness' means evils, as explained immediately below. 'Darkness' is when falsity exists in place of truth, and 'thick darkness' when evil exists in place of good, or what amounts entirely to the same, when hatred exists in place of charity. When hatred exists in place of charity the darkness is so thick that the person is not even aware of its being an evil, let alone of its being so great an evil as to thrust him down in the next life into hell; indeed people who are steeped in hatred find a certain delight and so to speak life in it. This very delight and life have the effect that he hardly knows other than that hatred is good. Whatever favors a person's pleasure and desire, because it favors his love, he feels as good - so much so that when he is told it is of hell he can hardly believe it. Even less can he believe it when he is told that such delight and life is converted in the next life into an utterly foul and corpse-like stench. Even less still can he believe that he is becoming a devil and a dreadful replica of hell; for hell consists of nothing else than varieties of hatred and other such forms.
[2] But of this anyone may know who has any power of thought; for if he were to describe hatred, or to represent it, or to portray it if he were able to in any way, he would not do so except by the use of devil-like forms such as these persons steeped in evil also assume after death. And what is extraordinary, such people can still declare that in the next life they will go to heaven, in some cases for merely saying that they have faith - though in fact the only forms occurring in heaven are those of charity, the nature of which may be seen in what has been told from experience in 553. Let those people now consider how these two forms - of hatred and of charity - can be in agreement in the same place.
[3] That 'darkness' means falsity and 'thick darkness' evil becomes clear from the following places in the Word: In Isaiah,
Behold, darkness is covering the earth, and thick darkness the peoples. Isaiah 60:2.
In Joel,
Let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, for the day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and thick darkness. Joel 2:1-2.
In Zephaniah,
A day of wrath is that day, a day of vastation and desolation, a day of darkness and thick darkness. Zephaniah 1:15.
In Amos,
Is not the day of Jehovah darkness and not light, and thick darkness, and no brightness in it? Amos 5:20.
In these places 'the day of Jehovah' stands for the final period of the Church, which is also the subject here. 'Darkness' stands for falsities, 'thick darkness' for evils; hence both are mentioned. Otherwise there would be a repetition of the same thing, or a pointless excess of words. The term used in the original language however to express thick darkness in this verse embodies both within itself - falsity as well as evil, or gross falsity that produces evil, as well as gross evil that produces falsity.
