The Bible

 

Lamentations 5

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1 Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see our reproach.

2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

4 Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.

5 Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest.

6 We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear their iniquities.

8 Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

9 We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.

11 They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.

13 The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood.

14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

15 The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

16 The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, for we have sinned!

17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have grown dim,

18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes walk over it.

19 Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from generation to generation.

20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake us so long time?

21 Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

22 Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #899

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899. And twelve gates. This symbolizes all the concepts of truth and goodness by which a person is introduced into the church.

Gates symbolize concepts of truth and goodness from the Word, because a person is introduced into the church by them. For the wall that had the gates symbolizes the Word, as explained just above in no. 898. Moreover we are later told that "the twelve gates were twelve pearls: each gate was of one pearl" (verse 21), and pearls symbolize concepts of truth and goodness (no. 727). Clearly it is by these concepts that people are introduced into the church, as through gates into a city.

That the number twelve symbolizes all people may be seen in no. 348 above.

Gates symbolize concepts of truth and goodness also in the following places:

I will... lay your foundations in sapphires; I will make your pinnacles of garnets, and your gates carbuncle-stones. 1 (Isaiah 54:11-12)

Jehovah loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! (Psalms 87:2-3)

Enter through His gates with confession... Confess Him, bless His name. (Psalms 100:4)

Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem is built as a city that holds fast together. (Psalms 122:2-3)

Praise Jehovah, O Jerusalem! ...For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children in your midst. (Psalms 147:12-13)

...that I may recount all Your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion. (Psalms 9:14)

Open the gates, that a righteous nation which keeps its fealties may enter in. (Isaiah 26:2)

...raise your voice... that they may enter the gate of the princes. (Isaiah 13:2)

Blessed are those who do His commandments... and enter through the gates into the city. (Revelation 22:14)

Lift up your heads, O you gates... that the King of glory may come in. (Psalms 24:7, 9)

The roads to Zion mourn... All her gates are desolate; her priests groan... (Lamentations 1:4)

Judah mourned, and her gates have been made to languish. (Jeremiah 14:2)

Jehovah has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion... Her gates have sunk into the ground. (Lamentations 2:8-9)

...who make a man to sin against the Word, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate... (Isaiah 29:21)

They chose new gods; then he began to attack the gates. (Judges 5:8)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 3:25-26; 14:31; 22:7; 24:12; 28:6; 62:10; Jeremiah 1:15; 15:7; 31:38, 40; Micah 2:13; Nahum 3:13; Judges 5:11.

Since gates symbolize introductory truths, which are concepts from the Word, therefore the elders of the city used to sit as judges at the gates, as is apparent from Deuteronomy 21:18-21; 22:15; Lamentations 5:14; Amos 5:12, 15; Zechariah 8:16.

Footnotes:

1. A name variously applied in former times to precious stones of a red or fiery color.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.