The Bible

 

Ézéchiel 41:5

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5 Il mesura le mur de la maison, six coudées, et la largeur des chambres latérales tout autour de la maison, quatre coudées.

Commentary

 

Two

  

The number "two" has two different meanings in the Bible. In most cases "two" indicates a joining together or unification. This is easy to see if we consider the conflicts we tend to have between our "hearts" and our "heads" -- between what we want and what we know. Our "hearts" tell us that we want pie with ice cream for dinner; our "heads" tell us we should have grilled chicken and salad. If we can bring those two together and actually want what's good for us, we'll be pretty happy. We're built that way -- with our emotions balanced against our intellect -- because the Lord is built that way. His essence is love itself, or Divine Love, the source of all caring, emotion and energy. It is expressed as Divine Wisdom, which gives form to that love and puts it to work, and is the source of all knowledge and reasoning. In His case the two aspects are always in conjunction, always in harmony. It's easy also to see how that duality is reflected throughout creation: plants and animals, food and drink, silver and gold. Most importantly, it's reflected in the two genders, with women representing love and men representing wisdom. That's the underlying reason why conjunction in marriage is such a holy thing. So when "two" is used in the Bible to indicate some sort of pairing or unity, it means a joining together. In rare cases, however, "two" is used more purely as a number. In these cases it stands for a profane or unholy state that comes before a holy one. This is because "three" represents a state of holiness and completion (Jesus, for instance, rose from the tomb on the third day), and "two" represents the state just before it.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #6880

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6880. 'I Am Who I Am' means the Being and the Coming-into-Being of all things throughout creation. This is clear from the fact that 'I Am' means to have Being, and since He alone is Being 'I Am' is used as a name. The reason why 'I Am' occurs twice - that is to say, in 'I Am Who I Am' - is that in one place it means the Being and in the other the Coming-into-Being, Thus one means the Divine itself, which is called the Father, and the other means the Divine Human, which is called the Son; for the Divine Human comes into being from the Divine itself. But now that the Lord has become Divine Being, which is Jehovah, in respect of His Human too, Divine Truth which emanates from the Lord's Divine Human is the Divine Coming-into-Being arising from the Divine Being. From this it may be seen that the Divine Being cannot make contact with anyone except through the Divine Coming-into-Being; that is, the Divine itself cannot make contact except through the Divine Human, and the Divine Human cannot do so except through Divine Truth, which is the holy emanation of the spirit. This is implied by the words in John 1:7, 'all things were made through the Word'. The appearance to man is that Divine Truth is not the kind of thing that can bring something into being; for it is thought to be like an utterance which is discharged from the mouth and scattered to the winds. But the reality is altogether different. Divine Truth emanating from the Lord is something very real indeed. Its nature is such that it is the source from which all things come into being and from which all things are kept in being; for what emanates from the Lord is the most real thing in the whole of creation. Such is the nature of Divine Truth, which is called 'the Word through which all things were made'.

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