196. Internal Meaning of Hosea, Chapter 13

1-3 From their self-intelligence they have perverted all Divine worship, and hence will perish, (2)

4 yet the Lord alone is God. (16)

5-6 When they became rich in knowledges [cognitiones] from the Word, they forsook the Lord by reason of their self-glorification. (2)

7-9 Hence their destruction, (3)

10-11 because there is no longer any truth of the church. (3)

12-13 The truth of the church has been interiorly destroyed. (3, 17)

14-15 They are to be kept from destruction, until all truth of the church has been destroyed. (2)

16 Those who have worshipped another god will perish. (4)

Generally in the Bible a "country" means a political subdivision ruled by a king, or sometimes a tribe with a territory ruled by a king or chieftain. Others are what we now call city-states, with surrounding farm areas. In almost all cases these countries were far smaller than our modern idea of countries, though Egypt and Assyria would be exceptions. Sometimes the word is used to refer to countryside, a wide area with no consideration of boundaries as when the twelve Israelites were sent to spy out the country.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 3816 [3], 6818, 6820, 6821; Charity 83, 85; True Christian Religion 305)