Apocalypse Revealed #862
862. We have said that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people attempted to destroy everything connected with the New Church, both its truths and goods and its fundamental doctrine regarding the Lord and life, as stated in the preceding number. This is the symbolic meaning because the camp of the saints symbolizes all the truths and goods of the church which is the New Jerusalem.
That a camp in the spiritual sense symbolizes everything connected with the church with respect to its truths and goods can be seen from the following passages:
The sun and moon grew dark, and the stars diminished their brightness. Jehovah uttered His voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for numberless are those who obey His Word. (Joel 2:10-11)
I will encamp for My house some of the army... (Zechariah 9:8)
...God has scattered the bones of them who encamp against you..., because God has rejected them. (Psalms 53:5)
The angel of Jehovah encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. (Psalms 34:7)
(An angel of God met Jacob, and said to Jacob,) "This is God's camp." Therefore he called the name of that place Mahanaim (Two Camps). (Genesis 32:1-2)
And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 29:3, Ezekiel 1:24, Psalms 27:3.
That an army or host in the Word symbolizes the church's truths and goods, and also its falsities and evils, may be seen in nos. 447, 826, 833; and so, too, does a camp.
[2] Since the children of Israel and their twelve tribes symbolize the church in respect to all its truths and goods (nos. 349, 350), they were therefore called the armies or hosts of Jehovah (Exodus 7:4; 12:41, 51), and the places where they stopped and assembled were called camps, as in Leviticus 4:12; 8:17; 13:46; 14:8; 16:26, 28; 24:14, 23; Numbers 1; 2; 3; 4:5 ff., 5:2-4; 9:17-23; 10:1-10, 11-28; 11:31-32; 12:14-15; 21:10-15; 33:1-49; Deuteronomy 23:9-14; Amos 4:10.
It is apparent from this now that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people tried to destroy all the truths and goods of the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, and also its doctrine regarding the Lord and life.
The same symbolism is found in these verses in Luke:
When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near... (At length) Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:20, 24)
This is said in reference to the end of the age, which is the final period of the church. Jerusalem here also symbolizes the church.
That Gog and Magog, that is, people who engage in external worship divorced from any internal worship, will then invade the church and try to destroy it, is something we are told also in Ezekiel 38:8-9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 39:2, and that the New Church will then be established by the Lord, Ezekiel 39:17-29.
Leviticus 24
1
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
2
"Command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.
3
Outside of the veil of the Testimony, in the Tent of Meeting, shall Aaron keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh continually: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
4
He shall keep in order the lamps on the pure gold lampstand before Yahweh continually.
5
"You shall take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes of it: two tenth parts of an ephah shall be in one cake.
6
You shall set them in two rows, six on a row, on the pure gold table before Yahweh.
7
You shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be to the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
8
Every Sabbath day he shall set it in order before Yahweh continually. It is on the behalf of the children of Israel an everlasting covenant.
9
It shall be for Aaron and his sons; and they shall eat it in a holy place: for it is most holy to him of the offerings of Yahweh made by fire by a perpetual statute."
10
The son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and the son of the Israelite woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp.
11
The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name, and cursed; and they brought him to Moses. His mother's Name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.
12
They put him in custody, until the will of Yahweh should be declared to them.
13
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
14
"Bring out of the camp him who cursed; and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
15
You shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin.
16
He who blasphemes the name of Yahweh, he shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him: the foreigner as well as the native-born, when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death.
17
"'He who strikes any man mortally shall surely be put to death.
18
He who strikes an animal mortally shall make it good, life for life.
19
If anyone injures his neighbor; as he has done, so shall it be done to him:
20
fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has injured someone, so shall it be done to him.
21
He who kills an animal shall make it good; and he who kills a man shall be put to death.
22
You shall have one kind of law, for the foreigner as well as the native-born: for I am Yahweh your God.'"
23
Moses spoke to the children of Israel; and they brought forth him who had cursed out of the camp, and stoned him with stones. The children of Israel did as Yahweh commanded Moses.
