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שכבו לארץ חוצות נער וזקן בתולתי ובחורי נפלו בחרב הרגת ביום אפך טבחת לא חמלת׃ ס
Apocalypse Revealed #899
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.
Deuteronomy 21
1
If one be found slain in the land which Yahweh your God gives you to possess it, lying in the field, and it isn't known who has struck him;
2
then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain:
3
and it shall be, that the city which is nearest to the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn't been worked with, and which has not drawn in the yoke;
4
and the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley.
5
The priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them Yahweh your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the name of Yahweh; and according to their word shall every controversy and every stroke be.
6
All the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;
7
and they shall answer and say, "Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.
8
Forgive, Yahweh, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and don't allow innocent blood [to remain] in the midst of your people Israel." The blood shall be forgiven them.
9
So you shall put away the innocent blood from the midst of you, when you shall do that which is right in the eyes of Yahweh.
10
When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and Yahweh your God delivers them into your hands, and you carry them away captive,
11
and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have a desire to her, and would take her to you as wife;
12
then you shall bring her home to your house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
13
and she shall put the clothing of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in your house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that you shall go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
14
It shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she will; but you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not deal with her as a slave, because you have humbled her.
15
If a man have two wives, the one beloved, and the other hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers who was hated;
16
then it shall be, in the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may not make the son of the beloved the firstborn before the son of the hated, who is the firstborn:
17
but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated, by giving him a double portion of all that he has; for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
18
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and, though they chasten him, will not listen to them;
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then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place;
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and they shall tell the elders of his city, "This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard."
21
All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones: so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
22
If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and you hang him on a tree;
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his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God; that you don't defile your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.
