Apocalypse Revealed #350
350. Of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed. (7:5) This symbolizes celestial love, which is love toward the Lord, and this in all those people who will be in the Lord's New Heaven and New Church.
In the highest sense Judah symbolizes the Lord in relation to celestial love; in the spiritual sense, the Lord's celestial kingdom and the Word; and in the natural sense, the doctrine of a celestial church drawn from the Word. Here, however, Judah symbolizes celestial love, which is love toward the Lord; and because it is named first in the series, it symbolizes that love in all those people who will be in the New Heaven and in the Lord's New Church. For the tribe named first is everything in the rest, being to them as though their head and serving as a universal property entering into all those that follow, tying them together, qualifying them and affecting them. This property is love toward the Lord.
To be shown that twelve thousand symbolizes all who possess that love, see no. 348 above.
[2] People know that after the death of Solomon the twelve tribes of Israel were divided into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. The kingdom of Judah represented the celestial kingdom or the Lord's priestly kingdom, while the kingdom of Israel represented the spiritual kingdom or the Lord's royal kingdom. But the latter was destroyed when the people had nothing spiritual left in them, whereas the kingdom of Judah was preserved, for the sake of the Word, and because the Lord would be born there. However, when the people adulterated the Word completely, and thus could not recognize the Lord, then their kingdom was destroyed.
It can be seen from this that the tribe of Judah symbolizes celestial love, which is love toward the Lord. But because the people were of the character they were with respect to the Word and with respect to the Lord, the tribe of Judah symbolizes also the opposite love, which is love of self - properly speaking, a love of dominating springing from a love of self - a love which we call diabolical love.
[3] The fact that Judah and his tribe symbolize the celestial kingdom and its love, which is love toward the Lord, follows from these passages:
Judah, your brothers shall praise you... The scepter shall not be taken from Judah... until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. Binding his donkey's foal to the vine, his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he washes his garment in wine... His eyes are redder than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. (Genesis 49:8-12)
...David shall be their prince forever, and I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them..., and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. (Ezekiel 37:25-26)
Exult and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! ...Jehovah will make Judah an inheritance for Himself, His portion on the holy land. (Zechariah 2:10-12)
O Judah, celebrate your feasts, perform your vows. For Belial 1 shall no more pass through you; he is utterly cut off. (Nahum 1:15)
The Lord... will suddenly come to His temple... Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be sweet to Jehovah as in the days of old... (Malachi 3:1, 4)
Judah shall abide forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. (Joel 3:20)
Behold, the days are coming..., that I will raise to David a righteous Branch... In His days Judah will be saved... (Jeremiah 23:5-6)
I will bring forth offspring from Jacob, and from Judah an heir of My mountains, that My elect may possess it... (Isaiah 65:9)
Judah became His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion. (Psalms 114:2)
Behold, the days are coming..., when I will make a new covenant... with the house of Judah... ...this will be the covenant...: I will put My law within them, and write it on their heart... (Jeremiah 31:27, 31, 33-34)
In those days ten men... shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, "We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." (Zechariah 8:23)
...as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me..., so shall your offspring and your name remain.
Kings (of the nations) shall be your foster fathers, their princesses your nursing mothers. They shall bow down to you, their faces to the ground, and lick the dust of your feet. (Isaiah 66:22; 49:23)
[4] From these and many other passages, which we do not have the space to cite because of their number, it can be clearly seen that Judah means not Judah but the church. We are told, for example, that the Lord would make a new and eternal covenant with that nation, that He would make it His heir and His sanctuary forevermore, and that kings of the nations and their princesses would bow down to them, licking the dust of their feet, and so on.
[5] That the tribe of Judah, regarded in itself, means the diabolic kingdom, which is one of a love of dominating springing from a love of self, can be seen from the following passages:
I will hide My face from them, I will see what their posterity will be. ...they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith... ...they are a nation void of counsel... ...their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah; its grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. Is this not laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries? (Deuteronomy 32:20-34)
(Know that) it is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart... that Jehovah... is... giving you (the land of Canaan)..., for you are a stiff-necked people. (Deuteronomy 9:5-6)
...according to the number of your cities have been your gods, O Judah... ...according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars... to burn incense to Baal. (Jeremiah 2:28; 11:13)
You are of your father the devil, and you choose to do the desires of your father. (John 8:44)
Jews are said to be full of hypocrisy, iniquity, and uncleanness (Matthew 23:27-28.
Footnotes:
1. In the Old Testament, the personification of wickedness and destruction, originally conceived perhaps as some sort of spirit demon.
Zechariah 1
1
In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying,
2
"Yahweh was very displeased with your fathers.
3
Therefore tell them: Thus says Yahweh of Armies: 'Return to me,' says Yahweh of Armies, 'and I will Return to you,' says Yahweh of Armies.
4
Don't you be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: Thus says Yahweh of Armies, 'Return now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings;' but they did not hear, nor listen to me, says Yahweh.
5
Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
6
But my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn't they overtake your fathers? "Then they repented and said, 'Just as Yahweh of Armies determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us.'"
7
On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying,
8
"I had a vision in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in a ravine; and behind him there were red, brown, and white horses.
9
Then I asked, 'My lord, what are these?'" The angel who talked with me said to me, "I will show you what these are."
10
The man who stood among the myrtle trees answered, "They are the ones Yahweh has sent to go back and forth through the earth."
11
They reported to the angel of Yahweh who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, "We have walked back and forth through the earth, and behold, all the earth is at rest and in peace."
12
Then the angel of Yahweh replied, "O Yahweh of Armies, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?"
13
Yahweh answered the angel who talked with me with kind and comforting words.
14
So the angel who talked with me said to me, "Proclaim, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh of Armies: "I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.
15
I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity."
16
Therefore thus says Yahweh: "I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it," says Yahweh of Armies, "and a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem."'
17
"Proclaim further, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh of Armies: "My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and Yahweh will again comfort Zion, and will again choose Jerusalem."'"
18
I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, four horns.
19
I asked the angel who talked with me, "What are these?" He answered me, "These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem."
20
Yahweh showed me four craftsmen.
21
Then I asked, "What are these coming to do?" He said, "These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations, which lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it."
