The Bible

 

Ezekiel 16:39

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39 And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.

Commentary

 

Husband

  
Älteres Paar im Kücheninterieur, by Friedrich Friedländer (1825–1901)

In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #408

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408. Once the Church has been so vastated that faith exists no longer a fresh start is made, that is, new light begins to shine, which in the Word is called 'the morning'. The reason new light or the morning does not shine before the Church has been vastated is that the things constituting faith and charity have been mingled with things that are unholy, and as long as they are mingled no light or charity can possibly be introduced, for tares are ruining all the good seed. But once faith is no more, it is no longer possible for faith to be profaned, since people do not believe what is said. People who do not acknowledge and believe something but merely know it are, as stated already, incapable of profaning it. A similar situation exists at the present time in the case of Jews who, because they live among Christians, cannot help knowing that the Lord is acknowledged by Christians to be the Messiah whom they, the Jews, have been waiting for and are awaiting still. Yet they are incapable of profaning because they do not acknowledge and believe these matters. Nor, in a similar way, can Moslems and gentiles who have heard about the Lord do so. This was the reason why the Lord did not come into the world until the Jewish Church had ceased to acknowledge and believe anything.

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