Arcana Coelestia #872
872. 'The face 1 of the ground' means those things that reside with the member of the Church, and the expression 'the ground' is used because it is the first stage at which man comes to be the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'the ground', dealt with already, as the member of the Church who is at that point called 'the ground' when the goods and truths of faith can be sown within him. Previously he is called 'the land', as in Genesis 1 where 'the land' refers to man prior to his becoming celestial, while Chapter 2, when he has become celestial, refers to him as 'the ground' and 'the field'. It is similar in the present chapter. The expression 'the land' and the expression 'the ground' are sufficient by themselves to enable someone to recognize what is meant in the internal sense, not only here but also anywhere else in the Word. 'The ground' in the universal sense means the Church, and as the Church is meant so too is the member of the Church for, as stated already, every member of the Church is the Church.
Footnotes:
1. literally, The faces
Deuteronomy 32:7-15
7
Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.
8
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.
9
For Yahweh's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10
He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11
As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers.
12
Yahweh alone led him. There was no foreign god with him.
13
He made him ride on the high places of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock;
14
Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat. Of the blood of the grape you drank wine.
15
But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
