The Bible

 

Micah 3

Study

   

1 And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?

2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

4 Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.

5 Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.

6 Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

7 Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.

8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.

9 Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.

10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

11 The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.

12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

   

Commentary

 

Teeth

  

In Genesis 49:12, "teeth whiter than milk" signify the Celestial Spiritual [milk] in the Lord's Natural [teeth], where Judah is here representing the Lord. (Arcana Coelestia 2184-2185).

In Psalms 3:7; 37:12, 58:6; Matthew 8:12, teeth signify the lowest natural things in man: in the genuine sense, their truths, in the opposite sense, their falsities. So the gnashing of teeth signifies the collision of falsities with truths. (Arcana Coelestia 4424[3])

In Exodus 21:27, this signifies truth in the natural, here the ultimate, which is the sensuous. (Arcana Coelestia 9062)

The tooth signifies the corporeal proprium, which is the lowest degree of man. (Arcana Coelestia 10283[12])

'Teeth,' as in Genesis 49:12, in the genuine sense, signify the natural level of life. Any hard part of the body, like bones and cartilage, corresponds to the truths and goods of the lowest natural level. 'Teeth' signify the outer edges of the life of the natural self, or the sensory level. There is a natural sensory will, and a natural sensory understanding. When the sensory levels are separated from the interior of the mind, their supposed truths are really mere falsities, and do violence to truths and destroy them. This situation appears in many passages, because sensory people do not see any truth in its own light, but engage in reasoning and altercations about everything... These altercations are heard in the hells as the gnashing of teeth. Viewed in itself, this is the collision of falsity and truth. This is the meaning of 'gnashing of teeth' in Matthew 8:12, 13:42, 50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, and Luke 13:28.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 435)