The Bible

 

Numeri 1:42

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42 De filiis Nephthali per generationes et familias ac domos cognationum suarum recensiti sunt nominibus singulorum a vigesimo anno et supra, omnes qui poterant ad bella procedere,

Commentary

 

Zebulon

  

Zebulon's name comes from a Hebrew root word meaning habitation, or "dwelling together". In Genesis 30:19, 22 and Genesis 49:13, 'Zebulon' signifies the way that good and truth dwell together in a heavenly marriage. See Arcana Coelestia 3960, 3961.

In the supreme sense, Zebulon signifies the union of the essential divinity and the divine humanity in the Lord. In a spiritual sense, he signifies the marriage of good and truth in people who are in heaven and in the church. In the natural sense, he stands for conjugial love itself. See Revelation 7:8.

There's an interesting nuance, too, about the terms used in Genesis 49:13. Arcana Coelestia 6383 says, "'Zebulun' has reference to those within the Church who use the facts they know to draw inferences about spiritual truths and thereby strengthen their grasp of those truths." The passage goes on to talk about an affirmative attitude, supporting spiritual truths with natural ones. It's pretty interesting!

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 359)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #359

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359. Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed. (7:8) This symbolizes the conjugal love of goodness and truth in those people who will be part of the New Heaven and of the Lord's New Church.

In the highest sense Zebulun symbolizes the union of the Divine itself and the Divine humanity in the Lord; in the spiritual sense, the marriage of goodness and truth in those people who are in heaven and in the church; and in the natural sense, married love itself. Thus Zebulun here symbolizes the conjugal love of goodness and truth. His name also comes from a word meaning cohabitation ([30:19-20]), and cohabitation is a word used of married partners, whose minds are joined into one; for that conjunction is a spiritual cohabitation.

The conjugal love of goodness and truth that Zebulun symbolizes here is the conjugal love of the Lord and the church. For the Lord is love's goodness itself, and He grants that the church be the truth springing from that love; and a cohabitation results when the person of the church receives in truths goodness from the Lord. The person then has formed in him a marriage of goodness and truth, which is the essential church, and he becomes a heaven.

It is because of this that God's kingdom - which is to say, heaven and the church - is so often likened in the Word to a marriage.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.