8910. 'You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male slave nor his female slave, nor his ox nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbour's' means that one must be on one's guard against self-love and love of the world, and so one must take care to prevent the evils contained in the preceding commandments from becoming present in the will and consequently going out of it. This is clear from the meaning of 'coveting' as a wanting that springs from an evil love. The reason why 'coveting' has this meaning is that all covetousness or craving exists as the result of some kind of love. For nothing is coveted unless there is a love of it, and therefore covetousness extends as a continuation from some kind of love, in this instance from self-love and love of the world. It is so to speak the life of what those loves breathe, for what an evil kind of love breathes is called covetousness or craving, whereas what a good kind breathes is called desire. The love itself belongs to one of two parts of the mind, which is called the will; for what a person loves, that he wills and intends. but covetousness belongs to both parts, to both the will and the understanding, that is, it is an attribute of the will within the understanding, to be precise. All this shows why it is that the words 'you shall not covet the things that are your neighbour's' mean that one must take care to prevent them from becoming present in the will, since what takes possession of the will becomes the person's own; for, to be sure, the will is the real person.

[2] The world believes that thought is the person. But there are two powers that constitute a person's life - understanding and will - and thought belongs to the understanding, the affection inherent in love being what belongs to the will. Thought without the affection inherent in love does not in any way at all constitute a person's life; but thought springing from such affection, that is, the understanding springing from the will, does constitute it. Those two powers are distinct from each other, which is evident to anyone who stops to reflect on the matter from the consideration that with his understanding a person can perceive that that thing is bad which his will desires, and that that thing is good which his will either does or does not desire. From all this it is plain that the will is the real person, not his thought, except so far as anything passes into it from the will. So it is that things which enter a person's thought but do not pass on through it into his will do not render him unclean; only those which pass through thought on into the will do so. The reason why the latter render a person unclean is that he takes them to himself then and makes them his; for the will, as has been stated, is the real person. The things which become part of his will are said to go into his heart and to go out from there, whereas those which are merely part of his thought are said to go into the mouth and to go out by way of the bowels into the sewer, according to the Lord's words in Matthew,

Not what enters the mouth renders a person unclean, but what comes out of the mouth, this renders the person unclean. Everything that goes into the mouth departs into the bowels and is cast out into the sewer. But the things which come out of the mouth come out of the heart, and these render a person unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, ravishments, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Matthew 15:11, 17-19.

[3] From these words as from all the others the nature of the Lord's manner of speaking becomes clear. That is, its nature was such that internal or spiritual matters were meant, but they were expressed by means of external or natural things and in accordance with correspondences. For the mouth corresponds to thought, and so do all parts of the mouth, such as the lips, tongue, and throat, while the heart corresponds to the affection inherent in love, and so to the will. For the correspondence of the heart to these, see 2930, 3313, 3883-3896, 7542. Consequently 'entering the mouth' is entering thought, and 'going out of the heart' is going out of the will. 'Departing into the bowels and being cast out into the sewer (or latrine)' is going away into hell; for the bowels correspond to the way to hell, while the sewer or latrine corresponds to hell itself. Hell also in the Word is called 'the latrine'. All this shows what is meant by 'everything that goes into the mouth departs into the bowels and is cast out into the sewer', namely that evil and falsity are introduced into a person's thought by hell and are discharged back there again. Such evil and falsity cannot render a person unclean because they are discharged from him. For a person cannot help thinking what is evil, but he can refrain from doing it. As soon however as he receives evil from his thought into his will it does not go out but enters into him; and this is said 'to enter the heart'. The things that go out from here are what render him unclean; for what a person desires in his will goes out into speech and action, so far as external restraints do not inhibit him, those restraints being fear of the law, and fear of the loss of reputation, position, gain, or life. From all this it is now evident that 'you shall not covet' means that one must take care to prevent evils from becoming present in the will and consequently going out of it.

[4] The fact that 'covetousness' is a craving or lusting on the part of the will, and so of the heart, is also clear from the Lord's words in Matthew,

You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that if anyone looks at a woman ¹ so that he lusts after her he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:27-28.

'Lusting for' is used here to mean desiring in the will, and - but for the fears acting as external restraints - also doing. This is why it says that one who looks at a woman so that he lusts after her has committed adultery with her in his heart.

[5] Lusting after what is evil is also meant by 'the right eye causing one to stumble', and lusting after what is false by 'the right hand causing one to stumble' in the Lord's words, again in Matthew,

If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you; for it will be better for you that one of your members perish, than that your whole body be cast into gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you; for it will be better for you that one of your members perish, than that your whole body be cast into gehenna. Matthew 5:29-30.

From these words the Lord's way of saying things is again clear. That is to say, He was speaking from the Divine, as in every other place in the Word, in such a way that He expressed inward and heavenly matters through outward or natural ones in accordance with correspondences. In this instance He expressed an affection for evil or lusting after it by 'the right eye causing one to stumble', and an affection for falsity or lusting after it by 'the right hand causing one to stumble'. For the eye corresponds to faith, the left eye to the truth of faith, and the right eye to the good of faith, or in the contrary sense to the evil of faith, so that 'the right eye causing one to stumble' corresponds to lusting after what is evil, 4403-4421, 4523-4534. But the hand corresponds to the power that truth possesses, the right hand to the power of truth coming from good, or in the contrary sense the power of falsity coming from evil, so that 'the right hand causing one to stumble' corresponds to a lusting after it, 3091, 4931-4937, 8281. 'Gehenna' is the hell of lusts, cravings, or covetousness. Anyone may see that here 'the right eye' was not used to mean the right eye or that it was to be plucked out; also that 'the right hand' was not used to mean the right hand or that it was to be cut off, but that something other was meant. What this is cannot be known unless one knows what is really meant by 'the eye', in particular by 'the right eye', also what is meant by 'the hand', and in particular by 'the right hand', as well as what 'causing to stumble' really means. Nor can the meaning of these expressions be known except from the internal sense.

[6] Lusts, cravings, or covetous desires are what spring from an evil will, thus from a heart that is such; and according to the Lord's words in Matthew 15:19, murders, adulteries, ravishments, thefts, false witness, blasphemies come out of the heart or will, that is, the kinds of evils contained in the preceding commandments of the Decalogue. In all this lies the reason for saying that this - 'you must not covet the things which are your neighbour's' - means that one must take care to prevent the evils contained in the ''receding commandments from becoming present in the will and consequently going out of it. The reason why 'you shall not covet the things which are your neighbour's' also means that one must be on one's guard against self-love and love of the world is that all the evils composing covetousness well up from those loves as their source, see 2045, 7178, 7255, 7366 7377, 7488, 8318, 8678.

Footnotes:

3883. THE GRAND MAN AND CORRESPONDENCE - continued IN THIS SECTION THE CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE HEART AND LUNGS

What the Grand Man is, and what correspondence with it is, has been stated already. The Grand Man consists in heaven in its entirety, which in general is a likeness and image of the Lord. Correspondence is a correspondence of the Lord's Divine with the celestial and spiritual things of heaven, and of those celestial and spiritual things of heaven with natural things in the world, primarily those in man. Thus there exists, by means of heaven or the Grand Man, a correspondence of the Lord's Divine with man and every individual part of him, so much so that man comes into being from that correspondence and is all the time coming into being, that is, is kept in being, from it.

In Hamlet, William Shakespeare said that “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” We can see this all around us. When we look at people in their early 20s, their attractiveness is all about cheekbones, eye color, symmetry, skin tone – physical things coded into their genetics. When we look at people in their 80s, we don’t see bone structure at all: Instead we see the etchings of a million expressions, faces worn into permanent smiles ... or permanent frowns.

This reflects an idea that is profoundly important in the theology of Swedenborg: the idea that internal things flow out into externals, so that the externals become a form reflecting the internals.

Extended to its fullest, this idea has an astonishing impact. Because the Lord is the inmost of all life – and indeed reality itself – that means that all life takes its form from the Lord. And since the Lord is the ultimate human, this means that all of reality, on all its levels, is in human form.

That might seem like a strange idea, but consider: You are, yourself, obviously in human form. If you think of your family as one human, you can probably see how you fill specific functions within that human form – how you are the heart, or the brain, or the stomach. Think of a large organization you’re part of, and the roles people fill – it’s not hard to see who is blood, who is muscle fiber, who is skin. Think of that organization as part of a larger community, and it’s not too hard to place it in its human role. Think of the community’s role in its nation, a nation’s role in the world – all are analogous to the human form.

This also works in the other direction. Each cell in your body has something analogous to a brain, something analogous to a heart, something analogous to intestines. Even the molecules and atoms themselves that build us are made of pieces that are drawn to each other and bond, just as our desires and our thoughts bond to make us who we are.

And here’s something worth considering. If you look at those functions in a cell and see something go wrong – some aspect not doing its job within that human form – what happens? The cell dies and is reabsorbed. What happens to a family when the forms get out of whack? It gets dysfunctional, and may break apart. If you look at organizations, you can likely observe that the better they are at reflecting the human form, the more successful they are. The same is true of communities and nations; the most successful are the ones that offer the freedom for citizens to find and fill their roles, with no one part of the “body” getting too big or taking over.

That’s a pretty incredible idea – and one with wide applications – even taken that far, but think what it means for the greatest and most perfect human organization of all: heaven! In heaven each individual is as good a human form as he or she can be, and is filling the perfect right role as well as he or she possibly can. What’s more the various communities and societies are in perfect order and in the perfect roles, coming together in a collective human for of heaven that is so perfect that Swedenborg calls it the “Grand Man” (or “Grand Human,” to be sensitive to gender issues) and says that it is the actual body of the Lord.

This is actually reflected in one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. In Numbers 24, the prophet Balaam looks down from a mountain at the camp of the Children of Israel. He’s been called by the king of Moab to curse the Israelites, but the Lord puts other words in his mouth: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign aloes which the LORD hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.”

Swedenborg tells us that the reason for this description is that the camp of Israel – carefully ordered and organized by the Lord through Moses – is a representation of heaven itself, in all its variety and perfection.

Here are some excerpts from Swedenborg's works:

From Arcana Coelestia 5377[1-2] (Elliott translation):

"Whatever exists in the human being, both in the external man and in the internal man, has a correspondence with the Grand Man. Without that correspondence with the Grand Man - that is, with heaven, or what amounts to the same, with the spiritual world - nothing can ever come into being and remain in being. This is because it does not have a connection with anything prior to itself or consequently with Him who is the First, that is, with the Lord. Nothing that lacks such a connection, thus that is independent, can remain in being for even a single instant. For everything that remains in being does so entirely by virtue of its connection with and dependence on what brings it into being; for remaining in being consists in a constant coming into being.

[2] From this it follows that not only all the individual parts of the human being correspond to the Grand Man but also every single thing in the universe. The sun has a correspondence, and so does the moon; for in heaven the Lord is the Sun, and the Moon too. The fire and heat of the sun, as well as its light, have a correspondence, for it is the Lord's love towards the whole human race that its fire and heat correspond to, and His Divine truth that its light corresponds to. The stars too have a correspondence, the communities of heaven and their dwelling-places being what the stars correspond to. Not that the heavenly communities dwell in the stars, but that they have been set in order in the same kind of way as the stars. Everything under the sun has a correspondence - every single thing beneath it in the animal kingdom and every single thing beneath it in the vegetable kingdom. And unless the spiritual world were flowing into them all, every one, they would instantly break down and fall to pieces."

From Divine Providence 204 (Rogers translation):

"We say that hell, too, is in the human form, but it is in a monstrous humanform, like that of the devil, by which is meant hell in its entirety. It is in thehuman form because the people who are in hell were also born human beings, and they also have the two human faculties called freedom and rationality - even though they abuse their freedom so as to will and do evil, and their rationality so as to think and justify it."

From Heaven and Hell 460 (Dole translation):

"Finally, I should like to offer a secret no one has ever known before, namely that everything good and true that comes from the Lord and makes heaven is in the human form. This is true not only of the greatest whole but also of every least part. This form influences everyone who accepts what is good and true from the Lord, and causes everyone in heaven to be in ahuman form according to that acceptance. This is why heaven is consistent with itself in general and in particular, why the human form is the form of the whole, of each community, and of each angel, as explained in the four chapters from 59 to 80. I need to add here that this is also the form of the details of thought that come from heavenly love in angels."

(References: Arcana Coelestia 3637, 3883, 4222; Divine Love and Wisdom 388)