1228. The symbolism of Elam as faith that grows out of love for others can be seen from the essential nature of the inner church. The inner church is where love for others is the primary basis of thought and action. The first child born of that love is nothing less than faith, since faith comes from that love and not from anywhere else. Elam's symbolism as the faith that comes of charity — that is, the faith that truly forms the inner church — can also be seen in Jeremiah:
The word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah concerning Elam: "Here, now, I am breaking the bow of Elam, the beginning of its power, and I will bring to Elam four winds from the four ends of the heavens and will scatter the people among all these winds. And there will not be a nation to which some of the exiles of Elam will not come. And I will unnerve Elam before its enemies and before those seeking its soul, and I will bring evil on them — the blazing of my anger — and I will send the sword after them until I devour them. And I will put my throne in Elam and eliminate the monarch and the chieftains from there, and it will happen in the end of days that I will bring Elam back from captivity." (Jeremiah 49:34-39)
[2] This passage speaks of faith, under the figure of Elam. What is the same, it speaks of the inner church when this has become perverted and corrupt, and then immediately of the same church when it has been restored. Similar things are said of Judah, Israel, and Jacob many times in the Word, and they symbolize churches too. Judah symbolizes the heavenly church, Israel symbolizes the spiritual church, and Jacob symbolizes the outer church. Their condition when they had been perverted is treated in much the same way in the Word, which says that they would scatter and then that the scattered would be reclaimed from their enemies and brought back from captivity, 1 meaning that a new church would be created. So of Elam, or the inner church when it had become perverted and corrupt, it says here that it would be scattered and then that it would be brought back. Afterward it says that Jehovah would put his throne in Elam — in other words, in the inner church, or in the inner depths of the church, which consist in nothing less than the faith that rises out of neighborly love.
[3] In Isaiah:
The burden of the wilderness beside the sea: From the wilderness it comes, and from a fearsome land. A harsh vision was shown to me: the betrayer is betraying and the ravager is ravaging. Go up, Elam! Lay a siege, Madai! All its groaning I have ended. (Isaiah 21:1-2)
This is about Babylon's destruction of the church. Elam is the inner church; Madai is the outer church, or outward worship containing inward. The fact that Madai is this kind of church or this kind of worship can be seen above at verse 2 of the current chapter [§§1150-1151yyy1], where Madai is named as Japheth's son.
Footnotes:
1. On the scattering of the Jewish people, see, for example, Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 4:27; 28:64; 1 Kings 14:15; Jeremiah 9:16; 13:24; 18:17; Ezekiel 12:15. On their being reclaimed from their enemies and brought back from captivity, see, for example, Deuteronomy 30:3-5; Isaiah 11:12; 14:1-2; Jeremiah 23:3, 8; 30:3, 10; 46:27; Ezekiel 37:21-22. [SS, LSW]
