1488. The symbolism of and his household as the facts he had collected can be seen from the symbolism of a house or household here as facts that are being collected. Accumulating facts and using them to construct or "build" an outer self is much like building a house. Accordingly, houses and the building of houses 1 have this same symbolism throughout the Word, as in Isaiah:
I am creating new heavens and a new earth. They will build houses and inhabit them. And they will plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They will not build, and another inhabit. (Isaiah 65:17, 21-22)
A house here is a place where there is wisdom and understanding and so where goodness and truth are known, since it is talking about the Lord's kingdom — that is to say, about new heavens and a new earth. In Jeremiah:
Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. (Jeremiah 29:5)
The meaning is the same. In David:
Happy is the man who fears Jehovah; in Jehovah's commandments he takes great pleasure. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his virtue will be standing forever. (Psalms 112:1, 3)
The wealth and riches stand for the wealth and riches of wisdom and understanding and so for religious concepts, which are "in his house," that is, inside the person.
[2] Houses with an opposite meaning come up in Zephaniah:
I will exact punishment on those who say, "Jehovah has not done good and has not done evil." And their riches will become plunder, and their houses a ruin; and they will build houses and not live in them, and plant vineyards and not drink the wine. (Zephaniah 1:12-13)
In Haggai:
"Go up onto the mountain and bring wood and build a house. 2 To look for much ... ! And here, it became little. And you brought it into [your] house and I blew it away. Why?" says Jehovah. "Because of my House, which has been deserted, while you go running each to your own house. Therefore the heavens above you have been shut off from their dew." (Haggai 1:8, 9, 10)
A house here stands for facts from which we produce falsity by means of twisted logic. In Isaiah:
Doom to those attaching house to house; field to field they bring together, until there is no room and you live alone in the middle of the land. If many houses are not made desolate — large ones, and good — without any inhabitant, ... ! 3 Jehovah's vineyard is the house of Israel. 4 (Isaiah 5:7, 8, 9)
Here too the house stands for facts from which we produce falsities. In Amos:
Look! Jehovah is issuing commands, and he will strike the large house with cracks and the small house with crevices. Will horses run on rock? Will anyone plow it with oxen? For you have transformed integrity into poison, and the fruit of justice into wormwood. (Amos 6:11-12)
The house again stands for falsity and the evil that falsity gives rise to; horses stand for skewed logic; integrity stands for truth that is transformed into poison; and the fruit of justice stands for virtues that are transformed into wormwood.
[3] Throughout the Word, then, houses stand for human minds, which ought to hold understanding and wisdom. Pharaoh's house here stands for the facts on which understanding and therefore wisdom are based. The house that Solomon built for Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kings 7:8 and following verses) also has the same symbolism. Since houses stand for our minds, which contain understanding and wisdom, and which also contain the emotions that belong to our will, the symbolism of a house in the Word is broad. The particular symbolism can be deduced from the context in which it is mentioned. People themselves are also called houses.
Footnotes:
1. The translation here assumes the reading domos, et aedificare domos ("houses and the building of houses") for the first edition's aedificare, et aedificare domos ("building and the building of houses"). [LHC]
2. The house in this context is the Temple at Jerusalem, which at the time of this prophet (Haggai) was in ruins and needed to be rebuilt. [LHC]
3. The implied completion to this oath beginning with the phrase "If many houses are not made desolate" would be some contrary-to-fact statement, such as "then I am not God." Threats with an "if" clause but no explicit "then" clause — what could be called an "elliptical threat" — are a fairly common feature of the Hebrew Bible. For some examples of this feature, see 2 Samuel 19:13; 1 Kings 2:23; 19:2; 2 Kings 6:31. [LHC]
4. The material quoted here does not follow its biblical order. The last sentence is from verse 7, the two before it are from verses 8, 9. Furthermore, the first Latin edition cites only verses 8, 9. The third Latin edition describes these problems as "possibly a printer's error" (Swedenborg [1749-1756] 1949-1973), while Elliott (Swedenborg [1749-1756] 1983-1999) says that the last sentence was apparently "added as an afterthought." [LHC]
