1794. What will you give me? For I am walking childless, means that there was no inward religion, as can be seen from the symbolism of walking childless. Walking in an inner sense is living, as shown earlier, in §519. Being childless, however, or having no seed, no descendants of one's own, is dealt with in verses 3, 4, 5 below, where you will find an explanation of childlessness, or lack of seed [§§1798, 1799, 1802, 1803, 1804, 1810].
Secrets of Heaven #1803
1803. But one who will issue from your belly symbolizes those who have love for him and love for their neighbor. This can be seen from the meaning of a belly and issuing from one's belly as being born. Here it refers to those who are born from the Lord.
People who are born from the Lord, that is, who are reborn, receive the Lord's life. As I have said, the Lord's life is divine love, or love for the whole human race, and the desire to save the entire race and all its members forever, if possible. 1 Those who do not possess the Lord's love, that is, who do not love their neighbor as themselves, never possess the Lord's life, so they have never been born from him. They have not "issued from his belly." As a result, they cannot be heirs of his kingdom.
[2] This leads to the conclusion that in an inner sense, issuing from his belly here describes people who love him and love their neighbor. In Isaiah, for example:
This is what Jehovah your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, has said: "I am Jehovah your God, teaching you to profit, making you go on the path you should walk. If only you had listened to my commandments! And like a river your peace would have been, and your justice like the waves of the sea; and like the sand your seed would have been, and those issuing from your belly like the grains of it." (Isaiah 48:17-18, 19)
"Seed like the sand" stands for what is good; "those issuing from their belly like grains of it," for what is true. So it stands for those who love, because [those who are reborn] are the only ones who love what is good and true.
[3] In addition, inner organs mentioned in the Word symbolize the love that is mercy. This is because the reproductive organs — particularly a mother's uterus — represent and therefore symbolize the chaste love of marriage, so they stand for love of children. 2 In Isaiah, for instance:
The stirring of your gut and of your compassions toward me have kept on. (Isaiah 63:15)
In Jeremiah:
Is Ephraim not a child precious to me? Was he not the offspring of my pleasures? Therefore my gut has churned for him; I will take utter pity on him. (Jeremiah 31:20)
[4] This shows that love itself — or mercy itself — and the Lord's compassion on the human race are what the belly and the act of coming forth from it symbolize on a deeper level. Those who have "issued from the belly," then, symbolize people who love.
To see that the Lord's kingdom is mutual love, see §§548, 549, 684, 693, 694 above.
Footnotes:
1. For two out of many earlier passages that might be cited on the Lord's desire to save the human race, see, for instance, §§1690:3, 1735:2. [LHC]
2. According to Swedenborg, true chastity consists not in abstinence or celibacy but in monogamous marital love. In his 1768 work Marriage Love, he describes marital love as "basic to all heavenly and spiritual loves, and therefore to all earthly loves" (Marriage Love 65). He also counts as one of the main reasons for marital love the necessity to bring about the birth of children who will eventually "become angels, serving the Lord to do what is useful in heaven and also to be with people on earth" (Marriage Love 404). Compare notes 51, 228, and see also note 1 in §54. [RS]
