289. The meaning of a wife as the church and in a comprehensive sense as the Lord's kingdom in heaven and on earth has also been demonstrated before. 1 It follows, then, that a mother has the same meaning.
The Word frequently uses mother for the church. Take Isaiah:
Where is your mother's document of divorce? (Isaiah 50:1)
In Jeremiah:
Your mother has been acutely shamed; she who gave birth to you has blushed with embarrassment. (Jeremiah 50:12)
In Ezekiel:
[You are] your mother's daughter, showing disgust for her husband and her children. Your mother is a Hittite and your father an Amorite. (Ezekiel 16:45)
The husband stands for the Lord and every heavenly quality, the children for religious truth. A Hittite stands for falsity and an Amorite for evil. In the same author:
Your mother was like a grapevine that resembled you, planted next to the water; fruitful, leafy was she, because of the many waters. (Ezekiel 19:10)
The mother stands for the ancient church.
The earliest church is the main one to be called a mother, because it was the first and was also the only heavenly one, so that the Lord loved it above all others.
Footnotes:
1. For the meaning of a wife (or woman) as the church, see §§54, 250, 252-253, 255, 262. In §29:2 Swedenborg defines God's kingdom in the broadest sense as heaven and in a narrower sense as the church. [SS]
