424. An artisan in the Word symbolizes one who is wise, understanding, or knowledgeable; here, where it is an artisan in bronze or iron, it symbolizes those who know about earthly goodness and truth. In John, for example:
Babylon, the great city, will be overthrown with vehemence, and it will not be found any longer. And the sound of harpists and musicians and flutists and trumpeters will not be heard in it any longer. And no artisan of any art will be found in it any longer. (Revelation 18:21-22)
Harpists stand for religious truth, as they did above, and trumpeters, for religious good. An artisan of any art stands for one who knows about truth and goodness or for the knowledge itself. In Isaiah:
The artisan casts a statue, and the metalsmith overlays it with gold and molds chains of silver. [An idolater] seeks out a wise artisan to prepare a statue, in hopes that it will not be toppled. (Isaiah 40:19-20)
The artisan stands for those who concoct falsity — the statue — for themselves out of their illusions and teach it in a way that makes it seem true. In Jeremiah:
While they are becoming foolish, they grow stupid. Their education in worthless things is a piece of wood. Silver beaten thin is brought from Tarshish, gold from Uphaz, the work of the artisan and of the metalsmith's hands, blue-violet fabric and clothing — all of them the work of the wise. (Jeremiah 10:3, 8-9)
These things symbolize a person who teaches falsity and who collects scriptural passages to use in molding a fiction. This is why it is called an education in worthless things and the work of the wise. Such people were once represented by artisans who cast idols (falsities) that they embellish with gold (an imitation of good), silver (an imitation of truth), and blue-violet fabric and clothing (things on the earthly plane that seem to harmonize).
