Apocalypse Revealed # 189
189. "'That no one may take your crown.'" This symbolically means, lest they lose the wisdom from which comes eternal happiness.
A person acquires wisdom from no other source than goodness gained through truths from the Lord. A person acquires wisdom through these truths because they are the means by which the Lord conjoins Himself with the person and the person with Himself, and the Lord is wisdom itself. Wisdom consequently perishes in a person when he stops putting truths into practice, that is, when he stops living in accordance with them. He also then ceases to love wisdom, and accordingly ceases to love the Lord.
By wisdom we mean wisdom in spiritual matters. From this as a wellspring flows wisdom in all else, which we call intelligence, and through this knowledge, which results from an affection for knowing truths.
A crown symbolizes wisdom, because wisdom occupies the highest place in a person and so crowns him. Nor is anything else symbolized by the crown of a king, for a king in the Word's spiritual sense is Divine truth (no. 20), and from Divine truth comes all wisdom.
[2] Wisdom is symbolically meant by a crown also in the following passages:
...I will make the horn of David grow..., and upon Him His crown shall flourish. (Psalms 132:17-18)
(Jehovah) put... earrings in your ears, and an ornate crown on your head. (Ezekiel 16:12)
This is said of Jerusalem, which symbolizes the church in respect to doctrine, and therefore the ornate crown is wisdom originating from Divine truth or the Word.
In that day Jehovah of Hosts will be for an ornate crown and a beautiful turban to the remnants of His people. (Isaiah 28:5)
This is said of the Lord, because it says "in that day." The ornate crown for which He will be is wisdom, and the beautiful turban is intelligence. The remnants of the people are people among whom the church will be.
[3] The crown and turban in Isaiah 62:1, 3 have the same symbolic meaning. So, too, does the plate upon the turban of Aaron in Exodus 28:36-37, which is also called a miter.
Furthermore, in the following:
Say to the king and his lady, "Lower yourselves, sit down, for the ornament of your head has come down, the crown of your beauty." (Jeremiah 13:18)
The joy of our heart has ceased... The crown has fallen from our head. (Lamentations 5:15-16)
He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. (Job 19:9)
You have profaned [by casting it] to the ground the crown (of Your anointed). (Psalms 89:39)
The crown in these places symbolizes wisdom.
Lamentations 5
1
Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us: Look, and see our reproach.
2
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, Our houses to aliens.
3
We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
4
We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold to us.
5
Our pursuers are on our necks: We are weary, and have no rest.
6
We have given the hand to the Egyptians, To the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7
Our fathers sinned, and are no more; We have borne their iniquities.
8
Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.
9
We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness.
10
Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.
11
They ravished the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.
12
Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored.
13
The young men bare the mill; The children stumbled under the wood.
14
The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
15
The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.
16
The crown is fallen from our head: Woe to us! for we have sinned.
17
For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim;
18
For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it.
19
You, Yahweh, remain forever; Your throne is from generation to generation.
20
Why do you forget us forever, [And] forsake us so long time?
21
Turn us to yourself, Yahweh, and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old.
22
But you have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us.
