Joel Chapter 1, the Internal Sense.

(From Swedenborg's work, "The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms")

(Verse 1) The Word has been perverted by false worship,

(2) when instead the Word should have been obeyed by everyone in the Church,

(3) and communicated to everyone who holds false beliefs that arise from evil loves.

(4) Instead, the spiritual things of the Church have been destroyed by sensualism.

(5) Now, remorse should be awakened, because of this loss of faith,

(6) a faith which has been destroyed by the lust of worshipping false gods,

(7) depriving the Church of spiritual truth and good.

(8) The Church should return to the Lord

(9) with inward mourning and contrition

(10) over the loss of good and truth in the natural and spiritual man -

(11) especially people who seek the good of the Church and who desire its genuine doctrine: for the Church is about to perish.

(12) Spiritual truth, its good, its knowledge, and its delights, which constitute the Church, are perverted.

(13) Only by repentance can communion with the Lord be renewed.

(14) The Church can only remove the evil and falsity by acknowledging and worshipping the Lord,

(15) for the end of the Church is near, when it will be judged.

(16) Good works are not being done, nor are there any people who delight in spiritual things.

(17) Natural good has been subordinated to evil, and the truth and good of the Word are rejected.

(18) Wherefore there is no good in the Church,

(19) and our hearts must be turned again to the Lord: for the love of self has corrupted all things in the church.

(20) Although truth is desired, it has been misappropriated to ourselves.

314. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying. (6:6) This symbolizes the Divine protection of the Word by the Lord.

To be shown that the four living creatures or cherubim symbolize the Word from the firsts of it in its lasts, and its protections to keep its interior truths and goods from being violated, see no. 239 above. Moreover, because these protections come from the Lord, therefore John heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures. In the midst of them means the Word in respect to its inner, spiritual sense, which the Lord protects.

That the symbolism is one of protection is apparent from what the voice said, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine," which symbolically means that because the value these people placed on goodness and truth was so little as to be scarcely anything, provision had to be made to keep them from violating and profaning the sacred goods and truths that lie hidden interiorly in the Word. And the Lord provided this by their at last knowing not any good and so not any truth, but only evil and falsity. For people who know goods and truths can violate them, indeed profane them, but not people who are ignorant of them.

To be shown that this is Divinely provided to protect the Word, see Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, nos. 221-233, 257 at the end, and 258 at the beginning.