Apocalypse Revealed #406
406. And a third of the ships were destroyed. This symbolically means that concepts of goodness and truth from the Word that are serviceable for application to life, in them had all been destroyed.
A third means, symbolically, all, as in nos. 400, 404, 405 above. Ships symbolize concepts of goodness and truth from the Word that are serviceable for application to life. Ships have this symbolism because ships travel the sea and bring back the necessities that the natural self needs for its every endeavor, and concepts of goodness and truth are the necessities that the spiritual self needs for its every endeavor. For out of them is formed the doctrine of the church, and in accordance with that a person's life.
Ships symbolize these concepts because they are vessels, and in many places in the Word a vessel is used to express what it contains, as a cup for wine, a dish for food, the Tabernacle or Temple for the sacred objects in it, the Ark for the Law, altars for worship, and so on.
[2] Ships symbolize concepts of goodness and truth in the following places:
Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore, and serve as a haven for ships... (Genesis 49:13)
Zebulun means the conjunction of goodness and truth.
Your builders (O Tyre) have perfected your beauty. They made all your planks of fir trees from Senir; they took a cedar from Lebanon to make you a mast. Of oaks from Bashan they made your oars; they made your beam of ivory, your deck of pines from the isles of Kittim... Inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were your oarsmen; your wise men were... your shipmasters... All the ships of the sea and their sailors were in you to market your merchandise... Ships of Tarshish were your companies in your commerce, by which you were filled and honored greatly in the midst of the seas. (Ezekiel 27:4-9, 25)
This is said of Tyre, because Tyre in the Word symbolizes the church in respect to its concepts of truth and goodness, as can be seen from the particulars about it in this chapter, and in the following one, chapter 28, understood in its spiritual sense. Moreover, because the church's concepts of truth and goodness are symbolically meant by Tyre, therefore the ship is described in its various parts, and each part symbolizes some aspect of those concepts leading to intelligence. What does the Word have in common with ships of Tyre and its commerce?
[3] The devastation of that same church is afterward described in the following way:
The common-land will shake at the sound of the cry of your shipmasters, and all who handle the oar will come down from your ships; all the sailors and shipmasters of the sea... because of you will cry bitterly... (Ezekiel 27:28-30; see also Isaiah 23:14-15)
The devastation of Babylon is similarly described in respect to all its concepts of truth in the following verses in the book of Revelation:
...in one hour such great riches were devastated. Every shipmaster, and everyone traveling on ships, and sailors... cried out... saying, "Alas, alas, the great city (Babylon), in which all became rich who had ships on the sea...." (Revelation 18:17, 19)
See below for the exposition.
[4] Ships symbolize concepts of truth and goodness also in the following places:
My days have been swift...; they fled away, they saw no good. They passed by with ships of longing... (Job 9:25-26)
Those who go down to the sea in ships, doing work on many waters, they see the works of Jehovah, and His wonders in the deep. (Psalms 107:23-24)
...the coastlands shall trust in Me, and ships of Tarshish will be first to bring your sons from afar... (Isaiah 60:9)
...the kings assembled...; fear took hold of them... With an east wind You will break the ships of Tarshish. (Psalms 18:4, 6-7)
Wail, you ships of Tarshish! (Isaiah 23:1, 14)
And so on elsewhere, as in Numbers 24:24, Judges 5:17, Psalms 104:26, Isaiah 33:21.
Ezekiel 28
1
The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2
Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a GOD, I sit in the seat of GOD, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not GOD, though thou set thine heart as the heart of GOD:
3
Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4
With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5
By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of GOD;
7
Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8
They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9
Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10
Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12
Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17
Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19
All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20
Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21
Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22
And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23
For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
24
And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25
Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26
And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.
