37. 9. From the Old Testament

God hath revealed what shall come to pass in the latter days (Daniel 2:28).

(The consummation of the church from its first foundation to its end is described by the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar, in like manner as the four ages by the ancients; the first, which was before the flood, by gold; the second, after the flood, by silver; the third, which was the Israelitish up to that time, by brass; and the fourth, which was the Christian, by iron mixed with clay (Daniel 2:32-33).

By "gold" is signified celestial good; by "silver" spiritual truth; by "brass" natural good; by "iron" natural truth; and by "iron mixed with clay" truth falsified, because it does not cleave together; by the seed of man the truth of the Word, which is also said of the feet of iron (Daniel 2:34-43).)

(A stone which was not [made] by hands, which smote and ground up the image, and which became a great rock, signifies the Lord, who in the Word is meant by "a stone" and by "the rock" which filled all the earth, whose kingdom shall stand for ages of ages (Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45).)

The fourth, seen in the furnace of fire, is said to be like the Son of man. It is not said man, because the Son of man signifies the Lord as to the Word; and this is also called an angel, whom God sent (Daniel 3:25, 28).

The "Son of man" when said of another, and a "prophet," signify Him as the truth of the church from the Word.

The consummation is also described by the tree growing to the end of the earth seen by Nebuchadnezzar, in a dream; and the coming of the Lord, by the Watcher and the Holy One who descended and commanded to hew down the tree utterly; and that they left the stump of the roots in the earth in a band of iron and of brass, signifies the Word by which the church revived; this also happened in the time of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:10-13, 17-31). The consummation of the whole, or the destruction of all things of the church, is described by the feast of Belshazzar, in which with magnates and concubines he drank the wine out of vessels of gold and silver from the temple of Jerusalem, and praised the gods of gold, of silver, etc., by which is signified the profanation of the holy things of the church, wherefore it was written on the wall that his kingdom was finished, and he was slain on that night (Daniel 5:1 to end).

(The consummation of the church is described by the four beasts out of the sea; also what the first was, what the second, third, and fourth, which was terrible because it broke in pieces all things of good and truth. What they signify may be seen in Apocalypse Revealed574. The complete consummation is meant by the slaying of the beast and the destruction of the body. That then the Lord will come and will reign unto ages of ages is evident from verses 13-14, 22, 27. His church is meant by the holy people, because they are in Divine truths from the Lord (Daniel 7:1 to end).

573. Whose feet were like those of a bear. This symbolically means, full of misconceptions taken from the literal sense of the Word, read but not understood.

Feet symbolize the natural support which is the basis on which the heresy meant by the leopard rests and, so to speak, propels itself, and that support is the literal sense of the Word. A bear symbolizes people who read the Word but fail to understand it, so that they derive from it misconceptions.

That these are the people symbolized by bears became apparent to me from seeing bears in the spiritual world, and from seeing some people there wearing bearskins. They were all people who read the Word and did not see any doctrinal truth in it. They were also people who affirmed the appearances of truth there, resulting in misconceptions.

Some bears seen in the spiritual world are dangerous and some are not, and some also are white, but they are told apart by their heads. Bears that are not dangerous have heads like those of calves or sheep.

Bears symbolize people and things like this in the following passages:

A bear lying in wait for me has overturned my paths, a lion in hidden places has corrupted my ways... He has made me desolate. (Lamentations 3:9-11)

I will meet them like a bereaved bear..., and there I will devour them like a savage lion. The wild beast of the field shall rend them. (Hosea 13:8)

...there shall lie down... the calf and the young lion... The heifer and the bear shall graze. (Isaiah 11:6-7)

(The second beast that came up from the sea was) like a bear... and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. (Daniel 7:5)

The lion and bear that David smote, catching the lion by its beard (1 Samuel 17:34-37), have a similar symbolic meaning. So, too, in 2 Samuel 17:8.

[2] A lion and a bear are mentioned in these places because a lion symbolizes falsity destroying the Word's truths, and a bear symbolizes misconceptions that destroy them also, but not to the same degree. Thus we are told in Amos:

...the day of Jehovah...(a day of) darkness, and not light. It is as if one who flees from a lion comes upon a bear. (Amos 5:18-19)

In the second book of Kings we read that Elisha was mocked by some boys and called a baldhead, and that forty-two boys were therefore torn apart by two female bears from the woods (2 Kings 2:23-24). This occurred because Elisha represented the Lord in respect to the Word (no. 298), because baldness symbolized the Word without its literal sense, thus having no reality (no. 47), because the number forty-two symbolized blasphemy (no. 583), and because female bears symbolized the literal sense of the Word read indeed, but not understood.