79. There are many passages in the prophets about our understanding of the Word, passages about the church, where it tells us that the church exists only where the Word is properly understood, and that the quality of a church depends on the quality of the understanding of the Word among its members. There are also many passages in the prophets that describe the church among the Israelite and Jewish people, a church that was utterly destroyed and annihilated by the distortion of the Word’s meaning or message, for this is exactly what destroys a church.

[2] The name Ephraim in the prophets, especially in Hosea, symbolizes both true and false understandings of the Word, because Ephraim in the Word means the understanding of the Word in the church. It is because the understanding of the Word makes a church that Ephraim is called “a precious child, and one born of delights” (Jeremiah 31:20), “the firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9), “the strength of Jehovah’s head” (Psalms 60:7; 108:8), “powerful” (Zechariah 10:7), and “filled with a bow” (Zechariah 9:13); and the children of Ephraim are called “armed” and “bow-shooters” (Psalms 78:9). The bow means a body of teaching from the Word fighting against what is false.

So too, Ephraim was transferred to the right of Israel and blessed, and accepted in place of Reuben (Genesis 48:5, 11, and following; [1 Chronicles 5:1]). And therefore Ephraim, together with his brother Manasseh, was exalted over all by Moses in his blessing of the children of Israel in the name of their father Joseph (Deuteronomy 33:13-17).

[3] The prophets, especially Hosea, also use “Ephraim” to describe what the church is like when its understanding of the Word has been lost, as we can see from the following:

Israel and Ephraim will stumble. Ephraim will be desolate. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment. I will be like a lion to Ephraim: I will tear them and leave; I will carry them off and no one will rescue them. (Hosea 5:5, 9, 11, 14)

What shall I do to you, Ephraim? Your holiness goes away like a cloud at dawn and like the morning dew that falls. (Hosea 6:4)

[4] They will not dwell in the land of Jehovah: Ephraim will go back to Egypt and will eat what is unclean in Assyria. (Hosea 9:3)

The land of Jehovah is the church, Egypt is the preoccupation of the earthly self with mere facts, and Assyria is rationalizing based on those facts; all of which lead to distortion of the Word in regard to the way it is understood. That is why it says that Ephraim will go back to Egypt and will eat what is unclean in Assyria.

[5] Ephraim feeds on the wind and chases the east wind. Every day he increases lies and devastation. He makes a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried down into Egypt. (Hosea 12:1)

To feed on the wind, chase the east wind, and increase lies and devastation is to distort what is true and in this way destroy the church.

[6] Much the same is also meant by Ephraim’s whoredom, since whoredom means distortion of the way the Word is understood - that is, distortion of its genuine truth. See the following passages:

I know Ephraim; he has committed whoredom in every way and Israel has been defiled. (Hosea 5:3)

I have seen something foul in the house of Israel: Ephraim has committed whoredom there, and Israel has been defiled. (Hosea 6:10)

Israel is the church itself and Ephraim is the understanding of the Word that is the source of the church and that determines its quality, so it says that Ephraim has committed whoredom and Israel has been defiled.

[7] Since the church among Jews had been completely destroyed because of its distortions, it says of Ephraim,

Am I to give you up, Ephraim? Am I to hand you over, Israel? Like Admah? Shall I make you like Zeboiim? (Hosea 11:8)

Since the book of the prophet Hosea, from the first chapter to the last, is about the distortion of the Word and the consequent destruction of the church, and since whoredom means the distortion of truth in the church, the prophet was commanded to represent that state of the church by taking a whore as his wife and fathering children by her (chapter 1); and also by forming a relationship with a woman who was committing adultery (chapter 3).

[8] These instances have been presented so that readers may know and be assured from the Word that the quality of a church depends on the quality of the understanding of the Word in it - outstanding and priceless if its understanding comes from genuine truths from the Word, but in ruins, actually filthy, if it comes from distortions.

For further evidence that Ephraim means the understanding of the Word, and in its opposite sense a distorted understanding leading to the destruction of the church, you may check some other passages that deal with Ephraim: Hosea 4:17-18; 7:1, 11; 8:9, 11; 9:11-13, 16; 10:11; 11:3; 12:1, 8, 14; 13:1, 8, 14; Isaiah 17:3; 28:1; Jeremiah 4:15; 31:6, 18; 50:19; Ezekiel 37:16; 48:5; Obadiah verse 19; Zechariah 9:10.

10608. 'And also no one shall be seen on all the mountain' means that they are entirely remote from that Truth, and so stand outside it. This is clear from the meaning of 'the mountain', at this point Mount Horeb, as heaven in its entirety, thus also Divine Truth. It amounts to the same thing whether you say heaven or Divine Truth, since the angels, of whom heaven consists, are recipients of Divine Truth. The full extent of that mountain was called Horeb, but the higher part in the middle was called Mount Sinai; and this is why 'Horeb' means heaven, or what amounts to the same thing, Divine Truth in its entirety. The inward aspect of that Truth is meant by Mount Sinai, and the outward by the lower parts of the mountain surrounding it. So it is that 'Horeb', when used to include those surrounding parts, means that which is external, see 10543. The interest of the Israelite nation lay in what was external and closed off to anything internal and so in what was external separated from what was internal, or what amounts to the same thing, that nation stood outside anything that had an internal aspect; and this was why the command 'no one shall be seen on all the mountain' was given. The like is meant, in verses 8-10 of the previous chapter, by that nation's standing at the door of the tent in which Moses was and their bowing down to it, see 10545-10555.

[2] Something brief must be stated here to show why it is that Mounts Horeb and Sinai mean heaven and Divine Truth. The belief in the world is that angels live in the region above the sky, where they exist like puffs of wind and have no solid ground on which to stand. The reason why such a notion exists in the minds of very many people is that they have no idea that angels and spirits exist within a form similar to that in which people on earth do, that is, that they have faces, arms and hands, and feet, in short have actual bodies. Still less do people have any idea that they have abodes or dwelling-places, when in fact angels and spirits live among others in exactly the same way as people on a planet do, on land beneath their feet. Celestial angels live on mountains, spiritual angels on rocks, and those who have not yet become angels on plains between mountains or rocks; but hellish spirits live below mountains and rocks. These things have been stated in order that people may know why it is that in the Word mountains, especially Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai, mean heaven. Furthermore the more internal angels inhabit places higher up the mountains; and the higher they are, the more internal and perfect they are. From all this it is evident why Jehovah descended onto the peak of Mount Sinai when He proclaimed the Law, and why Moses was ordered to stand with Him on the top of the mountain. The mountains on earth do not constitute heaven; rather they represent the mountains on which angels in heaven live.