Apocalypse Revealed#501
501. And their bodies will lie in the street of the great city. (11:8) This symbolically means that these two essential elements of the New Church have been utterly rejected by people inwardly caught up in the doctrinal falsities connected with justification by faith alone.
The bodies of the two witnesses symbolize the two essential elements of the New Church, namely, an acknowledgment of the Lord as the only God of heaven and earth, and conjunction with Him by a life in accordance with the Ten Commandments (nos. 490ff.). The street of the great city symbolizes doctrinal falsity connected with justification by faith alone - the street symbolizing falsity, as we shall see next, and the city symbolizing doctrine (no. 194). It is called a great city because the doctrine is the prevailing doctrine throughout the Protestant Reformed Christian world among the clergy, though not in the same way among the laity.
Streets in the Word have almost the same symbolic meaning as ways, because streets are a city's ways. Still, streets symbolize doctrinal truths or falsities, because a city symbolizes doctrine (no. 194), while ways symbolize a church's truths or falsities, because the earth symbolizes the church (no. 285).
[2] That streets symbolize doctrinal truths or falsities can be seen from the following passages:
Justice has been rejected, and righteousness stands afar off, for truth has stumbled in the street, and rectitude cannot enter. (Isaiah 59:14)
The chariots raced madly in the streets, they rushed in every direction in the town squares. (Nahum 2:4)
In the days of Jael, the ways were deserted... The town squares were deserted... in Israel... (Judges 5:6-7)
How the glorious city is forsaken...! Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets... (Jeremiah 49:25-26, cf. 50:30)
Those who ate delicacies are devastated in the streets... Darker than black is the appearance (of the Nazirites); they go unrecognized in the streets... They wandered blind in the streets... They tracked our steps so that we could not go into our streets. (Lamentations 4:5, 8, 14, 18)
I will cut off nations, their corners will be devastated; I will make their streets desolate... (Zephaniah 3:6)
(After) sixty-two weeks, the street (of Jerusalem) shall be built again..., but in distressful times. (Daniel 9:25)
...the street of the city (New Jerusalem) was pure gold, like transparent glass. (Revelation 21:21)
In the middle of its street... on this side and that, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits... (Revelation 22:1-2)
And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 15:3; 24:10-11; 51:20.
As streets symbolize the church's doctrinal truths, therefore they taught in the streets (2 Samuel 1:20). And we are told,
We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets. (Luke 13:26)
For this reason also hypocrites prayed on street corners (Matthew 6:2, 5). And for this reason the master of the house in Luke 14:21 ordered his servants to go out into the streets and squares and bring people in.
For the same reason, too, anything false or falsified is called mire, filth and excrement in the streets (Isaiah 5:25; 10:6, Micah 7:10, Psalms 18:42).
Prophets who prophesied falsely were cast out into the streets of Jerusalem, and no one buried them (Jeremiah 14:16).
Nahum第2章
1
He who dashes in pieces has come up against you. Keep the fortress! Watch the way! Strengthen your waist! Fortify your power mightily!
2
For Yahweh restores the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the destroyers have destroyed them, and ruined their vine branches.
3
The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished.
4
The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the broad ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.
5
He summons his picked troops. They stumble on their way. They dash to its wall, and the protective shield is put in place.
6
The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.
7
It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her handmaids moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts.
8
But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. "Stop! Stop!" they cry, but no one looks back.
9
Take the spoil of silver. Take the spoil of gold, for there is no end of the store, the glory of all goodly furniture.
10
She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.
11
Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, Where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion's cubs, and no one made them afraid?
12
The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill, and his dens with prey.
13
"Behold, I am against you," says Yahweh of Armies, "and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard."
