5374. 'To buy [grain]' means a making one's own. This is clear from the meaning of 'buying' as acquiring to oneself and so making one's own. Spiritually, acquiring and making one's own is effected by means of good and truth, to which the acquisition and ownership that are achieved in the world by the payment of silver and gold correspond; for in the spiritual sense 'silver' is truth, and 'gold' is good. Consequently 'buying' means a making one's own, as it also does in the following places in the Word: In Isaiah,

Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy, and eat! And come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Isaiah 55:1

Also in Jeremiah 13:1-2, 11. In Matthew,

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man (homo) finds and hides, and in his joy he goes and sells whatever he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a trader seeking fine pearls, who, having found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Matthew 13:44-46.

And in the same gospel,

The wise virgins said to the foolish ones, Go to those who sell and buy oil for yourselves. While they were going to buy, the Bridegroom came. Matthew 25:9-10.

[2] Because 'buying' meant a making one's own, a clear distinction is made in the Word between things bought with silver and those acquired in some other way. Slaves bought with silver were so to speak the buyer's own, and were like 'those born in the house, but in a lower degree. This also explains why the two are mentioned together in various places, as in the command in Genesis 17:3, 'He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your silver must be circumcised', or as in Leviticus 22:11, 'If a priest buys a person ¹ - a buying with silver - [this person] and one who is born in his house shall eat of his bread'. From this one may see what is meant in the Word by 'the redeemed of Jehovah', ² namely those who have acquired good and truth, thus those to whom things that are the Lord's have been made over as their own.

脚注:

3755. But woe to those who are with child or giving suck in those days! means those who have been endowed with the good that flows from love to the Lord and with the good that goes with innocence. 'Woe!' is an expression meaning the danger of eternal condemnation. 'Being with child' means conceiving good that stems from heavenly love. 'Giving suck' is also a state of innocence, 'those days' the state which the Church is passing through at that time.

[2] Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath means removal from those things to prevent it happening rapidly during a state of excessive cold or a state of excessive heat. 'Flight' is removal from a state of good stemming from love and from innocence, dealt with just above. 'Flight in winter' is a removal from these during a state of excessive cold - cold being a time when there is an aversion to those things, which is caused by all kinds of self-love. 'Flight on a sabbath' is removal from them during a state of excessive heat - heat being external holiness when self-love and love of the world exist inwardly.

[3] For then there will be great affliction, unlike any from the beginning of the world until now, or any in the future means the furthest degree of the perversion and vastation of the good and truth of the Church, which is profanation. For the profanation of that which is holy leads to eternal death, a death far more serious than that to which any other states of evil lead, and which is all the more serious insofar as they are interior goods and truths which are made profane. And since they are interior goods and truths that have been disclosed and made known in the Christian Church and have then been made profane it is said that 'then there will be great affliction, unlike any from the beginning of the world until now, or any in the future'.

[4] And unless those days were cut short, no flesh would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short means the removal of those who belong to the Church from interior goods and truths to exterior in order that those who lead lives that are good and true may nevertheless be saved. 'Cutting days short' means a state of such removal; 'no flesh being saved' means that otherwise nobody could be saved; 'the elect' means those who lead lives that are good and true.