9828. 'And a belt' means a common bond to ensure that everything has the same end in view. This is clear from the meaning of 'a belt' or girdle as a common bond; for it gathers together, encloses, holds in connection within itself, and strengthens everything within, which without it would fall apart and drift away. The reason why it is a common bond whose purpose is to ensure that everything has the same end in view is that in the spiritual world the end in view holds sway, so much so that everything there should be called an end. For the Lord's kingdom, which is a spiritual world, is a kingdom of useful services, and such services there are ends in view, so that it is a kingdom of ends. But the ends there follow one another in various order, and they also stand in association with one another. The ends which follow one another are called middle ends, but those which stand in association with one another are called associate ends. All these ends have been so linked together and made subordinate to one another that without exception they have one end in view. This end is the Lord; and in heaven, among those who accept it, it is a love of and faith in Him. Love there is the end in view of all the powers of the will there, and faith is the end in view of all the powers of thought, which are those of the understanding.

[2] When every single thing has the same end in view all things are then held in uninterrupted connection and make one; for everything is then under the eye, government, and providence of the One who, acting in accord with the laws of subordination and association, turns everyone towards Himself, and thereby joins them to Himself. At the same time He turns all to face their companions, and thereby joins them to one another. This explains why the faces of all who are in heaven are kept turned towards the Lord, who is the Sun there, and so is the centre point in front of everyone's eyes; and the marvel is that He is there in whatever direction angels turn round to face, 3638. And since the Lord is present within the good of mutual love and within the good of charity towards the neighbour - for all are loved by Him, and are joined to one another by Him through love - their regard for their companions, which that love gives them, also serves to turn them towards the Lord.

[3] Those things therefore on last and lowest levels, gathering others together and enclosing them so they may be held, every single one, in such connection, were represented by belts or girdles, which in the spiritual world are nothing other than the forms of good and the truths present on lowest or outermost levels which enclose more internal ones. Celestial forms of good on lowest or outermost levels were represented by girdles that went around the loins, and spiritual forms of good and truths on those levels by girdles that went around the thighs and also around the breast.

[4] Such things are meant by 'girdles around the loins' in the following places: In Jeremiah,

Jehovah said to the prophet, Buy yourself a linen girdle, and place it over your loins; but you are not to pass it through water. I therefore bought a girdle, and placed it over my loins. Then the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Take the girdle, and go away to the Euphrates, and hide it in the cleft of a rock. At the end of many days I went away to the Euphrates, and took the girdle, and behold, it was ruined; it was profitable for nothing. Then Jehovah said, This people is evil, refusing to hear My words; and they have gone after other gods. Therefore they will be just like this girdle that is profitable for nothing. Jeremiah 13:1-12.

'A linen girdle' here is used to mean in the spiritual sense the Church's good, which encloses the truths there and holds them in connection within itself. The non-existence of the Church's good at that time, and the consequent dispersal of its truths, are the reason for its being said that the girdle was not to be passed through water; for 'water' means truth that purifies and thereby restores. 'The cleft of a rock' in which it was hidden is falsified truth; 'the Euphrates' is the full extent and boundary of the celestial realities that belong to good on its lowest level. Anyone unacquainted with the essential nature of the Word may think that the passage is no more than a comparison of the people and their ruination with a girdle and its ruination. But in the Word all comparisons and metaphorical ways of speaking are real correspondences, 3579, 8989. Unless each detail in this description were of a correspondential nature the prophet would never have been told not to pass the girdle through water, or to place it over his loins, or to go to the Euphrates and hide it there in the cleft of a rock. The reason why it says that the girdle should be placed over his loins is that by 'the loins', because of their correspondence, is meant the good of celestial love, 3021, 4280, 5050-5062. A girdle placed over the loins accordingly means being joined to the Lord through the good of love, the Word serving as the intermediary.

[5] The meaning of 'a girdle' as good that acts as a boundary and holds things together is also evident in Isaiah,

There will come forth a shoot from the trunk of Jesse. Righteousness will be the girdle of His loins, and truth the girdle of His thighs. Isaiah 11:1, 5.

This refers to the Lord. 'Righteousness' that will be 'the girdle of His loins' is the good of His love, which protects heaven and the Church. The requirement stated in Exodus 12:11 that when the children of Israel ate the Passover their loins were to be girded means that all things should be present in their proper order, made ready to receive good from the Lord and to take action, 7863. This explains why those who have been made ready are said to be 'girded', as is also said of the seven angels in the Book of Revelation,

Out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in linen, white and splendid, and girded around their breasts with golden girdles. Revelation 15:6.

[6] It is said of Elijah in 2 Kings 1:8 that he was a hairy man and wore a girdle of skin around his loins. Much the same is said of John,

John had a garment of camel hair and a skin girdle around his waist. Matthew 3:4.

The reason why Elijah and John were clothed and girded in this way was that both men represented the Word, and therefore their clothes mean the Word in its external sense, which is the natural sense. For 'hair' means the natural, 3301, 5247, 5569-5573, and 'camels' general facts within the natural, 3048, 3071, 3143, 3145. And 'skin' means the external, 3540, so that 'a girdle of skin' means that which collects together, encloses, and holds in connection the things within itself. For the representation of Elijah as the Word, see Preface to Genesis 18, and 2762, 5247 (end), and John the Baptist similarly, 9372.

[7] Since truths and forms of good are dissolved and dispersed by wicked deeds it says of Joab that after he had tricked and killed Abner he put the blood of war on his girdle that was on his loins, 1 Kings 2:5. This means that he dispersed and destroyed such truths and forms of good. This accounts for its being said, when truths have been dispersed and destroyed, that instead of a girdle there will be a falling apart, and instead of well-set hair, baldness, Isaiah 3:24. This refers to the daughters of Zion, by whom forms of good belonging to the celestial Church are meant. 'Instead of a girdle, a falling apart' stands for the dispersal of celestial good.

[8] It is also said in Ezekiel of Oholibah, who is Jerusalem, that when she looked at men portrayed on the wall, images of Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, girded with girdles on their loins, she fell in love with them, Ezekiel 23:14-16. Here truths which have been rendered profane are meant, for 'the Chaldeans' are those who outwardly claim to believe in truths but inwardly repudiate them, and in so doing render them profane. 'Men portrayed on the wall' are the appearances of truth in outward things, as in like manner are 'images portrayed in vermilion'. 'Girdles' with which their loins were girded are the forms of good which they fake to induce belief in their truths.

[9] From all this it may now be clear what it was that girdles gathering garments into one served to mean in the representative Church. Yet the natural man can scarcely be brought to believe that such things were meant, because he finds it difficult to put aside the natural idea of a girdle, and in general of garments, and instead adopt a spiritual idea, which is that of good holding truths in connection within itself. For the natural level on which a person sees things holds the mind down on that level, and it is not removed from there unless the sight of the understanding is able to be raised right up into the light of heaven and the person is for this reason able to think on a level virtually divorced from natural things. When this happens to a person spiritual ideas of the truth of faith and of the good of love, which the merely natural man cannot understand, enter in.

3021. 'Put now your hand under my thigh' means being bound, as regards its power, to the good of conjugial love. This is clear from the meaning of 'the hand' as power, dealt with in 878, and from the meaning of 'the thigh' as the good of conjugial love, dealt with in what follows. A binding of this good to that power is indeed the meaning, as is clear from the consideration that those who were bound by an obligation to carry out some matter connected with conjugial love put their hand, according to ancient custom, under the thigh of the one to whom they were so bound, and in so doing swore by him. This was done because 'the thigh' meant conjugial love, and 'the hand' power, or the full extent of whatever one's capability might be. For all parts of the human body correspond to spiritual and celestial things in the Grand Man, which is heaven, as shown in 2996, 2998, and will in the Lord's Divine mercy be shown more extensively later on. The thighs themselves, together with the loins, correspond to conjugial love. Those things were well known to the most ancient people, and for that reason so many customs came down from them, including that of putting their hands under the thigh when being bound by an obligation to carry out something connected with the good of conjugial love. Their knowledge of such things, which was valued most highly by the ancients, and belonged among the chief things that constituted their knowledge and intelligence, is totally lost today, so much so that not even the existence of any such correspondence is known, and for this reason people will probably be astounded that such things are meant by that custom. Here, because the subject is the betrothal of Isaac his son to another member of Abraham's family, and the oldest servant was called on to perform that task, this custom was therefore followed.

[2] It has been stated that 'the thigh', because of its correspondence, means conjugial love, and this may also be seen from other places in the Word, for example, from the procedure to be followed when a woman was accused by her husband of adultery, in Moses,

The priest shall make the woman take the oath of a curse, and the priest shall say to the woman, Jehovah will make you a curse and an oath in the midst of your people, when Jehovah makes your thigh fall away and your belly swell. When he has made her drink the water, then it will happen, if she has defiled herself and committed a trespass against her husband, that the water causing the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her belly will swell, and her thigh will fall away; and the woman will be a curse in the midst of her people. Numbers 5:21, 27.

'The falling away of the thigh' means the evil of conjugial love, which is adultery. Every other detail in the same procedure had some specific meaning, so that not even the smallest detail fails to embody something, though anyone reading the Word who has no concept of its sacredness will wonder why such things are included there. It is because 'the thigh' means the good of conjugial love that the expression 'those coming out of the thigh' is used frequently, as in a reference to Jacob,

Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will go out from your thighs. Genesis 35:11.

And elsewhere in the same author,

Every soul coming with Jacob to Egypt, who came out of his thigh. Genesis 46:26; Exodus 1:5.

And in a reference to Gideon, Gideon had seventy sons, who came out of his thigh. Judges 8:30.

[3] Since 'the thigh' and 'the loins' mean the things that belong to conjugial love they also mean those that belong to love and charity, the reason being that conjugial love underlies every other kind of love, see 686, 2733, 2737-2739. These all have the same source - the heavenly marriage - which is a marriage of good and truth, regarding which see 2727-2759. For 'the thigh' means the good of celestial love and the good of spiritual love, as may be seen from the following places: In John,

He who sat on the white horse had on His robe and on His thigh the name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords. Revelation 19:16.

'He who sat on the white horse' is the Word, and so the Lord, who is the Word, see 2760-2762. 'Robe' means Divine Truth, 2576, and for that reason He is called 'King of kings', 3009. From this it is evident what 'the thigh' means, namely the Divine Good which flows from His love, on account of which He is also named 'Lord of lords', 3004-3011. And this being the Lord's essential nature, it is said that He had a name written on His robe and on His thigh, for 'name' means essential nature, 1896, 2009, 2724, 3006.

[4] In David,

Gird Your sword on Your thigh, O Mighty One, in Your glory and honour! Psalms 45:3.

This refers to the Lord. 'Sword' stands for truth engaged in conflict, 2799, 'thigh' for the good of love. 'Girding the sword on the thigh' means that the truth which He was to use in the fight was allied to the good of love. In Isaiah,

Righteousness will be the girdle of His loins, and truth the girdle of His thighs. Isaiah 11:5.

This too refers to the Lord. Because 'righteousness' has reference to the good that flows from love, 2235, it is called 'the girdle of His loins', while 'truth' because it comes from good, is called 'the girdle of His thighs'. Thus 'loins' is used in reference to the love within good, and 'thighs' to the love within truth.

[5] In the same prophet'

None will be weary, and none will stumble in Him. He will not slumber nor sleep. Nor has the girdle of His thighs been loosed, nor the thong of His shoes torn away. Isaiah 5:27.

This refers to the Lord. 'The girdle of His thighs' stands, as above, for the love within truth. In Jeremiah Jehovah told the prophet to buy a linen girdle and put it over his loins but not dip it in water. He was then told to go away to the Euphrates and hide it in a cleft of the rock. When he went back at a later time to retrieve it from that place it was spoiled, Jeremiah 13:1-7. 'A linen girdle' stands for truth, but the placing of it over his loins was representative of the fact that truth was the outward expression of good. Anyone may see that these actions are representative. Their meaning however cannot be known except from correspondences, which will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with at the ends of certain chapters further on.

[6] It is similar with the meaning of the things seen by Ezekiel, Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar: Ezekiel saw,

Above the firmament that was above the heads of the cherubim, in appearance like a sapphire stone, there was the likeness of a throne, and above the likeness of a throne, there was a likeness, as the appearance of a Man (Homo) upon it above. And I saw as it were the shape of fiery coals, as the shape of fire, within it round about. From the appearance of His loins and upwards, and from the appearance of His loins and downwards, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, whose brightness was round about it like the appearance of the rainbow which is in the cloud on the day of rain; so was the appearance of the brightness round about, thus was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of Jehovah. Ezekiel 1:26-28.

This scene was clearly representative of the Lord and His kingdom. 'The appearance of His loins upwards and the appearance, of His loins downwards' is descriptive of His love, as is evident from the meaning of 'fire' as love, 934, and from the meaning of 'brightness' and of 'the rainbow' as wisdom and intelligence from that love, 1042, 1043, 1053.

[7] Daniel saw,

A man clothed in linen whose loins were girded with gold of Uphaz, and whose body was like tarshish, ¹ and whose face was like the appearance of lightning and whose eyes were like fiery torches, and whose arms and feet were like the shine of burnished bronze. Daniel 10:5-6.

What each of these expressions means - the loins, the body, the face, the eyes, the arms, and the feet - does not become clear to anyone except from representations and correspondences involved in these. From these it is evident that in what Daniel saw the Lord's heavenly kingdom was represented, in which Divine Love constitutes the loins, and 'the gold of Uphaz' with which He was girded, the good resulting from wisdom that is grounded in love, 113, 1551, 1552.

[8] In Daniel: Nebuchadnezzar saw a statue whose head was fine gold, breast and arms silver, belly and thighs bronze, feet partly iron, partly clay, Daniel 2:32-33. This statue represented consecutive states of the Church. The head of gold represented the first state, which was celestial because it was a state of love to the Lord; the breast and arms of silver represented the second state, which was spiritual because it was a state of charity towards the neighbour; the belly and thighs of bronze represented the third state, which was a state of natural good meant by 'bronze', 425, 1551 - natural good being love or charity towards the neighbour as this exists on a lower level than spiritual good - while the feet of iron and clay were the fourth state, which was a state of natural truth meant by 'iron', 425, 426, and also a state involving complete lack of cohesion with good, which is meant by 'clay'.

From all this one may see what is meant by the thighs and loins, namely conjugial love primarily, and from this love every genuine kind of love, as is evident from the places quoted and also from Genesis 32:25, 31-32; Isaiah 20:2-4; Nahum 2:1; Psalms 69:23; Exodus 12:11; Luke 12:35-36. The thighs and loins also mean in the contrary sense those loves that are the reverse of conjugial love and all genuine loves, namely self-love and love of the world, 1 Kings 2:5-6; Isaiah 32:10-11; Jeremiah 30:6; 48:37; Ezekiel 29:7; Amos 8:10.

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