7397. 'So as the frogs will be eliminated from you, and from your houses' means in order that the reasonings may come to an end. This is clear from the meaning of 'the frogs' as reasonings arising from utter falsities, dealt with in 7351, 7352, 7384; from the meaning of 'eliminating' as coming to an end, for eliminating is used in reference to the frogs, but coming to an end in reference to reasonings; from the representation of 'Pharaoh,' from whom the frogs were to be eliminated, as those steeped in falsities who engage in molestation, dealt with immediately above in 7396; and from the meaning of 'houses' as parts of the natural mind. For 'house' means the natural mind, see 4973, 5023, 7353, and therefore the plural 'houses' means parts of it.

7353. 'And they will rise up and come into your house, and into your bedchamber' means that they will fill the mind, all the way through to its more internal parts. This is clear from the meaning of 'house' as a person's mind, dealt with in 3538, 4973, 5023; and from the meaning of 'bedchamber' as the more internal parts of the mind. The reason why 'bedchamber' means the more internal parts of the mind is that it is a more internal part of the house. The more internal parts are meant by 'chambers', and those that are even more internal by 'bedchambers', in the following places: In Isaiah,

Go away, O people, enter your bedchambers, and shut your door behind you. Hide yourself, so to speak, for a little moment, until the anger passes over. Isaiah 26:20.

In Ezekiel,

He said to me, Have you not seen, son of man, what the elders of the house ¹ of Israel do in the dark, each in the chambers of his own idol? Ezekiel 8:12.

In Moses,

Outside the sword will bereave and out of the chambers terror. Deuteronomy 31:25.

In the second Book of Kings,

Elisha the prophet, who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bed chamber. 2 Kings 6:12.

The ancients compared a person's mind to a house, and the inward parts of a person to chambers. The human mind is indeed like a house, for the things it contains are virtually as distinct from one another as the chambers within a house. Those at the centre are the inmost parts of the mind, while those to the sides are the more external parts there. The ancients compared the latter to forecourts, and the parts which were outside but adjoining parts more internal they compared to porticos.

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