220. But it shall also be explained what is signified in the Word by temple. Temple, in the highest sense, signifies the Divine Human of the Lord, and in the relative sense, heaven; and because it signifies heaven, it also signifies the church, for the church is the Lord's heaven upon earth. And whereas temple thus signifies heaven and the church, it also signifies the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord: the reason is, that this makes heaven and the church; for those who receive Divine truth in soul and heart, that is, in faith and love, constitute heaven and the church. Such being the signification of temple, it is therefore said, the temple of my God; and by my God, when said by the Lord, is meant heaven, and the Divine truth therein, which also is the Lord in heaven. The Lord is above the heavens, and appears to its inhabitants as a Sun, and from the Lord as a Sun proceed heat and light; heat which in its essence is Divine good, and light which in its essence is Divine truth; those two constitute heaven in general and in particular. Divine truth is that which is meant by my God; this is why in the Word of the Old Testament the Lord is called Jehovah and God, - Jehovah where the subject treated of is the Divine good, and God where it is the Divine truth. This also is the reason why angels are called gods, and that God in the Hebrew tongue is in the plural Elohim. From these considerations it is evident what is here meant by the temple of my God.

(That the Lord is called Jehovah where the Divine good is treated of, but God where the Divine truth is treated of, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 709, 732, 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822, 3921, 4283, 4402, 7010, 9167. That He is called Jehovah from Being (esse), and thus from essence, but God from Manifestation (existere), and thus from existence, n. 300, 3910, 6905; that the Divine as Being (esse) also is Divine good, and that the Divine as Manifestation (existere) is Divine truth, n. 3061, 6280, 6880, 6905, 10579; and in general that good is the being, (esse), and truth the manifestation (existere) thence, n. 5002. That angels are called gods from their reception of Divine truth from the n. 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8301, 8192. That the Divine of the Lord in the heavens is Divine truth united with Divine good, may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 13, 133, 139, 140. That the light in the heavens is in its essence Divine truth, and the heat there Divine good, both from the Lord, may be seen in the same work, n. 126-140, 275.)

[2] That temple in the Word signifies the Divine Human of the Lord, and in the relative sense, heaven and the church, consequently also Divine truth, is evident from the following passages. In John:

To the Jews who asked, "What sign showest thou unto us, that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body" (John 2:18-21).

That temple signifies the Lord's Divine Human is here plainly declared; for by destroying the temple and raising it up in three days is meant His death, burial and resurrection.

[3] In Malachi:

"Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord shall suddenly come to his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom ye seek" (3:1).

Here also by temple is meant the Lord's Divine Human; for the subject treated of is the Lord's advent, therefore coming to His temple signifies assuming the Human.

[4] Again, in the Apocalypse:

"I saw no temple" in the new Jerusalem, "for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it" (21:22).

The subject here treated of is the new heaven and the new earth, when they will be in internals, and not in externals; hence it is said that there was seen no temple, but the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. The Lord God Almighty is the very Divine of the Lord, and the Lamb is His Divine Human; whence also it is evident, that His Divine Human in the heavens is meant by temple.

[5] Again, in Isaiah:

"I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his skirts filling the temple" (6:1).

By the throne, high and lifted up, upon which the Lord was seen to sit, is signified the Lord as to Divine truth in the higher heavens; but by His skirts is signified His Divine truth in the church. (That skirts when said of the Lord, signify His Divine truth in ultimates, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 9917. That the veil of the temple being rent into two parts from the top to the bottom, after the Lord suffered (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45), signified the union of the Lord's Divine Human with the Divine itself, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 9670.)

[6] That by temple is signified the Lord's Divine Human, and at the same time heaven and the church, is evident in the following passages. In David:

"I will bow myself down toward thy holy temple, and I will confess thy name" (Psalms 138:2).

In Jonah:

"I said I am cast out from before thine eyes, but yet will I add to look back to the temple of thy holiness, and my prayer came to thee to the temple of thy holiness" (2:4, 7).

In Habakkuk:

"Jehovah in the temple of his holiness" (2:20).

In Matthew:

"Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?" (23:16, 17).

In John:

Jesus said unto them that sold in the temple, "Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandize. Whence his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (2:16, 17).

[7] Besides the above, there are many passages in the Word where temple is mentioned, which I wish to adduce, in order that it may be known that heaven and the church are thereby meant, as also the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, lest the mind should adhere to the idea, that the temple alone is meant instead of something more holy; for the holiness of the temple of Jerusalem arose from the fact that it represented and signified what is holy.

That the temple signified heaven is clear from these passages. In David:

"I called upon Jehovah, and cried unto my God; he heard my voice out of his temple" (Psalms 18:6).

Again:

"A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather stand at the door in the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness" (Psalms 84:10).

Again:

"The just shall flourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow like the cedar in Lebanon. They who are planted in the house of Jehovah shall flourish in the courts of our God" (Psalms 92:12, 13).

Again:

"One thing have I desired of Jehovah, that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Jehovah, and to visit his temple in the morning" (Psalms 27:4).

Again:

"I shall be at rest in the house of Jehovah for length of days" (Psalms 23:6).

[8] In John:

Jesus said: "In my Father's house are many mansions" (14:2).

That heaven and the church are meant in these passages by the house of Jehovah and of the Father is clear. The church is also meant in the following passages. In Isaiah:

"Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned with fire" (64:11).

In Jeremiah:

"I have forsaken my house, I have left mine heritage" (12:7).

In Haggai:

"I will stir up all nations, that the choice of all nations may come; and I will fill this house with glory. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former" (Haggai 2:7-9).

In Isaiah:

"He shall say to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid" (44:28).

The subject here treated of is the coming of the Lord, and the New Church to be then established. In Zechariah:

"The house of Jehovah was founded, that the temple may be built" (8:9).

Similarly in Daniel:

"Belshazzar commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, that they might drink therein; and they drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone and then writing appeared on the wall" (5:2-4).

By the golden and silver vessels which were brought from the temple of Jerusalem are signified the goods and truths of the church; by their drinking wine out of them, and praising the gods of gold, of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and stone, is signified the profanation of them, on which account the writing appeared on the wall, and the king was changed from a man into a beast.

[9] In Matthew:

"His disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be dissolved" (24:1, 2; Mark 13:1, 2; Luke 21:5, 6, 7).

That there should not be left of the temple one stone upon another which should not be dissolved, signifies the total destruction and vastation of the church; for stone signifies the truth of the church; and it therefore follows that the successive vastation of the church is treated of in those chapters in the Evangelists. In the Apocalypse:

"The angel stood, saying, Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar, and them that worship therein" (11:1).

By the temple here also is signified the church, and by measuring it, is signified to explore its quality. The signification of the new temple and its measurements, mentioned in Ezekiel, is similar (Ezekiel 40-47).

[10] That by temple is signified the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, is evident from the following passages in Ezekiel:

"The glory of Jehovah went up from above the cherub over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the glory of Jehovah" (10:4).

By the house is here meant heaven and the church, and by the cloud and glory Divine truth. (That cloud denotes Divine truth may be seen above, n. 36; and that glory signifies the same, n. 33.)

[11] In Micah:

"Many nations shall go, and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, and to the house of" our "God, that he may teach us of his ways, and that we may go in his paths; for from Zion shall go forth doctrine, and the word from Jerusalem" (4:2).

The mountain of Jehovah and the house of God signify the church, and similarly Zion and Jerusalem; to be taught of His ways, and to go in His paths, is to be instructed in Divine truths; therefore it is also said,

"From Zion shall go forth doctrine, and the word from Jerusalem."

[12] In Isaiah:

"The voice of the tumult from the city, the voice of Jehovah from the temple" (66:6).

By the city is meant the doctrine of truth, by temple, the church, and by the voice of Jehovah from the temple, Divine truth. In the Apocalypse:

"There came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying" (16:17).

Here voice also denotes Divine truth. Again:

"The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in the temple the ark of his covenant: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings" (11:19).

By lightnings, voices, and thunderings in the Word are signified Divine truths from heaven (see Arcana Coelestia 7573, 8914). And again:

"The temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And the seven angels went out of the temple having the seven plagues. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power" (15:5, 6, 8).

The seven angels are said to go out of the temple in heaven, because by angels are signified Divine truths, as may be seen above (n. 130, 200). What is signified by smoke from the glory of God will be seen in the explanation of those words in the following pages. Moreover, it must be known that by the temple which was built by Solomon, as also by the house of the forest of Lebanon, and by each particular thing pertaining to them, as recorded in the first book of Kings (6 and 7), are signified spiritual and celestial things pertaining to the church and to heaven.

7643. 'Behold, I am bringing locusts into your border' means that falsity will take possession of their outermost parts. This is clear from the meaning of 'locusts' as falsity in outermost parts, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'border' as outermost parts; and from the meaning of 'bringing', since it is used in connection with falsity, as taking possession of. It says that Jehovah will bring the locusts, but by this their being brought - brought by evil - is meant. This is similar to the attribution made to Jehovah, that is, to the Lord, where it says that 'He made Pharaoh's heart stubborn'; in actual fact it is made such by man, by the evil within him, see above in 7632. Evil does not originate in the Lord but springs from man because man diverts towards himself the good that flows in from the Lord, and instead of regarding, in every single thing, the Lord and what is the Lord's regards himself. This self-regard gives rise to a craving to have dominion over all people and to possess all that others have; it gives rise to contempt for others, and hateful, vengeful, and cruel behaviour towards those who are not disposed to apply themselves to his interests; and also it gives rise to contempt for all things connected with faith and charity, for when these flow in from the Lord he focuses them onto himself and so away from the Lord.

[2] From all this one may see that man turns into evil the actual good that flows in from the Lord. It also goes to explain why in the next life the evil distance themselves from heaven as far away as they can get; for when heaven draws nearer to them, that is, when the inflow of goodness and truth becomes more forceful, they plunge with greater force into the opposite, that is, into evil and into falsity. Then to the extent that the evil and falsity increase, they drive truth out from themselves and bring about vastation within themselves. And to the same extent they also plunge into the evils brought by punishment; for in the next life evils and punishments are interconnected.

[3] The Lord is continually rearranging the heavens, and constantly adding new inhabitants of heaven whom He provides with dwellings and inheritances. When He does this heaven draws nearer, that is, flows in with greater force, as a consequence of which hellish spirits plunge with greater force into evils and falsities, and into the punishments that go with them; and since they plunge into evils and falsities, they bring about vastation within themselves, as has been stated. This process does not stop until they have brought about complete vastation and cast themselves deeply into the hells. From this it may be recognized that nothing but good emanates from the Lord, and that evil springs from those people themselves who are ruled by evil. From all this one may now see how to understand the statement that Jehovah, that is, the Lord, made Pharaoh's heart stubborn, and the statement here that He will bring locusts, by which falsity arising from evil in outermost parts is meant.

[4] In the Word, in those places in which the laying waste of evils is referred to, the locust and the bruchus ¹ are mentioned several times; and in those places 'locust' is used to mean in the internal sense falsity that lays waste the outermost parts. For as has been shown before, the human natural is interior and exterior. The falsity that is present in the outermost parts of the natural is meant by 'locust', and the evil there by 'bruchus'. Because 'locust' is used to mean falsity present in the outermost parts of the natural it says that the locusts will be brought 'into the border, and they will cover the surface of the land', and later on in verses 14-15.

The locusts came up over the land of Egypt, and rested at all the border of Egypt, and covered the surface of the whole land.

'The border' and 'the surface' mean the outermost and lowest parts, on which the more internal ones rest, that is, by which they are bounded.

[5] These things are what 'the locust' and 'the bruchus' are used to mean in David,

He sent among them swarms [of insects], which devoured them, and frogs which destroyed them; and He gave their crops to the bruchus, and their labour to the locust. Psalms 78:45-46.

And elsewhere,

He spoke so that the locust might come and the bruchus, so that it would be without number. Psalms 105:34.

These verses, which speak about Egypt, refer to 'the bruchus', but no mention is made of it in Moses, only of 'the locust'. The reason why 'the bruchus' also is referred to is that 'the bruchus' means evil and 'the locust' falsity, both of them in the outermost parts of the natural. But when 'the locust' alone is referred to it means both falsity and evil together, for 'the locust' is falsity arising from evil.

[6] In Nahum,

There the fire will devour you, the sword cut you off; it will devour you like the bruchus. Multiply yourself like the bruchus, multiply yourself like the locust; you have multiplied your merchants, more than the stars of the heavens. The bruchus has spread out, and flown away. Your monarchs are like the locust, your emperors like the locust of locusts. Nahum 3:15-17.

This refers to 'the city of blood', which means teachings that uphold falsity. And since falsity and evil are multiplied chiefly in the outermost parts of the natural (because of the presence there of the illusions of the senses arising from worldly and earthly objects, and of the sensory enjoyments resulting from various kinds of appetites), the multiplication of evil and falsity is for that reason described by 'the bruchus and locust', as it also is in Judges 6:5; 7:12; and in Jeremiah 46:23. With regard to the sensory level, which is the last and lowest of the natural, that it is utterly full of illusions and consequently of falsities, see 5084, 5089, 5094, 6310, 6711, 6313, 6318, 6598, 6612, 6614, 6621, 6624.

[7] In Joel,

What the caterpillar (eruca) left the locust has devoured, and what the locust left the beetle (melolontha) has devoured, and what the beetle left the bruchus has devoured. Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine that has been cut off. For a nation will come up over My land, strong, and without number; and it will turn My vine into a waste, and My fig tree into froth. Joel 1:4-7.

In the same prophet,

The threshing floors are full of clear grain, and the presses overflow with new wine and oil. And I will recompense you for the years that the locust has consumed, the beetle (melolontha), the bruchus, and the caterpillar (eruca). Joel 2:24-25.

Here 'the locust' stands for falsity in the outermost parts which is laying waste truths and forms of good. In Moses,

You will carry much seed out into the field, but you will gather little, because the locust will consume it. You will plant vineyards, but you will not drink wine or gather [anything], for the worm will devour it. Deuteronomy 28:38-39.

Here 'the locust' stands for falsity arising from evil.

[8] In John,

Out of the smoke of the abyss that had been opened came locusts onto the earth, which were given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any tree, but men (homo) only who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not allowed to kill them, but to torment them for five months. The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war, and on their heads there were so to speak crowns like gold, their faces being like the faces of men (homo). They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running to war. Finally, they had tails like scorpions, and the stings were in their tails, so that they could do harm to men (homo) for five months. They have a king over them, the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon; but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. Revelation 9:3-11.

No one can see what all these things mean except from the internal sense. From each detail there viewed in accordance with the internal sense it is clear that 'locusts' means reasonings that are based on illusions and consequent falsities, and supported also by philosophical arguments. Thus in addition 'locusts' means the falsities which, being present in the outermost parts of the human mind and having a more earthly and bodily nature than all other falsities, can easily deceive and mislead people. For a person can embrace with ease ideas that agree with the senses, but with difficulty those that contradict them.

[9] To enable people to know that such things are meant by 'locusts', let the details of this passage be explained one by one. 'The abyss' out of which the locusts came is hell. 'The grass of the earth' which they were not to harm is factual knowledge, 'tree' recognition of what is good and true, and 'men' affections for what is good. Their being told to harm only men, not the grass of the earth or any tree, means that truth and good may come to be understood even when there is no living in accordance with them. 'Those who have the seal on their foreheads' are those who have been regenerated. Their being told to torment for five months those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads means that they were to lay them waste. 'Locusts like horses prepared for war' are reasonings based on falsities that are used to fight against the Church's truths. 'On their heads crowns like gold' and 'faces like those of men' mean that the reasonings have a similar appearance to truth and in origin seem to be good. 'Hair like that of women' and 'teeth like the teeth of lions' are the external things of the natural or the level of the senses, that is, the illusions there which give the appearance of good. 'Breastplates of iron' are external things giving the appearance of truth. 'The sound of wings like that of chariots with many horses running to war' means the falsities of doctrinal teachings which they use to fight with and which they fight for. 'Tails like scorpions' and 'the stings in their tails' are the injuries such things can inflict. 'The king' of the abyss is hellish falsity, 'Abaddon' destruction, 'Apollyon' reasoning based on falsities that seems to be based on truth, especially if those deemed to be wise support those falsities with philosophical arguments completely misapplied; for blind admiration of their wisdom leads people to have faith in them.

[10] In the good sense 'locust' means fundamental and very general truth, and also the pleasure it gives. This was why John had locusts as his food, and wild honey, Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6. The reason why they were his food was that John represented the Word; and by his food as well as his clothing, which consisted of camel hair together with a skin girdle, he represented the Word in the external sense. For external pleasure is meant by 'locusts and wild honey', 5620, and external truth by a garment made of camel hair and by a skin girdle, 3301. This explains why John is understood to be the Elijah who is going to come and announce the Lord's Coming, 'Elijah' being the Word, see Preface to Chapter 18 of Genesis, and 2762, 5247 (end). And Leviticus 11:22 states that locusts were among the small creatures which people were allowed to eat.

Imibhalo yaphansi: