290. The fact that the church was called the mother of every living thing by reason of its faith in the Lord, who is life itself, can also be seen from earlier evidence: In no way is it possible for more than a single life force to exist from which all other beings receive life [§2]. Any life that is truly to be life must come by way of faith in the Lord, who is life [§30:2]. And any faith that is to have life within it must come from him and therefore must have him within it [§41].
For this reason, the Word describes the Lord as the only living being. It uses the names Jehovah who lives (Jeremiah 5:2; 12:16; 16:14-15; 23:7; Ezekiel 5:11); the one who lives forever (Daniel 4:34; Revelation 4:10; 5:14; 10:6); the wellspring of life in David (Psalms 36:9); and the fountain of living water in Jeremiah (17:13). It calls heaven, which lives from him, the land of the living (Isaiah 38:11; 53:8; Ezekiel 26:20; 32:23, 24, 25-26, 27, 32; Psalms 27:13; 52:5; 142:5). People who believe in the Lord are called the living, as in David: .".. who places our soul among the living" (Psalms 66:9). Of those who believe, it also says that they are in the book of life (Psalms 69:28; Revelation 13:8; 17:8; 20:15). By the same token, those who accept a faith in the Lord are said to be brought back to life (Hosea 6:2; Psalms 85:6). Those who do not believe, on the other hand, are by extension called dead, as in Isaiah:
The dead will not live; the Rephaim 1 will not rise again, because you inflicted punishment on them and obliterated them. (Isaiah 26:14)
The dead here stand for people inflated with self-love, and rising again symbolizes entering into life. They are also referred to as victims of stabbing (Ezekiel 32:23, 24, 25-26, 28, 29, 30, 31). Hell is called "death" (Isaiah 25:8; 28:15). The Lord as well refers to them as dead (Matthew 4:16; John 5:24; 8:21, 24, 51-52).
Imibhalo yaphansi:
1. The Hebrew word translated Rephaim (רְפָאִים [rǝṕā'îm]) is usually taken to represent either of two separate words, of which one refers to giants and the other means "the enervated," or in other words, "ghosts." The latter is the sense that most translators assign in this passage, but Swedenborg seems to understand the word in the former sense, since he says that they stand for people who are "inflated" (see the text immediately after the quotation). In §581:2 and elsewhere he connects the Rephaim of this verse with the Nephilim (see §§581-583), who are taken to be giants; see note 1 in §554. [LHC]