~ Micah and the Silver ~

Now a man named Micah
from the hill country of Ephraim said to his mother,
"The eleven hundred shekels of silver
that were taken from you
and about which I heard you utter a curse --
I have that silver with me;
I took it."

Then his mother said,
"The Lord bless you, my son!"

When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver
to his mother, she said,
"I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord
for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol.
I will give it back to you."

So he returned the silver to his mother,
and she took two hundred shekels of silver
and gave them to a silversmith,
who made them into the image and the idol.
And they were put in Micah's house.

Now this man Micah had a shrine,
and he made an ephod and some idols
and installed one of his sons as his priest.
In those days Israel had no king;
everyone did as he saw fit.

(Judges 17:1-6)

 

AE 616 - The Little Book

  AE 616

And I went unto the angel, saying, Give me the little book,
(Revelation 10:9)

means the faculty to perceive from the Lord
of what quality the Word is.

This is evident from the meaning of
"going to the angel and saying, Give me the little book,"
as being in the nearest sense
to obey the command,
because he was told to go and take it;
but in a more remote sense,
which also is the interior sense,
these words mean the faculty to perceive from the Lord
of what quality the Word is.

It is granted by the Lord to every person to perceive this,
but yet no one does perceive it
unless he wishes as of himself to perceive it.
This ability to reciprocate,
a person must have
in order to receive the faculty to perceive the Word;
unless a person wishes and does this as of himself
no such faculty can be appropriated to him;
since, in order that appropriation may be effected,
there must be an active and a reactive;
the active is from the Lord,
so is the reactive,
but the latter appears to be from a person;
for the Lord Himself gives this reactive,
and so it is from the Lord and not from a person;
but as a person does not know otherwise
than that he lives from himself,
and consequently that he thinks and wills from himself,
so he must needs do this
as if it were from what is proper to his own life;
and when he so acts,
it is then first implanted in him,
and conjoined and appropriated to him.

~ Samson's Wants a Wife ~

Samson went down to Timnah
and saw there a young Philistine woman.
When he returned, he said to his father and mother,
"I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah;
now get her for me as my wife."

His father and mother replied,
"Isn't there an acceptable woman
among your relatives or among all our people?
Must you go
to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?"

But Samson said to his father,
"Get her for me.  She's the right one for me."
(His parents did not know that this was from the Lord,
who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines;
for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)

(Judges 14:1-4)

AE 606 - His Footstool; AE 609 - "To Create"; AE 612 - The Lord Appears

AE 606

I will make the place of My feet honorable.
(Isaiah 60:13)

"The place of the Lord's feet" in a general sense
means all things of heaven and the church,
since the Lord as a sun is above the heavens;
but in a particular sense
"the place of His feet" means the church,
for the Lord's church is with people in the natural world,
and the natural is the lowest,
into which the Divine closes,
and upon which it as it were subsists.
This is why the church on the earth
is also called "the footstool of the Lord," . . .

AE 609

. . . "to create," as being not only to cause to be,
but also to be perpetually,
by holding it together and sustaining it
by the Divine proceeding;
for the heavens have had existence
and perpetually have existence,
that is, subsist by means of the Lord's Divine,
which is called the Divine truth united to Divine good.

AE 612

. . . the Lord is the Word,
wherefore when the Word is opened
the Lord appears.

~ 'Shibboleth', 'Sibboleth' ~

The men of Ephraim called out their forces,
crossed over to Zaphon and said to Jephthah,
"Why did you go to fight the Ammonites
without calling us to go with you?
We're going to burn down your house over your head."

Jephthah answered, "I and my people
were engaged in a great struggle with the Ammonites,
and although I called,
you didn't save me out of their hands.
When I saw that you wouldn't help,
I took my life in my hands
and crossed over to fight the Ammonites,
and the Lord gave me the victory over them.
Now why have you come up today to fight me?"

Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead
and fought against Ephraim.
The Gileadites struck them down
because the Ephraimites had said,
"You Gileadites are renegades
from Ephraim and Manasseh."
The Gileadites captured
the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim,
and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said,
"Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him,
"Are you an Ephraimite?"
If he replied, "No," they said,
"All right, say 'Shibboleth.'
If he said, "Sibboleth,"
because he could not pronounce the word correctly,
they seized him and killed him at the fords of Jordan.
Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

Jephthah led Israel six years.
Then Jephthah the Gileadite died,
and was buried in a town in Gilead.

(Judges 12:1-7)

AE 600 - Right and Left; AE 601 - The Lion Roars

AE 600 [2]

. . . the "right" signifies all things of good
which is the source of truth,
and the "left all things of truth from good . . ..
And as all things of heaven and the church
have relation to good ant truth,
also to things exterior and things interior,
therefore these words mean in general
all things of heaven and the church.

AE 601 [5]

Thus Jehovah said unto me,
Like as the lion, and the young lion roars over his prey,
when a multitude of shepherds go out against him,
and he is not dismayed at their voice
nor affected by their tumult,
so shall Jehovah of Hosts come down to wage war
upon Mount Zion and upon the hill thereof.
(Isaiah 31:4)

Jehovah is compared to a lion roaring,
because a "lion" signifies the Lord
in relation to Divine truth and its power,
and "to roar" signifies the eagerness to defend the church
against evils and falsities;
therefore it is said,
"so shall Jehovah of Hosts come down to wage war
upon Mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof,"
"Mount Zion" meaning the celestial church,
and "the hill thereof" (or Jerusalem) the spiritual church;
the "prey over which the lion roars"
means deliverance from hell.

~ The End of Abimelech, son of Jerub-Baal ~

Next Abimelech went to Thebez
and besieged it and captured it.
Inside the city, however, was a strong tower,
to which all the men and women --
all the people of the city -- fled.
They locked themselves in
and climbed up on the tower roof.
Abimelech went to the tower and stormed it.
But as he approached the entrance to the tower
to set it on fire,
a women dropped an upper millstone on his head
and cracked his skull.

Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer,
"Draw your sword and kill me,
so they can't say, 'A woman killed him.'"
So his servant ran him through, and he died.
When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead,
they went home.
Thus God repaid the wickedness
that Abimelech had done to his father
by murdering his seventy brothers.
God also made the men of Shechem
pay for all their wickedness.
The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.

After the time of Abimelech
a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo,
rose to save Israel.
He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim.
He led Israel twenty-three years;
then he died, and was buried in Shamir.

(Judges 9:50-57; 10:1-2)

AE 592 - Explanation of Revelation 10:1; AE 595 - Rainbows of Heaven

AE 592 - Explanation of Revelation 10:1

And I saw another strong angel
coming down out of heaven encompassed with a cloud,
and the rainbow above his head,
and his face as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.
(Revelation 10:1)

"And I saw another strong angel
coming down out of heaven,"
means the Lord as to the Word,
here in relation to its ultimate sense,
which is called the sense of the letter;
"encompassed with a cloud,"
means the ultimate of the Word;
"and the rainbow above his head,"
means the interior things of the Word;
"and his face as the sun,"
means the Lord's Divine love,
from which is all Divine truth,
which in heaven and in the church is the Word;
"and his feet as pillars of fire,"
means Divine truth, or the Word in ultimates,
sustaining interior things there,
and also full of the good of love.

AE 595 [3]

. . . the rainbows of heaven
are from the light that arises from the Lord as a sun,
and as that sun is in its essence the Lord's Divine love,
and the light therefrom is Divine truth,
the variations of light which are presented as rainbows
are variations of intelligence and wisdom with the angels.
From this it is that rainbows there
mean the form and beauty of spiritual Divine truth.

. . . the rainbows of heaven (mean)
spiritual Divine truths in their form and beauty;
these truths are such as those of the Word
in the spiritual sense.
 

~ Gideon Goes After the Midianites ~

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor
with a force of about fifteen thousand men,
all that were left of the armies of the eastern peoples;
a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen.
Gideon went up by the route of the nomads
east of Nobah and Jogbehah
and fell upon the unsuspecting army.
Zebah and Zalmunna, the two kings of Midian, fled,
but he pursued them and captured them,
routing their entire army.

(Judges 8:10-12)

AE 585 - Doctrine from Self-Intelligence, Hewn Stones; AE 586 - Cupidity Defined

 AE 585 [11, 12-13]

Moreover, the work of the workman,
the artificer, and the mechanic,"
means in the Word
whatever of doctrine, religion, and worship
is from self-intelligence.
This is why the altar, and also the temple,
were built, by command, of whole stones,
and not hewn by any workman or artificer.

Respecting the altar it is thus said in Moses:

If you make to Me an altar of stones
you shall not build it of hewn stones,
for if you move a tool upon it
you wilt profane it.
(Exodus 20:25)

And in Joshua:

Joshua built an altar unto the God of Israel in Mount Ebal,
an altar of whole stones,
on which no one had moved iron.
(Joshua 8:30, 31)

And respecting the temple, in the first book of Kings:

The temple at Jerusalem was built of stone,
whole as it was brought;
for there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron
heard in the house while it was building.
(I Kings 6:7)

. . . "the work of His hands"
means a person regenerated by Him,
thus the man of the church.

Jehovah of Hosts shall bless, saying,
Blessed be Egypt My people,
and Assyria the work of My hands,
and Israel Mine inheritance.
(Isaiah 19:25)

"Egypt" here signifies the natural,
"Assyria" the rational,
and "Israel" the spiritual;
and "Assyria" is called "the work of Jehovah's hands"
because the rational is what is reformed in a person,
for it is the rational that receives truths and goods,
and from this the natural;
the spiritual is what regenerates,
that is, the Lord by spiritual influx;
in a word, the rational is the medium between
the spiritual and the natural,
and the spiritual, which regenerates,
flows in through the rational into the natural,
and thus the natural is regenerated.

AE 586

The affection of evil and falsity is what is called cupidity,
and is what is meant by "demon."

~ Gideon Builds Two Altars ~

When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord,
he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign Lord! 
I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!"

But the Lord said to him,
"Peace!  Do not be afraid.  You are not going to die."

So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there
and called it The Lord is Peace.
To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

That same night the Lord said to him,
"Take the second bull from your father's herd,
the one seven years old.
Tear down your father's altar to Baal
and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.
Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God
on top of this height.
Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down,
offer the second bull as a burnt offering."

So Gideon took ten of his servants
and did as the Lord told him.
But because he was afraid
of his family and the men of the town,
he did it at night rather than in the daytime.

In the morning when the men of the town got up,
there was Baal's altar, demolished,
with the Asherah pole beside it cut down
and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!

They asked each other, "Who did this?"

When they carefully investigated,
they were told, "Gideon son of Joash did it."

The men of the town demanded of Joash,
"Bring out your son.
He must die,
because he has broken down Baal's altar
and cut down the Asherah pole beside it."

But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him,
"Are you going to plead Baal's cause?
Are you trying to save him?
Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning!
If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself
when someone breaks down his altar."
So that day they called Gideon "Jerub-Baal,"
saying, "Let Baal contend with him,"
because he broke down Baal's altar.''

(Judges 6:22-32)

AE - Several Short Truths

AE 578 [2, 6]

. . . falsities of evil from the love of self
will destroy the church.

. . . the quality of external worship
is the same as the quality of its internal.

AE 579

. . . when the understanding of truth is extinguished
a person is spiritually killed . . ..

AE 581

. . . sensual knowledges become fallacies
when a person reasons from them
concerning spiritual things . . ..

~ The Last Verse of Deborah's Song ~

"So may all your enemies perish, O Lord!
But may they who love You
be like the sun when it rises in its strength."

Then the land had peace forty years.

(Judges 5:31)

AE 570, 572, 573 - The Source of Reasoning; AE 575 - Visions

 AE 570

. . . the sensual person only reasons
from such things as he sees in the world with his eyes,
while the things that are within and above these
he declares cannot be,
since he does not see them;
this is why the things that belong to heaven and the church,
because they are above his thoughts,
he either denies or does not believe,
but ascribes all things to nature.

AE 572

. . . it is by means of truths from good
that the understanding is opened,
not by means of truths without good;
for a person thinks truth
so far as he lives in the good of love and charity.

AE 573

. . . since reasonings from falsities
are from the understanding perverted and destroyed,
for truths constitute the understanding,
but falsities destroy it.

AE 575 [2]

Visions, which and from which
a person or the spirit of a person sees,
are of a twofold kind;
there are real visions and visions that are not real;
real visions are visions of such things
as really appear in the spiritual world,
corresponding altogether with
the thoughts and affections of angels,
consequently they are real correspondences.
Such were the visions that the prophets had
who prophesied truths;
such also were the visions that appeared to John,
and that are described throughout Revelation.
But visions that are not real
have the same appearance in the external form
as real visions, but not in the internal form;
they are produced by spirits by means of fantasies.
Such visions those prophets had
who prophesied vain things or lies.
All such visions, because they are not real are fallacies,
and thus they also signify fallacies. 

~ The Israelites Remember and Then Forget ~

  After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites,
they went to take possession of the land,
each to his own inheritance.
The people served the Lord
throughout the lifetime of Joshua
and of the elders who outlived him
and who had seen
all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord,
died at the age of a hundred and ten.
And they buried him in the land of his inheritance,
at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim,
north of Mount Gaash.

After that whole generation
had been gathered to their fathers,
another generation grew up,
who knew neither the Lord
nor what He had done for Israel.
Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord
and served the Baals.
They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers . . ..

(Judges 2:6-12)

AE 569 [23] - Degrees of Reasoning

AE 569 [23}

. . . reasonings are in a like degree as the thoughts are,
since they descend from the thoughts;
thus there are reasonings from the spiritual person
which might better be called
conclusions from reasons and from truths;
there are reasonings from the natural person,
and there are reasonings from the sensual person.
Reasonings from the spiritual person are rational,
and therefore might better be called
conclusions from reasons and from truths,
because they are from the interior
and from the light of heaven;
but reasonings from the natural person
respecting spiritual things are not rational,
however rational they may be in things moral and civil,
which are evident before the eyes,
because they are from natural light alone;
but reasonings from the sensual person
respecting spiritual things are irrational,
because they are from fallacies
and thus from ideas that are false;
these are the reasonings here treated of in Revelation.

 

~ Some of Joshua's Last Words & Actions ~

"Now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness.
Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped
beyond the River and in Egypt,
and serve the Lord.
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you,
then choose for ourselves this day whom you will serve,
whether the gods
your forefathers served beyond the River,
or the gods of the Amorites,
in whose land you are living.
But as for me and my household,
we will serve the Lord."

. . . On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people,
and there at Shechem
he drew up for them decrees and laws.
And Joshua recorded these things
in the Book of the Law of God.
Then he took a large stone
and set it up there under the oak
near the holy place of the Lord.

"See!" he said to all the people.
"This stone will be a witness against us.
It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us.
It will be a witness against you
if you are untrue to your God."

(Joshua 24:14-15, 25-27)

AE 569 - It Is One Thing to be Rational, and Another to be Spiritual

AE 569 [7-8, 15, 20]

It is one thing to be rational,
and another to be spiritual;
every spiritual person is also rational,
but the rational person is not always spiritual,
since the rational is in the natural person,
that is, is its thought,
while the spiritual is above the rational,
and through the rational passes into the natural,
into the cognitions* and knowledges of its memory.

But it is to be known that the rational does not
introduce anyone into the spiritual,
but it is only said to do so
because such is the appearance;
for the spiritual flows into the natural
through the rational as a medium,
and in this way it introduces.
For the spiritual is the inflowing Divine,
since it is the light of heaven,
which is the Divine truth proceeding,
and this light through the higher mind,
which is called the spiritual mind,
flows into the lower mind,
which is called the natural mind,
and conjoins this to itself,
and through that conjunction
causes the natural mind to make one with the spiritual;
thus introduction is effected.
Since it is contrary to Divine order
for a person to enter through his rational into the spiritual,
therefore in the spiritual world
there are angel guards to prevent this from taking place.

As "the river Euphrates" means the rational,
so in the contrary sense it signifies reasoning;
reasoning here means thinking and arguing
from fallacies and falsities,
while the rational means thinking and arguing
from knowledges and from truths;
for the rational is cultivated always by knowledges,
and is formed by truths,
therefore one who is led by truths or whom truths lead,
is called a rational person;
but a person who is not rational has the ability to reason,
for by various reasonings he is able to confirm falsities,
and also to induce the simple to believe them,
which is done mainly by means of
the fallacies of the senses.

For by means of the Word
there is conjunction of the Lord with the church,
and when the Word is perverted
by reasonings that favor evils and falsities
there is no longer any conjunction . . ..
__________

* cognitions - the mental action or process
of acquiring knowledge and understanding
through thought, experience, and the senses

 

~ And Last, the Levites Are Given Their Towns ~

The towns of the Levites
in the territory held by the Israelites
were forty-eight in all,
together with their pasturelands.
Each of these towns had pasturelands surrounding it;
this was true for all these towns.

So the Lord gave Israel all the land
He had sworn to give their forefathers,
and they took possession of it and settled there.
The Lord gave them rest on every side,
just as He had sworn to their forefathers.
Not one of their enemies withstood them;
the Lord handed all their enemies over to them.
Not one of all the Lord's good promises
to the house of Israel failed;
every one was fulfilled.

(Joshua 21:41-45)

AE 559, 560 - Thought From the Eye Closes the Understanding

 

AE 559 [1, 2-3, 6]

And they had tails like scorpions,
(Revelation 9:10)
means sensual knowledges which are persuasive.

All who are in the love of self
and have confirmed themselves against
Divine and spiritual things
are sensual people,
and when they are left to themselves
and think in their spirit,
they think about Divine and spiritual things
from sensual knowledges,
and consequently they reject
Divine and spiritual things as not to be believed,
because they do not see them
with their eyes or touch them with their hands;
and they apply their knowledges,
which they have made sensual and material,
to the destruction of these.
For example,
people who are learned in this kind of knowledge,
who are skilled in physics, anatomy, botany,
and other branches of human learning,
when they see the wonderful things
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms
say in their hearts that all these things are from nature,
and not from the Divine,
and this because they believe in nothing
that they do not see with their eyes
and touch with their hands;
for they are unable to elevate their minds upward
so as to see these things from the light of heaven . . ..
But as every person has the faculty
to understand truths and perceive goods,
such people are able from that faculty to talk about
these things like those who are spiritual-rational,
although in respect to their spirit they are sensual;
for when such people speak before others
they do not speak from the spirit
but from the bodily memory.

All this has been said
to make known what sensual knowledges are.
These are what especially persuade,
or are especially persuasive,
because they are the ultimates of the understanding;
for into these
as into its ultimates
the understanding closes,
and these captivate the common people
because they are appearances drawn from such things
as they see in the world with their eyes;
and so long as the thought clings to these
it is impossible to dispose the mind to think interiorly
or above them until they are put away;
for the interior things of the mind all close into ultimates
and rest upon them, as a house upon its foundation;
consequently these are especially persuasive,
but only with those
whose minds cannot be elevated above sensual things;
and the mind is elevated above them
with those who are in the light of heaven from the Lord,
for the light of heaven dissipates them.
For this reason
spiritual people rarely think from things sensual,
for they think from things rational and intellectual;
but sensual people,
who have confirmed themselves in falsities
against Divine and spiritual things,
when they are left to themselves
think only from sensual things.

. . . a person by self looks only to the world.
For a person's interiors
which belong to his thought and affection
are elevated to heaven by the Lord
when a person is in the good of life
and from that in the truths of doctrine;
but when he is in the evil of life and then in falsities,
his lower things look downward,
thus only to his body
and to such things as are in the world,
and thus to hell.

AE 560

It is to be known that sensual people are
more crafty and shrewd than others,
and thus in acutely deceiving;
for as spiritual people possess intelligence and prudence,
so those who are sensual and in falsities
possess malice and craftiness,
for all malice has its seat in evil,
as all intelligence has its seat in good.