Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/203

the Old Testament in many places are not intelligible without the spiritual sense, I will adduce only a few passages; as this in Isaiah: "Then Jehovah of Hosts shall stir up a scourge against Ashur, according to the smiting of Midian at the rock of Oreh; and His rod shall be upon the sea, which He shall lift up after the manner of Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day, that His burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and His yoke from off thy neck. . . . He shall come against Aiath; He shall pass to Migron; against Michmash He shall direct His arms; they shall pass over Mebara; Gebah shall he a lodging to us; Ramah shall tremble; Gibeah of Saul shall flee. Wail with thy voice, daughter of Gallim; hearken, O Laish, wretched Anathoth. Madmenah shall be a wanderer; the inhahitants of Gebim shall gather themselves together; as yet there is not a day to stand in Nob; the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem, shall shake her hand. . . . Jehovah shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by the Mighty One" (x. 26-34). Here mere names occur, from which no meaning can be drawn but by the aid of the spiritual sense; in which sense all names in the Word signify things pertaining to heaven and the church. From this sense it is gathered that these things signify that the whole church was devastated, by means of sensuous knowledges perverting all truth and confirming all falsity. In another place in the same Prophet it is written: "In that day , . . the envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries ofJudah shall he cut off; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim; but they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines towards the west; they shall spoil them of the east together; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab. . . . Jehovah shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and with His mighty wind shall He shake His hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod; and there shall be a highway for the remnant of His people which shall he left, from Assyria" (xi. 11-16). Here also no one can see anything Divine unless he knows what is signified by each particular name; and yet the subject treated of is the advent of the Lord, and what shall then come to pass, as plainly appears from verses 1-10. Who then without the aid of the spiritual sense would see that these things in their order signify, that they who are in falsities through ignorance, and have not suffered themselves to be seduced by evils, will come to the Lord; that the Church will then understand the Word; and that then falsities will be no longer hurtful to them. The case is the same where no names occur; as in Ezekiel: "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou son of man, speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves from every side to My sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even