Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 299Woe unto him that striveth with the former! a potsherd with thepotsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to its potter, What makestthou? (Isa. 45:9).Shall the potter be counted as clay? Shall the work say to itsformer, He made me not, and shall the thing formed say of its potter, heunderstandeth not? (Isa. 29:16).[7] As the Jews and Israelites falsified all the truths of the Wordby applying them to themselves and to their own exaltation aboveall nations and peoples in the universal world, so their falsities arecalled “marred vessels” of a potter, as in Isaiah:Who have said to the seers, See not; and to those that have vision,See not for us right things, speak unto us smooth things, see illusions;depart from the way; therefore iniquity shall break them as the breakingof the potter’s bottle; in beating it shall not spare, so that there shall notbe found in the fragment thereof a sherd to take fire from the hearth orto draw waters from the cistern (Isa. 30:10–11, 13–14).That they wholly deprived themselves of truths, and immersedthemselves in falsities, is described by this, “They said to the seers,See not; and to those that have vision, See not for us right things,speak unto us smooth things, see illusions; depart from the way.”That they had so immersed themselves in falsities that no moretruth remained, is described by “the breaking of the potter’s bottle,so that there should not be found in the fragment a sherd to takefire from the hearth or to draw waters out of the cistern.” By this issignified that not enough of truth should be left to enable them toperceive any good and truth from the Word; for “fire” signifiesgood, and “water” truth; “hearth” the Word in respect to good;“cistern” and “fountain” the Word in respect to truth.[8] In Jeremiah:The word came to Jeremiah, Arise, and go down to the potter’shouse. Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold he wroughta work on the table. But the vessel that he was making was marred; andhe turned back and made it another vessel as was right in the potter’seyes to make (Jer. 18:1–4).