Doctrine of Holy Scripture - Swedenborg Foundation

DOCTRINE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 161putting forth of their hand. Jehovah shall utter a curse against the tongue ofthe Egyptian sea, and with the vehemence of his spirit he shall shake his handover the river, and shall smite it into seven streams, so that he shall make away [to pass over it] with shoes. Then shall there be a path for the remnant ofhis people, which remnant shall be from Asshur (Isa. 11:13–16).Here also no one would see anything Divine except one who knowswhat is signified by the several names; and yet the subject treated ofis the Lord’s advent, and what shall then come to pass, as is plainlyevident from verses 1 to 10. Who, therefore, without the aid of thespiritual sense, would see that by these things in their order issignified that they who are in falsities from ignorance, yet have notsuffered themselves to be led astray by evils, will come to the Lord,and that the church will then understand the Word; and thatfalsities will then no longer harm them?[3] The case is the same where there are not names, as in Ezekiel:Thus saith the Lord Jehovih, son of man, say unto the bird of every wing,and to every wild beast of the field, Assemble yourselves and come, gatheryourselves from round about to my sacrifice which I sacrifice for you, a greatsacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood;ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of theearth; ye shall eat fat to satiety, and drink blood to drunkenness, of mysacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Ye shall be sated at my table with thehorse and the chariot, with the mighty man, and with every man of war. Thuswill I set my glory among the nations (Ezek. 39:17–21).One who does not know from the spiritual sense what is signifiedby a sacrifice, by flesh and blood, by a horse, a chariot, a mightyman, and a man of war, would suppose that such things were to beeaten and drunk. But the spiritual sense teaches that to “eat theflesh and drink the blood of the sacrifice which the Lord Jehovihwill offer upon the mountains of Israel” signifies to appropriate toone’s self Divine good and Divine truth from the Word; for thesubject treated of is the calling together of all to the Lord’skingdom, and, specifically, the setting up anew of the church bythe Lord among the nations. Who cannot see that by “flesh” is nothere meant flesh, nor blood by “blood”? As that people shoulddrink blood to drunkenness, and that they should be sated with