Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3997and therefore it is the same whether we say the good of truth, or thechurch, for with the man with whom is the good of truth, there isthe church (that “Jacob” is the church may be seen above, n. 4286,4520; and hence also that his sons represent the truths of thechurch, n. 5403, 5419, 5427, 5458, 5512); and from thesignification of “bereaving” as being to deprive the church of itstruths and goods, as here of those which are represented by Joseph,Benjamin, and Simeon (of which in what follows).[2] That “to bereave” denotes to deprive the church of its truthsis because the church is compared to a marriage, its good to thehusband, and its truth to the wife, and the truths born of thismarriage to sons, and the goods to daughters, and so on. Whentherefore “bereavement,” or “bereaving” is spoken of, it signifiesthat the church is deprived of its truths, and that thereby itbecomes no church. In this sense the terms “bereavement,” or“bereaving,” are occasionally used elsewhere in the Word, as inEzekiel:I will send upon you famine and evil beast, and will make theebereaved (Ezek. 5:17).When I make the evil beast to pass through the land, and it shallbereave it, so that it become a desolation, that no man may pass throughbecause of the wild beast (Ezek. 14:15).In Leviticus:I will send against you the wild beast of the field, which shallbereave you, and cut off your beast, and lessen you, that your ways shallbe laid waste (Lev. 26:22).[3] In these passages “famine” denotes a lack of the knowledges ofgood and truth, and hence desolation; an “evil beast,” falsities fromevils; the “land,” the church; “sending a famine and an evil beast tobereave the land” denotes to destroy the church by falsities fromevils, thus to completely deprive it of truths. In Jeremiah: