Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/204

108 ''a great sacrifice 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 the earth;. . . ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye he drunken, of My sacrifice which I am sacrificed for you. Ye shall he filled at My table with the horse and the chariot, with the mighty man, and with every man of war. . . . And I will set My glory among the heathen"'' (xxxix. 17-21). He who does not know from the spiritual sense what is signified by sacrifice, what by flesh and blood, what by the horse and the chariot, the mighty man, and the man of war, will understand no otherwise than that such things are to be eaten and drunken; but the spiritual sense teaches that to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the sacrifice which the Lord Jehovah shall offer upon the mountains of Israel, signifies to appropriate Divine Good and Divine Truth from the Word. For the subject referred to is the calling together of all to the Lord's kingdom; and in particular the establishment of the church by the Lord among the Gentiles. Who cannot see that flesh is not here meant by flesh, nor blood by blood?—so that men should drink blood till they are drunken, and that they should be filled with the horse, the chariot, the mighty man, and every man of war? So in a thousand other places in the Prophets.

Without the spiritual sense no one could know why the Prophet Jeremiah was commanded to buy himself a girdle, and put it on his loins; and not to draw it through the waters, but to hide it in the hole of a rock by the Euphrates (Jer. xiii. 1-7); or why the Prophet Isaiah was commanded to loose the sackcloth from off his loins, and to put off the shoe from off his foot, and go naked and barefoot three years (Isaiah xx. 2, 3); or why the Prophet Ezekiel was commanded to pass a razor upon his head, and upon his beard, and afterwards to divide [the hairs of] them, and burn a third part in the midst of the city, smite a third part with the sword, scatter a third part in the wind, and bind a little of them in his skirts, and at last to cast them into the midst of the fire (Ezek. v. 1-4); or why the same prophet was commanded to lie upon his left side three hundred and ninety days, and upon his right side forty days; and to make himself a cake of wheat, and barley, and millet, and fitches, with cows' dung, and eat it; and in the meantime to raise a rampart and a mound against Jerusalem, and besiege it (Ezek. iv. 1-15); or why the Prophet Hosea was twice commanded to take to himself a harlot to wife (Hosea i. 2-9; iii. 2, 3), and many such things. Moreover, who without the spiritual sense would know what is signified by all things belonging to the tabernacle,—by the ark, the mercy seat, the cherubim, the candlestick, the altar of incense, the bread of faces on the table, and its veils and curtains? Or who,