Swedenborg Works Vol. 11

Behold, for your iniquities were ye sold, and for your transgressions was your mother put away (l. 1)—where "mother" stands for the church and "selling" for alienating. In Ezekiel: The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, though their life be yet among the living (vii. 12, 13). This is said of the land of Israel, which is the spiritual church, the seller standing for him who had alienated truths and brought in falsities.
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In Joel: The children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the sons of the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their borders. Behold, I will stir them up out of the place whither ye have sold them . . . and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off (iii. 6-8)—speaking of Tyre and Sidon, and selling standing for alienating. In Moses: Their Rock hath sold them, and Jehovah hath shut them up (Deut. xxxii. 30)—where selling is plainly alienating; "rock" in the supreme sense is the Lord as to truth—and in a representative sense faith; "Jehovah" is the Lord as to good.
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Inasmuch as buying is procuring for one’s self and selling is alienating, in the spiritual sense, therefore the kingdom of the heavens is compared by the Lord to one who sells and buys, in Matthew: The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it (xiii. 44-46). The kingdom of the heavens stands for the good and the truth with man, thus for heaven with him; "field" stands for good, and "pearl" for truth; "buying," for procuring and appropriating these to himself; "selling all that he hath," for alienating his own which he had before, thus evils and falsities, for these are of one’s own.