Apocalypse Explained, Vol. 3

CHAPTER VII, VERSE I — NO. 417[6]

"off of the corner," "the cut off of the corner" meaning the outmosts The final boundaries or most external parts of a thing where its inner essence stops where there is no longer any good or truth. That evils and falsities will then break in on every side is signified by "from all the passages thereof I will bring destruction;" for in the spiritual world where the evil are, on every side ways from the hells lie open, and evils and their falsities break in through these; and all who are in like evils and falsities pass through these ways and consociate themselves with the evil there. This has been said to make known what is signified by "from all the passages I will bring destruction." "To be for booty and for a spoil," and "to scatter and to bring destruction" signify devastation.

[8.] In the same,

"Behold, the days come .... in which I will visit upon every one that is circumcised in the foreskin; Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Ammon, and Moab, and all the cut off of the corner that dwell in the desert; for all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart" (Jeremiah 9:25, 26).

Here "the cut off of the corner" signify those who are in the outmosts of the church separate from interiors, which are spiritual, thus those who are only in things sensual Referring to the lowest level of thought, which relies entirely on the physical senses and ignores spiritual reality, which are the outmosts of the natural man The part of the human mind that is focused on worldly life and physical nature. (Respecting those who are merely sensual, who and what they are, see the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine original: "Doctrine of the New Jerusalem", n. 50.) These are signified by "the cut off of the corner," because "corners" signify the quarters The four directions (East, West, North, South) which correspond to different states of love and wisdom in the afterlife of the spiritual world, and the quarters of the spiritual world signify all the goods and truths of heaven and the church, as has been said previously.

The habitations of spirits and angels in that world succeed in such an order that those who are in the highest wisdom and intelligence are in the midst, and from the midst even to the outmost circumferences those in less and less degree; and these diminutions are in exact accord with the distances from the midst; in the outmosts are those who are in no wisdom or intelligence, and outside of these are those who are in evils and in falsities therefrom. These are the ones meant by "the cut off of the corner;" and as these are desert places, they are said "to dwell in the desert." (On these diminutions in the spiritual world, see Heaven and Hell, n. 43, 50, 189.) "The uncircumcised nations" and "the house of Israel uncircumcised in heart" have the same signification, "the uncircumcised" signifying those who are without love or charity, thus without good, and therefore in the loves of self and of the world; and those who are in these loves are in the outmosts of the natural man, wholly separate from things spiritual; therefore they are "the cut off of the corner that dwell in the desert." "Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, and Moab," mean all who, through these loves, have separated from them-