2. Someone who thinks in this way, however, does not reflect that Jehovah Himself, the God of heaven and earth, spoke the Word through Moses and the prophets, and that it must therefore be Divine truth itself. For whatever Jehovah Himself utters is such truth. Nor does that person reflect that the Lord, who is the same as Jehovah, spoke the Word reported by the Gospel writers, much of it in person, and the rest by the breath of His mouth, which is the Holy Spirit. Consequently what He Himself says is, in His own words, life, and He is the light that enlightens, and truth personified.

[2] That Jehovah Himself spoke the Word through the prophets is something we showed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord 52-53.

That the words the Lord Himself spoke, as reported by the Gospel writers, are life, is something He said in John:

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)

Again in John, Jesus said to the woman at Jacob’s spring:

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink, ” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.... Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:6, 10, 14)

Jacob’s spring symbolizes the Word, as in Deuteronomy 33:28 as well. That, too, is why the Lord sat there and spoke with the woman. And the water symbolizes the Word’s truth.

[3] Again in John:

...Jesus...(said), “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38)

And again:

...Peter (said to Jesus), “...You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Therefore the Lord says in Mark:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. (Mark 13:31)

The Lord’s words are life because He is the life and the truth, as He tells us in John:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)

And again in John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.... In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1, 4)

The Word there means the Lord in relation to Divine truth, in which alone there is life and light.

[4] It is on this account that the Word, being from the Lord and embodying the Lord, is called “a fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:13, 17:13), “a fountain of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3), “a fountain” (Zechariah 13:1). Also “a river of the water of life” (Revelation 22:1). And we are told that “the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters” (Revelation 7:17).

There are in addition many other places where the Word is called the sanctuary and the tabernacle in which the Lord dwells with mankind.

103. The existence of a Word among ancient peoples is clear also in the writings of Moses, who refers to it and quotes something from it in Numbers 21:14-15, 27-30; 21:14-15, 27-30. And the narrative portions of that Word were called The Wars of Jehovah, and the prophetic portions Oracles.

From the narrative portions of that Word Moses quoted the following:

Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of Jehovah: “Waheb in Suphah, and the streams, the Arnon, and the channel of the streams which went down to the dwelling place of Ar and stops at the border of Moab.” (Numbers 21:14-15)

The wars of Jehovah in that book — as in ours — meant and described the Lord’s combats with hell and His victories over it, which would take place when He came into the world. These same combats are also meant and described in many places in the narrative portions of our Word — such as by the wars of Joshua with the nations of the land of Canaan, and by the wars of the judges and kings of Israel.

[2] From the prophetic portions of the Ancient Word Moses quoted the following:

Therefore the Oracles say: “Go into Heshbon; the city of Sihon will be built and established. For a fire has gone out from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon; it consumed Ar of Moab, the possessors of the heights of the Arnon. Woe to you, Moab! You have perished, O people of Chemosh! He has made his sons fugitives, and given his daughters into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites. We finished them with arrows; Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon. And we laid them waste as far as Nophah, which [reaches] even to Medeba.” (Numbers 21:27-30)

Translators render the source as “those who speak in proverbs, ” but they ought to be called Oracles or Prophetic Utterances, as can be seen from the meaning of the word moshalim in the original Hebrew, which means not only proverbs but also prophetic utterances — as in Numbers 23:7, 18, 24:3, 15. In each of these verses Balaam is said to have uttered his oracle, which was a prophetic one (prophetic, in fact, of the Lord). His oracle each time is called mashal, in the singular. Moreover, the words quoted by Moses in these verses are not proverbs, but prophecies.

[3] That the Ancient Word was likewise Divine or Divinely inspired is apparent in Jeremiah, where almost the same words occur, namely:

...a fire has gone out from Heshbon, and a flame from the midst of Sihon, which consumed the corner of Moab and the crown of the head of the sons of tumult. Woe to you, Moab! The people of Chemosh have perished! For your sons have been taken off into captivity, and your daughters into captivity. (Jeremiah 48:45-46)

In addition to these references, a prophetic book of the Ancient Word, called the Book of Jashar or Book of the Upright, is also cited by David and Joshua. By David:

David lamented...over Saul and over Jonathan..., and he wrote to teach the children of Judah [the Song of] the Bow; is it not written in the Book of Jasher? (2 Samuel 1:17-18)

And by Joshua:

...Joshua...said...: “Sun, stand still in Gibeon; and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon." ...Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? (Joshua 10:12-13)

Moreover, I have been told that the first seven chapters of Genesis are found in the same Ancient Word, so completely that not the least word is missing.

15. To show that the prophetic portion of the Word in the Old Testament is in many places not understood apart from the spiritual sense, I would like to cite only some of those places. As for example the following in Isaiah:

Then Jehovah...will stir up a scourge (against Asshur), like the smiting of Midian at the rock of Oreb, and as His rod upon the sea which He wielded on the road from Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day that his burden will fall from upon your shoulder, and his yoke from upon your neck.... He will come against Aiath, He will pass over into Migron. Against Michmash he will command his weaponry; they will pass through Mebara. Gibeah will be our lodging place. Ramah will tremble; Saul’s Gibeah will flee. Wail loudly, daughter of Gallim! Hearken, Laish! Take pity, Anathoth! Madmenah will be a wanderer, the inhabitants of Gebim will huddle together. Is there yet time in Nob to make a stand? The mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem, will shake her fist. ...Jehovah...will cut away the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by His majesty. (Isaiah 10:24-34)

Here we find merely names, nothing of which can be comprehended without the aid of the spiritual sense, in which names occurring in the Word all symbolize things having to do with heaven and the church. One puts together from this sense that the words symbolically mean that the entire church has been ruined by empirical knowledge used to pervert every truth and confirm falsity.

[2] Elsewhere in Isaiah:

(In that day) the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the enemies of Judah be cut off; Ephraim shall not vie with Judah, and Judah shall not trouble Ephraim. But they shall fly upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west; together they shall plunder the people of the east; they shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab.... Jehovah will utter a curse against the tongue of the Egyptian sea; He will shake His fist over the river with the force of His spirit, and strike it into seven streams, so as to enable people to cross over dry-shod. Then there will be a highway for the remnant of its people which will be left from Assyria.... (Isaiah 11:13-16)

Here, too, no one is going to see anything Divine without knowing what each of the names in this passage means, even though the subject is the Lord’s advent and what will take place then, as is clearly apparent from verses 1-10 in that same chapter.

Without the aid of the spiritual sense, who then is going to see that the predictions in succession symbolically mean that people who are caught up in falsities out of ignorance, and have not permitted themselves to be led astray by evils, will turn to the Lord; that the church will understand the Word then; and that falsities will then no longer do them harm?

[3] The case is the same in places without names. As for example in Ezekiel:...thus said the Lord Jehovih, “(Son of man, ) speak to every sort of bird and to every beast of the field: ‘Assemble yourselves and come, gather together from all around to My sacrificial meal which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrificial meal upon the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.... You shall eat fat till you are full, and drink blood till you are drunk, at My sacrificial meal which I am sacrificing for you. You shall be filled at My table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war....’ ” Thus will I set My glory among the nations. (Ezekiel 39:17-21)

Whoever does not know from the spiritual sense the symbolic meanings of a sacrificial meal, of flesh and blood, of horses, chariots, mighty men and men of war, will know no other than that people are to eat and drink such things. But the spiritual sense tells us that eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the sacrificial meal which the Lord Jehovih will provide on the mountains of Israel means, symbolically, an assimilation into oneself of Divine goodness and Divine truth from the Word. For the subject there is a summoning of all people to the Lord’s kingdom, and in particular the Lord’s establishing the church among gentiles.

Who cannot see that flesh there does not mean flesh, and that blood there does not mean blood? As though people should drink blood till they are drunk, and be filled with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war.

The case is the same in a thousand other places in the Prophets.