THE NINTH & TENTH COMMANDMENT
Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The ninth commandment,
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house," is now to be treated
of. There are two loves from which all lusts spring and flow forth
perpetually like streams from their fountains. These loves are
called the love of the world and the love of self. Lust is love
continually willing, for what a man loves, that he continually longs
for. But lusts belong to the love of evil, while desires and
affections belong to the love of good. Now because the love of the
world and the love of self are the foundations of all lusts, and all
evil lusts are forbidden in these last two commandments, it follows
that the ninth commandment forbids the lusts that flow from the love
of the world, and the tenth commandment the lusts that flow from the
love of self. "Not to covet a neighbor's house" means not to covet
his goods, which in general are possessions and wealth, and not to
appropriate them to oneself by evil arts. This lust belongs to the
love of the world.
"Thou shalt not covet (or desire) thy
neighbor's wife, his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his
ass." These are lusts after what is man's own, because the wife,
manservant, maidservant, ox, and ass, are within his house, and the
things within a man's house mean in the spiritual internal sense the
things that are his own, that is, the wife means the affection of
spiritual truth and good, "manservant and maidservant," the
affection of rational truth and good serving the spiritual, and "ox
and ass" the affection of natural good and truth. These signify in
the Word such affections; but because coveting and desiring these
affections means to will and eagerly desire to subject a man to
one's own authority or bidding, it follows that lusting after these
affections means the lusts of the love of self, that is, of the love
of ruling, for thus does one make the things belonging to a
companion to be his own.
From this it can now
be seen that the lust of the ninth commandment is the lust of the
love of the world, and that the lusts of this commandment are lusts
of the love of self. For, as has been said before, all lusts are of
love, for it is love that covets; and as there are two evil loves to
which all lusts have reference, namely, the love of the world and
the love of self, it follows that the lust of the ninth commandment
has reference to the love of the world, and the lust of this
commandment to the love of self, especially to the love of ruling.
(That all evils and the falsities therefrom flow from these two
loves may be seen above, n. 159, 171, 394, 506, 517, 650, 950, 951,
973, 982, 1010, 1016; and in the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly
Doctrine, n. 65-83.)
Apocalypse Explained
1021 - 1022
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