1862. That passed between those pieces. That this signifies that it separated those who were of the church from the Lord, may be seen from what was said above (at verse 10) concerning the partition of the animals in the midst, as signifying a parallelism and correspondence in respect to celestial things; and that one part being placed opposite the other signified the church and the Lord; and that the intermediate space or interspace signified that which comes in between the Lord and the church, or between the Lord and the man of the church, which is conscience, in which goods and truths have been implanted by means of charity. When hatreds succeed in place of charity, and evils and falsities in place of goods and truths, there is then no conscience of what is good and true; but this middle space or interspace appears to be filled with a furnace of smoke and with torches of fire, that is, with persuasions of falsity and with hatreds, which are what altogether separate the Lord from the church. [2] These are the things signified by the passing between the pieces; chiefly that of the torch of fire, for this is the love of self, or what is the same, the evil of hatred. This may also be seen in Jeremiah, where we find nearly the same words:
I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not established the words of the covenant which they made before Me, the calf which they cut in twain and passed between the parts thereof; the princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, that passed between the parts of the calf; I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their souls; and their carcass shall be for food to the fowl of the heavens and to the beast of the earth (Jer. 34:14, 18-20).
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