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PSALM 12

To Him that presides on the Sheminith, a Psalm of David.

1. Save, jehovah, for the godly is come to an end: for the faithful have disappeared from among the sons of man.
2. They speak vanity, a man with his neighbour: with a smooth lip, with a double heart, do they speak.
3. jehovah will cut off all smooth lips, the tongue that speaks great things;
4. Those who say, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
5. Because of the oppression of the poor, because of the groaning of the needy, now will I arise, says jehovah: I will place in safety him whom they treat with scorn.
6. The sayings of jehovah are pure sayings, as silver refined in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7. You, jehovah, will keep them, you will preserve us, from this generation for ever.
8. The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest of the sons of man are exalted.

Verse 2. They speak vanity, a man with his neighbour; with a smooth lip, etc. That lips denote doctrine is manifest from the following passages in the Word; as in Isaiah: "One cried to another, and said, holy, holy, holy, is jehovah of hosts. Then I said, Woe to me, I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the king, jehovah of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having a live coal in his hand;—and he laid it on my mouth, and said, Lo, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged;" (Is 6:3, 5, 6, 7) where the lips denote the interiors of man, thus internal worship, from which proceeds adoration; which was here represented in the person of the prophet. Every one may see that the touching of his lips, and the removal of his iniquity thereby, and the purging of his sin, was a representation of the interiors, which are signified by lips, and which are things belonging to charity and its doctrine. Again, in the same prophet: "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked;" (Is 11:4) in the internal sense it is not here meant that Jehovah smites with the rod of his mouth, and slays the wicked with the breath of his lips, but that the wicked do this to themselves: the breath of the lips is doctrine, which, with the wicked, is false. So, in David: "Who say, with our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own;" Psalm 12:4; where the lips denote falsities; again: "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips." Psalm 63:5. AC 1287.

Verse 6, The sayings of jehovah are pure sayings; as silver refined in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. All numbers, in the Word, like all names, signify spiritual things; and since the number seven is often mentioned amongst the rest, therefore, I would here show that seven signifies all, and all things: likewise, what is full and total; for whatever signifies all, and all things, signifies also what is full and total; for what is full and total is predicated of the magnitude of a thing, and all, and all things, are predicated of the multitude. That seven has these significations, may be manifest from the following passages: "They that dwell in the cities of Israel—shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves and the spears; and shall burn them with fire seven years. And they shall bury Gog and all his multitude,— seven months"—that they may cleanse the land." Ezekiel 39:9, 11, 12. The subject here treated of, is concerning the desolation of all things in the church: they that dwell in the cities of Israel signify all the goods of truth; to set on fire signifies to consume by evils; the weapons, shields, bucklers, bows, arrows, hand-staves, and spears, denote all things which relate to doctrine; to burn them with fire seven years, denotes to consume all, and fully, by evils; Gog signifies those who are in external worship, and in no internal; to bury them, and to cleanse the land, is to destroy them all, and to purge the church fully from them. In like manner, in the first book of Samuel: "The hungry ceased; so that the barren has borne seven, and she that has many children is waxed feeble;" 1 Sam 2:5; where the hungry who have ceased, denote those who desire the truths and goods of the church; the barren that has borne seven, signifies those who are out of the church, and do not know truths, because they have not the Word, thus the Gentiles, to whom all things will be given: she that has many children waxing feeble, signifies those who have the truths of the Word, from whom they will be taken away. So in David: "Seven times in a day do I praise you because of your righteous judgements;" Psalm 119:164; where seven times in a day denotes always, or at all times. Again; "The sayings of jehovah are pure sayings, as silver refined in a furnace of earth, purified seven times;" Psalm 12:6; where silver signifies truth from the Divine Being or Principle; purified seven times, signifies altogether and fully pure. Again, in Isaiah: "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven days;" Is 30:26; where the light of the sun signifies Divine Truth from the Divine Good; that that light, shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven days, signifies that Divine Truth in heaven shall be without any false principle, thus altogether and fully pure. AE 257.

The Translator's Notes and Observations

Verse 1. Save, jehovah, for the godly is come to an end; for the faithful have disappeared from among the sons of man. The intelligent reader will not fail here to note, the two distinct classes of men marked by the godly and the faithful; and how by the former are to be understood all those who are more under the influence of heavenly good, or charity, in the will, whilst by the latter are to be understood those who are more influenced by truth, or faith, in the understanding.

Verse 7. You, jehovah, will keep them, you will preserve us, from this generation for ever. What intelligent eye cannot discern, that the acts of keeping and of preserving, when predicated of jehovah, or the Lord, must of necessity involve distinct ideas, and that the distinctness of those ideas cannot be satisfactorily explained, except on the ground of the marriage, in the lord, of the two distinct principles, the divine love and divine wisdom; by virtue of which marriage, keeping is ascribed to the divine love, and preserving to the divine wisdom? We have here, then, a striking proof of that divine marriage, which forms so prominent a feature in the divine testimony, by which the book of Revelation is so eminently distinguished from all other books.