The Lord, according to Swedenborg, is love itself, and his love for us never wavers and never changes. What does waver and change is the degree to which we accept and respond to the Lord’s love. So the Lord does not curse us; we curse ourselves by turning away from him.
So when the Bible talks of a “curse” or something being “cursed,” it is talking about people turning away from the Lord and creating a separation.
Among the most famous curses is that pronounced on the serpent after it beguiled Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden. The serpent represents our tendency to rely on our own senses for knowledge instead of the Lord. That tendency caused the people of the Lord’s first, most innocent church to turn away from his guidance, cursing themselves.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1423
- ‘And curse him who curses you’ means unhappiness to those who do not acknowledge Him. This is clear from the meaning of ‘being cursed’ and of ‘cursing’ as turning away from the Lord, as shown already in 245, 379, and therefore as not acknowledging Him; for those who do not acknowledge turn themselves away. Thus ‘cursing’ here implies all those things that are the contrary of what blessing implies.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 245
- ‘He said to the serpent, Cursed are you, more than every beast and more than every wild animal of the field’ means that the sensory part turned away from the heavenly and towards the bodily, and in so doing brought condemnation, that is, acurse, upon itself. This becomes quite clear from the internal sense of the Word. Jehovah God or the Lord never curses anyone, is never angry with anyone, never leads anyone into temptation, and never punishes, let alone curses anybody. It is the devil’s crew who do such things. Such things cannot possibly come from the fountain of mercy, peace, and goodness. The reason why here and elsewhere in the Word it is said that Jehovah God not only turns His face away, is angry, punishes, and tempts, but also slays and even curses, is that people may believe that the Lord rules over and disposes every single thing in the whole world, including evil itself, punishments, and temptations. And after people have grasped this very general concept, they may then learn in what ways He rules and disposes, and how He converts into good the evil inherent in punishment and the evil inherent in temptation. In teaching and learning the Word very general concepts have to come first; and therefore the sense of the letter is full of such general concepts.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1093
- That ‘cursed be Canaan’ means that external worship separated from internal turned itself away from the Lord is clear from the meaning of ‘Canaan’ and from the meaning of ‘being cursed’. That ‘Canaan’ is external worship separated from internal is clear from what has been stated already about Canaan, also from his being called ‘cursed’; and from what follows about his being ‘a slave of slaves’. And being a slave both to Shem and to Japheth cannot mean anything other than something separated from the Church itself, such as worship that is wholly external. This is clear from the meaning of ‘being cursed’ as turning oneself away, for the Lord in no way curses anybody, or is even angry. Instead it is man who brings the curse upon himself by turning himself away from the Lord. On these points see what has been shown already in 223, 245, 592. The Lord is as far from cursing or being angry with anyone as the sky is from the earth. Who can believe that the Lord, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, who with wisdom rules the universe, and so who is infinitely superior to all [human] weaknesses, is angry with such pitifully worthless dust, that is, with human beings who scarcely know anything of what they do and who of themselves are incapable of anything other than evil? With the Lord therefore anger is never present, only mercy.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 267
- Verse 17 And to the man He said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it, cursed be the ground on account of you; in great pain you will eat of it all the days of your life.
‘The man’s having listened to the voice of his wife’ means that the husband (vir), which was the rational, conceded; and because the rational did concede it also turned away, that is, brought a curse upon itself, and so consequently did the whole external man. This is what is meant by the statement ‘cursed be the ground on account of you’. That in future his state of life would be wretched is meant by the statement ‘in great pain you will eat from it’. ‘All the days of his life’ means right down to the end of that Church.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1093
- That ‘cursed be Canaan’ means that external worship separated from internal turned itself away from the Lord is clear from the meaning of ‘Canaan’ and from the meaning of ‘being cursed’. That ‘Canaan’ is external worship separated from internal is clear from what has been stated already about Canaan, also from his being called ‘cursed’; and from what follows about his being ‘a slave of slaves’. And being a slave both to Shem and to Japheth cannot mean anything other than something separated from the Church itself, such as worship that is wholly external. This is clear from the meaning of ‘being cursed’ as turning oneself away, for the Lord in no way curses anybody, or is even angry. Instead it is man who brings the curse upon himself by turning himself away from the Lord. On these points see what has been shown already in 223, 245, 592. The Lord is as far from cursing or being angry with anyone as the sky is from the earth. Who can believe that the Lord, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, who with wisdom rules the universe, and so who is infinitely superior to all [human] weaknesses, is angry with such pitifully worthless dust, that is, with human beings who scarcely know anything of what they do and who of themselves are incapable of anything other than evil? With the Lord therefore anger is never present, only mercy.
[2] That arcana are contained here can be seen merely from the consideration that even though it was Ham who saw his father’s nakedness and pointed it out to his brothers, he was not cursed but his son Canaan, who was not his only son nor even the firstborn but the fourth in line, as is clear from Chapter 10:6 later on, where the sons of Ham are mentioned as being Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. It can in addition be seen from the Divine Law that no son was to bear his father’s iniquity, as is clear in Ezekiel,
The soul that has sinned will die. The son will not bear the iniquity of the father, nor will the father bear the iniquity of the son. Ezek. 18:20; Deut. 14:16; 2 Kings 14:6.
And the same can also be seen from the consideration that this iniquity of merely seeing his father’s nakedness and pointing it out to his brothers seems too slight for all of his descendants ever to have been cursed on that account. From these considerations it is clear that arcana are contained here.
[3] The reason Ham is not mentioned here but Canaan is that Ham means faith separated from charity in the spiritual Church, which cannot be cursed because in that Church faith has holiness present within it because truth is present there. And although there is no faith when there is no charity, it is still possible – since it is by means of the cognitions of faith that a person is regenerated – for separated faith to be allied to charity, and in this way to be in some sense ‘a brother’ or may become one. This was why Canaan was cursed and not Ham. Furthermore the inhabitants of the land of Canaan were for the most part people such as made all worship consist in external things, the Jews there as much as the gentiles. These are the arcana contained here, but for which Canaan would never have been substituted for Ham. That external worship separated from internal turns itself away and so brings a curse on itself is quite clear from the fact that people whose worship is external have no regard for anything other than worldly, bodily, and earthly things. Thus they look downwards, and immerse their minds (animus) and life in those things; such will be dealt with a little further on.
AC 3584 (Elliott).
‘Cursed be those cursing you’ means that the person who separates himself will be separated, while ‘blessed be those blessing you’ means that the person who joins himself will be joined. This is clear from the meaning of ‘being cursed’ as being separated from, and of ‘being blessed’ as being joined to, dealt with in 3504, 3514, 3530, 3565. These expressions have reference to truths – ‘those cursing’ meaning falsities, which sever themselves from truths, and ‘those blessing’ meaning truths, which link themselves to all other truths.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 5071
5071. The reason why the expression ‘cursed’ is used of those on the left and why their punishment is called ‘eternal fire’ in the following statements -‘Then He will also say to those on the left, Depart from Me, O cursed ones, into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’ and ‘these will go away into eternal punishment’ – is that they have turned away from good and truth and have turned towards evil and falsity. ‘Cursing’ in the internal sense of the Word means a turning away, 245, 379, 1427, 3570, 3584. The eternal fire into which they were to depart is not material fire, nor is it a tormented conscience, but a craving for evil. For cravings like this in a person are spiritual fires which consume him during the life of the body and torment him in the next life. Because of these fires burning within them, the inhabitants of hell use dreadful methods to torture one another.