Jeremiah 6:23 Meaning They Take Hold of Bow and Spear

The advancing army is the massed force of the lower passions marching against the higher self. The daughter of Zion is the tender inner sanctuary in a person, the delicate awareness born of the sacred height, and it stands exposed before drives that know no mercy. Bow and spear are the mind's weapons of reach and thrust, aimed to pierce the stillness within.

Their voice roaring like the sea is the tumult of unmastered emotion, the deep of feeling churned to noise. The horses they ride are the raw animal energies of the body, harnessed and driven in ordered ranks toward war. What reads as an invasion of a city is the ordinary self, the reflective quiet at the center, besieged by its own cruel appetites gathered into a single hostile array.

Bow and spear: the mind's weapons of long reach and sharp thrust, aimed to pierce the inner stillness The sea: the deep of the emotions, churned into a roaring tumult of unmastered feeling Horses: the raw animal energies of the body, harnessed and driven into ordered ranks The daughter of Zion: the tender inner sanctuary, the delicate awareness born of the sacred height