6989. 'Or the deaf' means lack of discernment of truth and consequently lack of obedience. This is clear from the meaning of 'the deaf' as those who do not discern what truth is and consequently do not obey it, thus in an abstract sense a lack of discernment of truth and consequently a lack of obedience. 'The deaf' means these things because the sense of hearing corresponds both to discernment and to obedience - to discernment because what a person hears is discerned by him inwardly, and to obedience because from that discernment he knows how he ought to act. For the fact that this is the correspondence of 'hearing' and also 'the ear', see 3869, 4652-4660, 5017. From this one may see what is meant by those who are 'deaf'. In the Word those who are 'deaf' also mean gentiles who, because they do not have the Word, do not know the truths of faith and therefore cannot lead lives in accordance with them, yet when they have been taught them, accept them and lead lives in accordance with them. These are meant in Isaiah,
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be opened. Isaiah 35:5.
In the same prophet,
Hear, you deaf, and look and see, you blind. Isaiah 42:18-20.
In the same prophet,
On that day the deaf will hear the words of a book, and out of thick darkness and out of darkness the eyes of the blind will see. Isaiah 29:18.
In the same prophet,
Bring forth the blind people who have eyes, and the deaf who have ears. Isaiah 43:8-9.
Here 'the deaf' is used to mean those who through the Lord's Coming were to come into a state in which they accepted the truths of faith, that is, discerned them and obeyed them. The same people are meant by the deaf whom the Lord healed, spoken of in Mark 7:31-end; 9:25. Because the deaf meant that kind of people those among whom the representative Church had been established were forbidden to curse the deaf or put a stumbling-block before the blind, Leviticus 19:14.
