聖書

 

Revelation 6 : The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

勉強

1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

解説

 

The Meaning of the Book of Revelation: the Four Horsemen

作者: Jonathan S. Rose, Curtis Childs

Transparency is needed to sort things out. Before big change happens, God first reveals what’s really going on.

In the Book of Revelation - the last book of the Word - the apostle John describes a series of apocalyptic visions that he experienced during his exile on the Isle of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea.

In one of these visions, he saw four horsemen, the first riding a white horse, the second a red horse, the third a black, and the fourth - named Death - riding a pale horse. These "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - oft-pictured - are described in Revelation 6:1-8.

What do these horses, and their riders, represent? What do they have to do with us, today? Watch as Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose explore the hidden Bible meaning of the Four Horsemen in the Book of Revelation, in this video from the Swedenborg and Life Series, from the Swedenborg Foundation.

Plus, to go straight to the source, follow the links below to the places in "Apocalypse Revealed" where Swedenborg explained the inner meaning of this famous Bible story. A good place to start would be Apocalypse Revealed 298.

(参照: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)

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This video is a product of the Swedenborg Foundation. Follow these links for further information and other videos: www.youtube.com/user/offTheLeftEye and www.swedenborg.com

スウェーデンボルグの著作から

 

Arcana Coelestia#2520

この節の研究

  
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2520. 'And he said, Lord, will You kill even a righteous nation?' means, Would the good and truth of doctrine be done away with? This is clear from the meaning of 'nation' as good, dealt with in 1259, 1260, 1416. And because the words 'a righteous nation' refer to 'the nation of Abimelech', who means the doctrine of faith, they are used here to mean both good and truth, since both are the subject matter of doctrine.

[2] The fact that these words were uttered from a zeal that went with an affection or love towards the whole human race may be evident to anyone. Such love was directing the Lord's thoughts even when He had not yet put off the human from the mother. And although He perceived from the Divine that the doctrine of faith had a wholly celestial origin, nevertheless in order that the needs of the human race, which does not receive anything of which it cannot form some idea from its own rational thought, might be met, it is therefore said, 'Will You kill even a righteous nation?' meaning, Would the good and truth of doctrine be done away with? The fact that a person does not receive anything of which he cannot form some idea from his rational thought may be seen from the ideas which a person entertains regarding Divine arcana. The latter always have some idea attached to them that is derived from worldly objects or things analogous to worldly objects by which they are retained in the memory and reproduced in thought. For without ideas derived from worldly objects a person is unable to engage in thought. If therefore truths from a Divine origin were presented naked they would never be accepted because they would go far beyond his range of understanding, and so beyond his faith as well, most of all in the case of those whose worship is external.

[3] Let the following examples illustrate this: The Divine itself cannot reside in anything except that which is Divine, and so only in the Lord's Divine Human, and with man through His Human. If the rational were consulted it would say that the Divine itself can reside in the human of anyone. Again nothing holy exists which does not proceed from the Lord, and so from the Divine, which is one. If the rational were consulted it would say that what is holy may also spring from other sources.

[4] Again, man does not live from himself, do good from himself, believe the truth from himself, or indeed think from himself. The good and truth that he does or believes come from the Lord, but the evil and falsity come from hell. And what is more, hell - that is, those who are in hell - do not think from themselves but, in the same way as man, are recipients of the Lord's good and truth. If the rational were consulted it would reject all those ideas because it would not comprehend them. It would also reject the idea that nobody is rewarded on account of the good he does and of the truth he teaches. And it would reject the idea that what is external does not accomplish anything, only what is internal, insofar as the affection for good is present in the doing of good, and insofar as from this the affection for truth is present in the teaching of truth, and insofar as the things are not done from oneself. So also with a thousand other examples that could be given.

[5] Such being the nature of the human rational, the Word therefore uses expressions that accord with man's capacity to understand, and also with his inherent disposition. And this explains why the internal sense of the Word is different from its literal sense. This becomes quite clear from the Old Testament Word where most things are stated in ways that accord with the capacity to understand and the inherent disposition of the people who lived in those times. As a consequence little, indeed scarcely anything, is mentioned there about the life after death, about eternal salvation, and about the internal man. Indeed the character of the Jewish and Israelitish people with whom the Church existed at that time was such that if these matters had been disclosed to them they would not only have failed to understand them but would also have ridiculed them. If similarly it had been disclosed to them that the Messiah or Christ was going to come and save their souls for ever, this too they would have rejected as something of no importance, as also becomes clear from the same nation today. And it is so still that if what is internal or spiritual is mentioned in their presence, and the fact that the Messiah is not going to be a very great earthly king, they laugh at it.

[6] This was the reason why the Lord sometimes spoke in the way the Prophets had spoken and expressed all else by means of parables, as He Himself states in Matthew,

Jesus said, I speak to them in parables, because those who see do not see, and those who hear do not hear, nor do they understand. Matthew 13:13.

'Those who see' and 'those who hear' are those inside the Church who, though they see and hear, nevertheless do not understand. And in John,

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and are converted and I heal them. John 12:40.

Their being 'converted' and being 'healed' implies that even so they would subsequently reject and in so doing profane, which entails eternal condemnation, see 301-303, 582, 1008, 1010, 1059, 1327, 1328, 2051, 2426. Nevertheless the Lord in many places disclosed the interior things of the Word, but solely for the benefit of the wise.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.