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Deuteronomy 11

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1 Therefore thou shalt love Jehovah thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his ordinances, and his commandments, alway.

2 And know ye this day: for [I speak] not with your children that have not known, and that have not seen the chastisement of Jehovah your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm,

3 and his signs, and his works, which he did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land;

4 and what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red Sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how Jehovah hath destroyed them unto this day;

5 and what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came unto this place;

6 and what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben; how the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel:

7 but your eyes have seen all the great work of Jehovah which he did.

8 Therefore shall ye keep all the commandment which I command thee this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go over to possess it;

9 and that ye may prolong your days in the land, which Jehovah sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey.

10 For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs;

11 but the land, whither ye go over to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, [and] drinketh water of the rain of heaven,

12 a land which Jehovah thy God careth for: the eyes of Jehovah thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love Jehovah your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

14 that I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy grain, and thy new wine, and thine oil.

15 And I will give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, and thou shalt eat and be full.

16 Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;

17 and the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he shut up the heavens, so that there shall be no rain, and the land shall not yield its fruit; and ye perish quickly from off the good land which Jehovah giveth you.

18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul; and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.

19 And ye shall teach them your children, talking of them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

20 And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates;

21 that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which Jehovah sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens above the earth.

22 For if ye shall diligently keep all this commandment which I command you, to do it, to love Jehovah your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him;

23 then will Jehovah drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves.

24 Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the hinder sea shall be your border.

25 There shall no man be able to stand before you: Jehovah your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath spoken unto you.

26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse:

27 the blessing, if ye shall hearken unto the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I command you this day;

28 and the curse, if ye shall not hearken unto the commandments of Jehovah your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

29 And it shall come to pass, when Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt set the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.

30 Are they not beyond the Jordan, behind the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites that dwell in the Arabah, over against Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?

31 For ye are to pass over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which Jehovah your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein.

32 And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and the ordinances which I set before you this day.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 444

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444. "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. This symbolically means, to remove from them external bonds, to enable the interiors of their minds to appear.

It is impossible for anyone to know that this is the symbolic meaning of these words, and scarcely possible for anyone to suspect it, if he does not know what is meant by the great river Euphrates, and by the four angels bound there.

In the Word, the Euphrates symbolizes the inner constituents of the human mind, called rational, which in people governed by truths springing from goodness are full of wisdom, but which in people caught up in falsities springing from evil are full of irrationality.

This is the symbolic meaning of the river Euphrates in the Word. The reason is that this river formed the boundary between the land of Canaan and Assyria, and the land of Canaan symbolized the church, and Assyria its rational component. Therefore the river that formed the boundary between them symbolizes the inner constituents of the mind called rational, and this in both senses. For there are three components that form the person of the church: the spiritual component; the rational or intellectual component; and the natural component, which is one of knowledge. The spiritual component of the church is symbolized by the land of Canaan and its rivers; the rational or intellectual component of the church by Asshur or Assyria and its river, the Euphrates; and the natural component of the church, which is one of knowledge, by Egypt and its river, the Nile. But for more on this subject, see no. 503 below.

The four angels bound at the river Euphrates symbolize these interior constituents in people of the church, and they are said to be bound because they are kept hidden from public view. For it is hellish spirits that are meant by these four angels, inasmuch as we are told that they were prepared to kill a third of mankind, as we will presently see in no. 446; and people's inner constituents are affiliated with spirits, either hellish ones or heavenly ones, since they dwell together. To release them means, symbolically, to remove external bonds, to enable the interiors of their minds to appear.

This is the symbolic meaning of these words.

[2] That the Euphrates symbolizes the interiors of a person's mind coextensive with the spiritual tenets of his church can be seen from passages in the Word where Asshur or Assyria are mentioned. In the following passages, however, the Euphrates occurs in an opposite sense, in which it symbolizes interiors full of falsities and thus insanities:

...behold, (God) is causing to rise up upon them the waters of the River (Euphrates), strong and mighty - the king of Asshur... It will pass through Judah, flood it and pass over it... (Isaiah 8:7-8)

...why take the road to Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? Or why take the road to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River? (Jeremiah 2:18)

Jehovah will devote to destruction the tongue of the Sea of Egypt; ...He will shake His hand over the River (Euphrates).... (Isaiah 11:15-16)

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the... river Euphrates, and its water was dried up... (Revelation 16:12)

The prophet Jeremiah was commanded to put a sash around his loins, and afterward to hide it in a hole in a rock by the Euphrates; and when, after a short time, he recovered it, behold, it was ruined and profitable for nothing (Jeremiah 13:1-7, 11).

The same prophet was also commanded, after he had finished reading a book, to throw it into the middle of the Euphrates and say, "Thus shall Babylon sink and not rise" (Jeremiah 51:63-64).

These events represented the interior qualities of the state of the church among the children of Israel.

That the river Nile in Egypt and the river Euphrates in Assyria were boundaries of the land of Canaan is apparent from the following verse:

...Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river... Euphrates." (Genesis 15:18)

To be shown that the Euphrates was one boundary, see Exodus 23:31, Deuteronomy 1:7-8; 11:24, Joshua 1:4, Micah 7:12.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.