Bible

 

Ezekiel 6

Studie

   

1 And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy unto them,

3 and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.

4 And your altars shall become desolate, and your sun-images shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

5 And I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.

6 In all your dwelling-places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your sun-images may be hewn down, and your works may be abolished.

7 And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah.

8 Yet will I leave a remnant, in that ye shall have some that escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.

9 And those of you that escape shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captive, how that I have been broken with their lewd heart, which hath departed from me, and with they eyes, which play the harlot after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

10 And they shall know that I am Jehovah: I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

11 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas! because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

12 He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my wrath upon them.

13 And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered sweet savor to all their idols.

14 And I will stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate and waste, from the wilderness toward Diblah, throughout all their habitations: and they shall know that I am Jehovah.

   

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Apocalypse Revealed # 459

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 962  
  

459. And idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood. This symbolically means that thus they engage in worship founded on nothing but falsities.

Idols in the Word symbolize falsities in worship, and therefore worshiping them symbolizes worship founded on falsities. Worshiping idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, then, symbolizes worship founded on falsities of every kind, and when taken in combination, worship founded on nothing but falsities. Moreover, the materials, figures, and garments of the idols among ancient peoples represented the falsities of religion on which they founded their worship. Idols of gold symbolized falsities regarding matters pertaining to God; idols of silver, falsities regarding matters pertaining to the spirit; idols of brass, falsities regarding charity; idols of stone, falsities regarding faith; and idols of wood, falsities regarding good works.

All of these falsities are held by people who do not repent, that is, who do not refrain from evils as being sins against God.

[2] Idols, which were carved and cast images, have this symbolic meaning in the spiritual sense in the following passages:

Everyone has been made stupid by knowledge; every metalsmith is has been put to shame by a carved image; for his cast image is a falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are futile, a work of errors; in the time of their visitation they shall perish. (Jeremiah 10:14-15; 51:17-18)

(Carved images are) the work of the hands of the workman... They do not speak... They are both foolish and stupid; the wood is a worthless teacher... They are all the work of skillful men. (Jeremiah 10:3-5, 8-10)

What profit is the carved image, that its maker has carved it, ...and a teacher of lies, that the maker of the lie trusts in it...? ...in it there is no breath. (Habakkuk 2:18-19)

In that day a man will cast away to the moles and bats his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship... (Isaiah 2:18, 20)

...they made for themselves cast images of their silver, idols according to their skill, all of it the work of craftsmen. (Hosea 13:2)

I will sprinkle clean water on you, that you may be cleansed... from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. (Ezekiel 36:25)

Clean waters are truths; idols are falsities in worship.

You shall judge unclean the covering of your graven images of silver, and the attire of your cast images of gold. You will throw them away as a menstrual cloth; you will call it excrement. (Isaiah 30:22)

[3] Falsities in religion and thus in worship are precisely what are symbolically meant by the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone that Belshazzar, king of Babylon, praised (i.e., worshiped) when with his great men, wives and concubines he drank wine from the vessels of gold and silver taken from the temple in Jerusalem, on which account he was driven from mankind and became as a beast (Daniel 5:1-5ff.).

And so also in many other places, as in Isaiah 10:10-11; 21:9; 31:7; 40:19-20; 41:29; 42:17; 48:5, Leviticus 26:30.

Properly speaking, idols symbolize falsities in worship springing from people's own intelligence. How a person fashions them and afterward adapts them so that they appear to be true is fully described in Isaiah 44:9-20.

  
/ 962  
  

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