Bible

 

Deuteronomy 28

Studie

   

1 Now if you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and keep with care all these orders which I have given you today, then the Lord your God will put you high over all the nations of the earth:

2 And all these blessings will come on you and overtake you, if your ears are open to the voice of the Lord your God.

3 A blessing will be on you in the town, and a blessing in the field.

4 A blessing will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herd, and the young of your flock.

5 A blessing will be on your basket and on your bread-basin.

6 A blessing will be on your coming in and on your going out.

7 By the power of the Lord, those who take arms against you will be overcome before you: they will come out against you one way, and will go in flight from you seven ways.

8 The Lord will send his blessing on your store-houses and on everything to which you put your hand: his blessing will be on you in the land which The Lord your God is giving you.

9 The Lord will keep you as a people holy to himself, as he has said to you in his oath, if you keep the orders of The Lord your God and go on walking in his ways.

10 And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord is on you, and they will go in fear of you.

11 And the Lord will make you fertile in every good thing, in the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your fields, in the land which the Lord, by his oath to your fathers, said he would give you.

12 Opening his store-house in heaven, the Lord will send rain on your land at the right time, blessing all the work of your hands: other nations will make use of your wealth, and you will have no need of theirs.

13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; and you will ever have the highest place, if you give ear to the orders of The Lord your God which I give you today, to keep and to do them;

14 Not turning away from any of the orders which I give you today, to the right hand or to the left, or going after any other gods to give them worship.

15 But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to do all his orders and his laws which I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

16 You will be cursed in the town and cursed in the field.

17 A curse will be on your basket and on your bread-basin.

18 A curse will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.

19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

20 The Lord will send on you cursing and trouble and punishment in everything to which you put your hand, till sudden destruction overtakes you; because of your evil ways in which you have been false to me.

21 The Lord will send disease after disease on you, till you have been cut off by death from the land to which you are going.

22 The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete.

23 And the heaven over your heads will be brass, and the earth under you hard as iron.

24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust, sending it down on you from heaven till your destruction is complete.

25 The Lord will let you be overcome by your haters: you will go out against them one way, and you will go in flight before them seven ways: you will be the cause of fear among all the kingdoms of the earth.

26 Your bodies will be meat for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to send them away.

27 The Lord will send on you the disease of Egypt, and other sorts of skin diseases which nothing will make well.

28 He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear:

29 You will go feeling your way when the sun is high, like a blind man for whom all is dark, and nothing will go well for you: you will be crushed and made poor for ever, and you will have no saviour.

30 You will take a wife, but another man will have the use of her: the house which your hands have made will never be your resting-place: you will make a vine-garden, and never take the fruit of it.

31 Your ox will be put to death before your eyes, but its flesh will not be your food: your ass will be violently taken away before your face, and will not be given back to you: your sheep will be given to your haters, and there will be no saviour for you.

32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will be wasted away with looking and weeping for them all the day: and you will have no power to do anything.

33 The fruit of your land and all the work of your hands will be food for a nation which is strange to you and to your fathers; you will only be crushed down and kept under for ever:

34 So that the things which your eyes have to see will send you out of your minds.

35 The Lord will send a skin disease, attacking your knees and your legs, bursting out from your feet to the top of your head, so that nothing will make you well.

36 And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone.

37 And you will become a wonder and a name of shame among all the nations where the Lord will take you.

38 You will take much seed out into the field, and get little in; for the locust will get it.

39 You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms.

40 Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit.

41 You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go away prisoners into a strange land.

42 All your trees and the fruit of your land will be the locust's.

43 The man from a strange land who is living among you will be lifted up higher and higher over you, while you go down lower and lower.

44 He will let you have his wealth at interest, and will have no need of yours: he will be the head and you the tail.

45 And all these curses will come after you and overtake you, till your destruction is complete; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, or keep his laws and his orders which he gave you:

46 These things will come on you and on your seed, to be a sign and a wonder for ever;

47 Because you did not give honour to the Lord your God, worshipping him gladly, with joy in your hearts on account of all your wealth of good things;

48 For this cause you will become servants to those whom the Lord your God will send against you, without food and drink and clothing, and in need of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck till he has put an end to you.

49 The Lord will send a nation against you from the farthest ends of the earth, coming with the flight of an eagle; a nation whose language is strange to you;

50 A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young:

51 He will take the fruit of your cattle and of your land till death puts an end to you: he will let you have nothing of your grain or wine or oil or any of the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, till he has made your destruction complete.

52 Your towns will be shut in by his armies, till your high walls, in which you put your faith, have come down: his armies will be round your towns, through all your land which the Lord your God has given you.

53 And your food will be the fruit of your body, the flesh of the sons and daughters which the Lord your God has given you; because of your bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters.

54 That man among you who is soft and used to comfort will be hard and cruel to his brother, and to his dear wife, and to of those his children who are still living;

55 And will not give to any of them the flesh of his children which will be his food because he has no other; in the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.

56 The most soft and delicate of your women, who would not so much as put her foot on the earth, so delicate is she, will be hard-hearted to her husband and to her son and to her daughter;

57 And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.

58 If you will not take care to do all the words of this law, recorded in this book, honouring that name of glory and of fear, THE LORD YOUR GOD;

59 Then the Lord your God will make your punishment, and the punishment of your seed, a thing to be wondered at; great punishments and cruel diseases stretching on through long years.

60 He will send on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which were a cause of fear to you, and they will take you in their grip.

61 And all the diseases and the pains not recorded in the book of this law will the Lord send on you till your destruction is complete.

62 And you will become a very small band, though your numbers were like the stars of heaven; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God.

63 And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and increasing you, so the Lord will take pleasure in cutting you off and causing your destruction, and you will be uprooted from the land which you are about to take as your heritage.

64 And the Lord will send you wandering among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: there you will be servants to other gods, of wood and stone, gods of which you and your fathers had no knowledge.

65 And even among these nations there will be no peace for you, and no rest for your feet: but the Lord will give you there a shaking heart and wasting eyes and weariness of soul:

66 Your very life will be hanging in doubt before you, and day and night will be dark with fears, and nothing in life will be certain:

67 In the morning you will say, If only it was evening! And at evening you will say, If only morning would come! Because of the fear in your hearts and the things which your eyes will see.

68 And the Lord will take you back to Egypt again in ships, by the way of which I said to you, You will never see it again: there you will be offering yourselves as men-servants and women-servants to your haters for a price, and no man will take you.

   

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Apocalypse Explained # 584

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 1232  
  

584. Verse 20. And the rest of the men who were not killed in these plagues, signifies who did not perish by the cupidities above mentioned. This is evident from the signification of "the rest of the men who were not killed," as being all those who did not perish. "To be killed" signifies in the Word to be killed spiritually, which is to perish in eternal death (See above, n. 547, 572). Also from the signification of "these plagues," as being the cupidities above mentioned, namely, those signified by "fire, smoke, and brimstone going out of the mouth of the horses," which signify the cupidities that arise from the love of evil and the love of falsity, also the lusts of destroying the truths and goods of the church by the falsities of evil (as may be seen above, n. 578. These are called "plagues," because "plagues" signify in the Word such things as destroy the spiritual life, consequently the church in men, and which therefore induce death understood in the spiritual sense. These in brief have reference to the cupidities springing from the loves of self and of the world; for these loves are the roots from which evils and falsities of every genus and species spring up and grow.

[2] Such also is the signification of "plagues" in the following passages in Revelation:

The two witnesses have power over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague as often as they will (Revelation 11:6).

Again:

Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great (Revelation 16:21).

Again:

In one day shall the plagues of Babylon come, death and mourning and famine (Revelation 18:8).

And again:

I saw seven angels having the seven last plagues, through which is to be finished the wrath of God (Revelation 15:1, 6, 8). That "plagues" mean such things as induce upon man spiritual death, consequently that wholly destroy and devastate the church with men in particular and thus in general, will be seen in the explanation of the passages that follow, where "plagues" are mentioned, and especially where "the seven last plagues" are treated of.

[3] "Plagues" have a like meaning in the following passages in the prophets. In Isaiah:

The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, in the day that Jehovah shall bind up the breach of His people, and shall heal the wound of their plague (Isaiah 30:26).

In Jeremiah:

It is desperate for thy bruise, thy plague is sore. I have smitten thee with the plague of an enemy. I will make health to ascend upon thee; I will heal thee of thy plague (Jeremiah 30:12, 14, 17).

In the same:

Everyone that passeth by Edom shall hiss at all the plagues thereof (4 Jeremiah 49:17).

In the same:

Everyone that passeth by Babylon shall hiss at all her plagues (Jeremiah 50:13).

In Moses:

If they will 1 not take heed to do all the words of the law, Jehovah will make thy plagues wonderful, great plagues and lasting, and evil and lasting diseases. Also every disease and every plague which is not written in the book of this law will Jehovah secretly send upon thee until thou be destroyed (Deuteronomy 28:58, 59, 61).

"Plagues" here signify spiritual plagues, which destroy the soul, not the body, and which are enumerated in this chapter of Deuteronomy (verses 20-68).

[4] What "plagues" signify in the spiritual sense is described by correspondences in Zechariah:

This shall be the plague wherewith Jehovah will plague all the peoples that shall wage war against Jerusalem; his flesh shall waste away as he standeth upon his feet, and his eyes shall waste away in their sockets, and his tongue shall waste away in his mouth. So shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, of the ass, and of every beast that shall be in those camps, as this plague (Zechariah 14:12, 15).

This is said of those who endeavor to destroy the truths of the church by falsities; "Jerusalem" signifies the church in respect to the truths of doctrine, and "to wage war against it" means to endeavor to destroy these truths by falsities. That "one's flesh shall waste away as he standeth upon his feet" signifies that with those who attempt this, all the will of good will perish, and that they will thus become merely corporeal-natural, for "flesh" signifies the will and its good or evil; "feet" signify the things of the natural man, therefore "to stand upon the feet" signifies to live from such things only; "his eyes shall waste away in their sockets" signifies that all understanding of truth will perish, "eyes" signifying that understanding; "his tongue shall waste away in his mouth" signifies that all perception of truth and affection of good will perish. (This prophecy is explained above, n. 455.) Almost the same things are signified by "the plagues of the horse, the mule, the camel, the ass, and every beast," for the "plague" of these signifies the loss of all understanding of truth, as well spiritual as natural; and "the plague of the beast" signifies the loss of all affection for good.

[5] In Luke:

In the same hour in which John sent unto Him, Jesus cured many of diseases and plagues of evil spirits; and on many that were blind He bestowed sight (Luke 7:21).

"The plagues of evil spirits" mean the obsessions and calamitous conditions then inflicted upon men by evil spirits, all of which however signify correspondent spiritual states; for all the healings of diseases performed by the Lord signified spiritual healings, and from this the miracles of the Lord were Divine; as this, that "on many that were blind He bestowed sight," which signified that to those who were in ignorance of truth He gave the understanding of the truths of doctrine:

The wounds [plagas] that the robbers inflicted on the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho (Luke 10:30);

also signifies spiritual wounds, which were the falsities and evils infused into sojourners and Gentiles by the scribes and Pharisees. (See above, n. 444, where this parable is explained in its spiritual sense.)

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. Latin has "they will," the Hebrew "thou whilt," as also in Apocalypse Explained 696; Arcana Coelestia 2826, 6752.

  
/ 1232  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.