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Deuteronomy 32

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1 Give ear, O heavens, to my voice; let the earth take note of the words of my mouth:

2 My teaching is dropping like rain, coming down like dew on the fields; like rain on the young grass and showers on the garden plants:

3 For I will give honour to the name of the Lord: let our God be named great.

4 He is the Rock, complete is his work; for all his ways are righteousness: a God without evil who keeps faith, true and upright is he.

5 They have become false, they are not his children, the mark of sin is on them; they are an evil and hard-hearted generation.

6 Is this your answer to the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is he not your father who has given you life? He has made you and given you your place.

7 Keep in mind the days of the past, give thought to the years of generations gone by: go to your father and he will make it clear to you, to the old men and they will give you the story.

8 When the Most High gave the nations their heritage, separating into groups the children of men, he had the limits of the peoples marked out, keeping in mind the number of the children of Israel.

9 For the Lord's wealth is his people; Jacob is the land of his heritage.

10 He came to him in the waste land, in the unpeopled waste of sand: putting his arms round him and caring for him, he kept him as the light of his eye.

11 As an eagle, teaching her young to make their flight, with her wings outstretched over them, takes them up on her strong feathers:

12 So the Lord only was his guide, no other god was with him.

13 He put him on the high places of the earth, his food was the increase of the field; honey he gave him out of the rock and oil out of the hard rock;

14 Butter from his cows and milk from his sheep, with fat of lambs and sheep of Bashan, and goats, and the heart of the grain; and for your drink, wine from the blood of the grape.

15 But Jeshurun became fat and would not be controlled: you have become fat, you are thick and full of food: then he was untrue to the God who made him, giving no honour to the Rock of his salvation.

16 The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath.

17 They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.

18 You have no thought for the Rock, your father, you have no memory of the God who gave you birth.

19 And the Lord saw with disgust the evil-doing of his sons and daughters.

20 And he said, My face will be veiled from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are an uncontrolled generation, children in whom is no faith.

21 They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation,

22 For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains.

23 I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them.

24 They will be wasted from need of food, and overcome by burning heat and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of the worms of the dust.

25 Outside they will be cut off by the sword, and in the inner rooms by fear; death will take the young man and the virgin, the baby at the breast and the grey-haired man.

26 I said I would send them wandering far away, I would make all memory of them go from the minds of men:

27 But for the fear that their haters, uplifted in their pride, might say, Our hand is strong, the Lord has not done all this.

28 For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them.

29 If only they were wise, if only this was clear to them, and they would give thought to their future!

30 How would it be possible for one to overcome a thousand, and two to send ten thousand in flight, if their rock had not let them go, if the Lord had not given them up?

31 For their rock is not like our rock, even our haters themselves being judges.

32 For their vine is the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are the grapes of evil, and the berries are bitter:

33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, the cruel poison of snakes.

34 Is not this among my secrets, kept safe in my store-house?

35 Punishment is mine and reward, at the time of the slipping of their feet: for the day of their downfall is near, sudden will be their fate.

36 For the Lord will be judge of his people, he will have pity for his servants; when he sees that their power is gone, there is no one, shut up or free.

37 And he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they put their faith?

38 Who took the fat of their offerings, and the wine of their drink offering? Let them now come to your help, let them be your salvation.

39 See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.

40 For lifting up my hand to heaven I say, By my unending life,

41 If I make sharp my shining sword, and my hand is outstretched for judging, I will give punishment to those who are against me, and their right reward to my haters.

42 I will make my arrows red with blood, my sword will be feasting on flesh, with the blood of the dead and the prisoners, of the long-haired heads of my haters.

43 Be glad, O you his people, over the nations; for he will take payment for the blood of his servants, and will give punishment to his haters, and take away the sin of his land, for his people.

44 So Moses said all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Hoshea, the son of Nun.

45 And after saying all this to the people,

46 Moses said to them, Let the words which I have said to you today go deep into your hearts, and give orders to your children to do every word of this law.

47 And this is no small thing for you, but it is your life, and through this you may make your days long in the land which you are going over Jordan to take for your heritage.

48 That same day the Lord said to Moses,

49 Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab opposite Jericho; there you may see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel for their heritage:

50 And let death come to you on the mountain where you are going, and be put to rest with your people; as death came to Aaron, your brother, on Mount Hor, where he was put to rest with his people:

51 Because of your sin against me before the children of Israel at the waters of Meribath Kadesh in the waste land of Zin; because you did not keep my name holy among the children of Israel.

52 So you will see the land before you, but you will not go into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.

   

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Dew

  

In Deuteronomy 32:2, dew signifies the multiplication of truth from good and the increase of good by truth.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 3579)

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Arcana Coelestia # 3579

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3579. 'And God will give to you of the dew of heaven' means from Divine Truth; 'and of the fatness of the land' means from Divine Good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the dew of heaven' as truth, dealt with below, and from the meaning of 'fatness' as good, dealt with in 353. In the highest sense in which they have reference to the Lord both are Divine. As for the multiplication of truth and the fruitfulness of good, they involve this: When the rational flows into the natural its own good presented by it in the natural appears in a general form. Through this good it produces truths there, almost in the way that life develops tissues in man and organizes them into different forms according to the functions they perform. By means of these truths organized into a heavenly order, this good produces further good, and through this further truths, which are derivatives. It is possible to have a natural idea such as this concerning the formation of truth from good, and of further good through that truth, through which yet again truth is formed. But it is not possible for anyone to have a spiritual idea except those in the next life, for in that life ideas are formed from the light of heaven, which light holds intelligence within it.

[2] As regards 'the dew' meaning truth, this too is clear from other places in the Word, as in Zechariah,

The seed of peace, the vine will give its fruit, and the land will give its increase, and the heavens will give their dew. Zechariah 8:12.

This refers to a new Church. 'The vine will give its fruit' stands for the fact that the spiritual element of the Church, which is the truth of faith, will yield good, while 'the land will give its increase' stands for the fact that the celestial element of the Church, which is the good of charity, will yield truth, 'the dew which the heavens will give' being that good and truth. In Haggai,

Because of My house which lies waste the heavens above you have withheld their dew, and the earth has withheld its increase. Haggai 1:9-10.

'The dew of the heavens' and 'the increase of the earth' which were held back stand for similar things.

[3] In David,

From the womb of the dawn You have the dew of Your nativity. Psalms 110:3-4.

This refers to the Lord. 'The dew of nativity' stands for the celestial element of love. In Moses,

Blessed by Jehovah is his land, of the precious things of heaven, of the dew, of the deep also Lying below. Deuteronomy 33:13.

This refers to Joseph. 'The precious things of heaven' are spiritual things, 3166, which are 'the dew', 'the deep Lying below' being natural things. In the same author,

Israel dwelt securely. alone at Jacob's spring, in a land of grain and new wine; even his heavens distilled dew. Deuteronomy 33:28.

Here 'even his heavens distilled dew' stands for spiritual things, which are those of truth.

[4] 'Dew' in the genuine sense is the truth of good which is the product of a state of innocence and peace, for by 'the morning' or dawn when the dew comes down are meant those states of innocence and peace, 2333, 2405, 2540, 2780. This also was why the manna from heaven accompanied the dew which used to come down in the morning time, as becomes clear in Moses,

In the morning there was a deposit of dew around the camp, and when the deposit of dew went up, behold, on the face of the wilderness a round congealed thing, a congealed thing like hoar frost on the earth. Exodus 16:13-14.

When the dew came down over the camp at night, the manna came down on it. Numbers 11:9.

Because 'the manna' was heavenly bread it meant in the highest sense the Lord as regards Divine Good, and consequently with men the celestial element of love, for this originates in the Lord's Divine, 276, 680, 1798, 2165, 2177, 3464, 3478. 'The dew' on which and with which the manna came down stands in the highest sense for Divine Truth, and in the relative sense for spiritual truth with men. 'The morning time' is the state of peace in which those goods and truths are present, 92, 93, 1726, 2780, 3170.

[5] Because 'the dew' means truth which comes from good, or what amounts to the same, that which is spiritual originating in that which is celestial, spiritual truth is for that reason also compared in the Word to the dew, for the objects used as signs of spiritual things are also used as comparisons with those same things, as in Isaiah,

Thus said Jehovah to me, I will be still and I will behold in My dwelling-place; like clear warmth on the light, like a cloud of dew when the harvest is warm. Isaiah 18:4.

In Hosea,

What shall I do to you, O Ephraim? What shall I do to you, O Judah? For your holiness - like a dawn cloud, and like the dew that falls in the morning - [is going away]. Hosea 6:4; 13:3.

In the same prophet,

I will be as the dew to Israel, he will blossom 1 as the lily, and strike root like Lebanon. Hosea 14:5.

In Micah,

The remnant of Jacob will be in the midst of many peoples, like dew from Jehovah, like raindrops on the grass. Micah 5:7.

In David,

It is like the good oil upon the head, that runs down over the collar 2 of Aaron's robes. It is like the dew of Hermon which runs down over the mountains of Zion, for there Jehovah has commanded the blessing of life even for evermore. Psalms 133:2-3.

In Moses,

My doctrine will flow down like the rain, My word will distill like the dew, like showers on the tender grass, and like raindrops on the grass. Deuteronomy 32:2.

Here 'the dew' stands for the multiplication of truth that comes from good, and for the fruitfulness of good through truth. And because the dew is that which every morning causes field and vineyard to be fruitful, good and truth themselves are meant by the grain and new wine referred to next in this verse.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, sprout

2. literally, the mouth

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