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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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Apocalypse Explained # 507

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507. And all green grass was burnt up.- That this signifies that all scientific truth would perish through the desires of the same loves, is evident from the signification of grass, which denotes what is scientific (scientificum), of which more below; and from the signification of green, which denotes that it is true and living from truth, for as green grass serves as food to animals, so scientific truth (scientificum verum) as spiritual nourishment for men. For whatever is produced in fields, gardens, and plains, and serves for the nourishment either of man or beast, has a correspondence with such things as serve for the nourishment of the external (animus) and internal (mens) minds, which nourishment is called spiritual nourishment. Similar things also appear in the spiritual world, from the correspondence of spiritual things with natural things. And because the Word in the letter is natural, and written by correspondences, therefore it is here said, that the third part of the trees, and all green grass, were burnt up, by which is meant, in the spiritual sense, that all perception and cognition of truth and good, and also all scientific truth, perished through those two corporeal, earthly, and merely natural loves.

[2] By scientific truth is meant every scientific, by which spiritual truth is confirmed, and which has life from spiritual good. For a man may be wise by means of scientifics, or he may be insane. He becomes wise by means of scientifics when by them he confirms the truths and goods of the church, which are spiritual truths and goods; but he becomes insane by scientifics when by means of them he weakens and refutes the truths and goods of the church. When he confirms the truths and goods of the church by them, they are then called scientific truths, and are said to be living; but when by means of them he weakens and refutes the truths and goods of the church, they are called scientific falsities, and are as dead. Knowledges (scientiae) are only means to uses, and their quality is according to the uses which exist from them. They are living when man acquires intelligence and wisdom by means of them. All intelligence and wisdom is from truths that are from heaven, and such intelligence and wisdom being from heaven, that is, through heaven from the Lord, are living, because they are the very spiritual life of man; but intelligence and wisdom from falsities have no existence, and if they be supposed to exist with any one, they are nevertheless dead, because they are from hell.

[3] These things have been said in order that it may be known that green grass signifies the scientific truth that is living, but grass burnt up, the scientific falsity that is dead. When truth and good, which come from heaven, do not find a receptacle with man in cognitions and scientifics, but when evils and falsities, which come from hell do, then scientifics are not living, but dead, and correspond to grass withered and burnt up. The same is the case with man himself, for the quality of a man is according to the quality of the cognitions and knowledges (scientiae) which he has. For it is from living knowledges (scientiae) that he has intelligence; from knowledges that are not living he derives no intelligence; and if they are dead because of the confirmation of falsities by them, insanity and folly are the result.

[4] A man of such a character is, from correspondence, compared, in the Word, to grass; and he is also called grass in the following passages.

In Isaiah:

"Their inhabitants became like the grass of the field and as the green herb, as the grass on the house tops, and as a field blasted before the crop" (37:27; 2 Kings 19:26).

In David:

The evil "shall suddenly be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb" (Psalm 37:2).

Again:

"As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth" (Psalm 103:15).

And again:

The haters of Zion "shall be as the grass upon the house tops, which withereth before it is plucked up" (Psalm 129:6, 7).

In Isaiah:

"The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and they shall see. The voice said, Cry, and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the holiness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the spirit of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever" (40:5-8).

These things are said concerning the coming of the Lord, and the revelation of Divine Truth from Him, meant by "the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and they shall see." That then there would be neither scientific truth nor spiritual truth with man, is signified by "all flesh is grass, and all the holiness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth." Grass denotes scientific truth, and the flower of the field spiritual truth. That man is of such a nature, is meant by "all flesh is grass," and by "surely the people is grass, the grass withereth;" for all flesh denotes every man, and the people, those who were in truths, but are now in falsities.

[5] In the same:

"I am he that comforteth you; who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man; he shall die, and of the son of man, he shall be as grass?" (51:12).

These words signify, that all things are from the Lord, and nothing from [man's] own intelligence and wisdom. Man signifies man as to wisdom, and the son of man signifies man as to intelligence; that the latter is only knowledge (scientia), is meant by the words, "he shall be made as grass."

[6] Again:

"I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up in the midst of the grass" (44:3, 4).

The spirit of Jehovah signifies the Divine Truth, and blessing signifies its multiplication and fructification. Intelligence therefore by means of scientific truths is signified by springing up in the midst of the grass.

[7] In David:

Jehovah who "causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man" (Psalm 104:14).

And again:

Jehovah who "prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains, who giveth to the beast his food" (Psalm 147:8, 9).

In Moses:

"My doctrine shall flow down as the rain, my word shall drop as the dew, as small rain upon the grass, and as the drops upon the herb" (Deuteronomy 32:2).

In these passages, grass signifies scientific truth, and the herb of the field, spiritual truth; for the herb of the field means what first springs up in a field or in newly tilled [land], wherefore it is called herb for the service of man. The reason why it is said, grass for the beast, and for food to the beast, is, that beast, in the Word, signifies the affection of the natural man, and scientific truth is to him for food and nourishment.

[8] In Job:

"Behold, behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox" (40:15).

Behemoth has a similar meaning to beast in the Word, namely, man's natural affections, wherefore it is said, "Behold, now, behemoth, which I have made with thee." His spiritual food is scientific truth; this is meant by his devouring grass as an ox.

[9] That green signifies what is living or alive, is evident without further explication; for a plant when it grows or is alive is green, but when it ceases to grow or dies, then its green colour perishes. Wherefore green signifies what is living or alive; as is also the case in the following passages; Jeremiah 11:16; 17:8; Ezekiel 17:24; 20:7; Hosea 14:8; David, Psalm 37:35; 52:8; 92:10; and elsewhere.

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.