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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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Arcana Coelestia # 2447

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2447. From Jehovah out of heaven. That this signifies from the laws of order as to truth, because they separate themselves from good, cannot be seen except from the internal sense, by which there is disclosed how the case stands with punishments and damnations: that they in no wise come from Jehovah, that is, from the Lord, but from the man himself, the evil spirit, and the devil; and this from the laws of order as to truth, because they separate themselves from good.

[2] All order is from Jehovah, that is, from the Lord, and according to this order are all things directed by Him both in general and in particular, but in many different ways, to wit, from Will, from Good-pleasure, from Leave, and from Permission. The things that are from His will and good-pleasure are from the laws of order as to good, and so also are many of those which are from leave, and some of those which are from permission. But when a man separates himself from good he casts himself into the rule of the laws of order that are of truth separated from good, which are such that they condemn; for all truth condemns man and casts him down into hell; whereas the Lord from good, that is, from mercy, saves him, and uplifts him into heaven. From this we see that it is man himself who condemns himself.

[3] The things done from permission are mostly of this nature, as for example, that one devil punishes and torments another; and innumerable other things of this kind. These things are from the laws of order as to truth separated from good; for the devils could not otherwise be held in bonds, and withheld from rushing upon all the well disposed and good, and eternally destroying them. It is the prevention of this which is the good the Lord has in view. The case herein is similar to that which exists on earth, where a mild and clement king, who intends and does nothing but good, must needs suffer his laws to punish the evil and the wicked (although he punishes no one, but rather grieves that they are such that their evils must punish them), for otherwise he would leave his kingdom itself a prey to them; which would be the height of rigor and of unmercifulness.

[4] This shows that Jehovah in no wise caused it to rain brimstone and fire, that is in no wise condemned to hell; but that the men themselves who were in evil and thence in falsity did this, because they had separated themselves from good, and so had cast themselves into the rule of the laws of order that come from truth alone. From all which it follows that this is the internal sense of these words.

[5] That in the Word “evil,” “punishing,” “cursing,” “damnation,” and many other such things are attributed to Jehovah or the Lord, as here that He made it “rain brimstone and fire,” we read in Ezekiel:

I will contend against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him fire and brimstone (Ezekiel 38:22).

In Isaiah:

The breath of Jehovah like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it (Isaiah 30:33).

In David:

Jehovah shall rain upon the wicked snares, fire, and brimstone (Psalms 11:6).

Again:

There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth, coals did burn from Him (Psalms 18:8).

In Jeremiah:

Lest My fury go forth like fire, and burn, and there is none to quench it (Jeremiah 21:12).

In Moses:

A fire is kindled in Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell (Deuteronomy 32:22);

besides similar things in many other places. The reason why such things are attributed in the Word to Jehovah or the Lord has been explained in Part First (n. 223, 245, 589, 592, 696, 735, 1093, 1638, 1683, 1874); for such things are as far from coming from the Lord, as good is far from evil, or as heaven is from hell, or what is Divine from what is diabolical. Evil, hell, and the devil do these things; but by no means the Lord, who is mercy itself and good itself; but because He appears to do them, therefore for the reasons mentioned in the numbers cited, they are attributed to Him.

[6] From its being said in this verse that Jehovah caused it to rain from Jehovah out of heaven, it appears in the sense of the letter as if there were two; one on earth, and one in heaven; but the internal sense teaches how this also is to be understood, namely, that by the Jehovah first named is meant the Lord’s Divine Human and Holy proceeding (meant in this chapter by the “two men”) and by the Jehovah named in the second place is meant the Divine Itself that is called the “Father” (spoken of in the preceding chapter); and that this Trine is in the Lord, as He himself says in John:

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me (John 14:9-11).

And concerning the Holy proceeding, in the same:

The Comforter shall not speak from Himself but He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you (John 16:13-15).

Thus Jehovah is one, although two are here named; two being named for the reason that all the laws of order are from the Lord’s Divine Itself, Divine Human, and Holy proceeding.

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