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Ezekiel 16

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1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

2 Son of man, make clear to Jerusalem her disgusting ways,

3 And say, This is what the Lord has said to Jerusalem: Your start and your birth was from the land of the Canaanite; an Amorite was your father and your mother was a Hittite.

4 As for your birth, on the day of your birth your cord was not cut and you were not washed in water to make you clean; you were not salted or folded in linen bands.

5 No eye had pity on you to do any of these things to you or to be kind to you; but you were put out into the open country, because your life was hated at the time of your birth.

6 And when I went past you and saw you stretched out in your blood, I said to you, Though you are stretched out in your blood, have life;

7 And be increased in number like the buds of the field; and you were increased and became great, and you came to the time of love: your breasts were formed and your hair was long; but you were uncovered and without clothing.

8 Now when I went past you, looking at you, I saw that your time was the time of love; and I put my skirts over you, covering your unclothed body: and I gave you my oath and made an agreement with you, says the Lord, and you became mine.

9 Then I had you washed with water, washing away all your blood and rubbing you with oil.

10 And I had you clothed with needlework, and put leather shoes on your feet, folding fair linen about you and covering you with silk.

11 And I made you fair with ornaments and put jewels on your hands and a chain on your neck.

12 And I put a ring in your nose and ear-rings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head.

13 So you were made beautiful with gold and silver; and your clothing was of the best linen and silk and needlework; your food was the best meal and honey and oil: and you were very beautiful.

14 You were so beautiful that the story of you went out into all nations; you were completely beautiful because of my glory which I had put on you, says the Lord.

15 But you put your faith in the fact that you were beautiful, acting like a loose woman because you were widely talked of, and offering your cheap love to everyone who went by, whoever it might be.

16 And you took your robes and made high places for yourself ornamented with every colour, acting like a loose woman on them, without shame or fear.

17 And you took the fair jewels, my silver and gold which I had given to you, and made for yourself male images, acting like a loose woman with them;

18 And you took your robes of needlework for their clothing, and put my oil and my perfume before them.

19 And my bread which I gave you, the best meal and oil and honey which I gave you for your food, you put it before them for a sweet smell, says the Lord.

20 And you took your sons and your daughters whom I had by you, offering even these to them to be their food. Was your loose behaviour so small a thing,

21 That you put my children to death and gave them up to go through the fire to them?

22 And in all your disgusting and false behaviour you had no memory of your early days, when you were uncovered and without clothing, stretched out in your blood.

23 And it came about, after all your evil-doing, says the Lord,

24 That you made for yourself an arched room in every open place.

25 You put up your high places at the top of every street, and made the grace of your form a disgusting thing, opening your feet to everyone who went by, increasing your loose ways.

26 And you went with the Egyptians, your neighbours, great of flesh; increasing your loose ways, moving me to wrath.

27 Now, then, my hand is stretched out against you, cutting down your fixed amount, and I have given you up to the desire of your haters, the daughters of the Philistines who are shamed by your loose ways.

28 And you went with the Assyrians, because of your desire which was without measure; you were acting like a loose woman with them, and still you had not enough.

29 And you went on in your loose ways, even as far as the land of Chaldaea, and still you had not enough.

30 How feeble is your heart, says the Lord, seeing that you do all these things, the work of a loose and overruling woman;

31 For you have made your arched room at the top of every street, and your high place in every open place; though you were not like a loose woman in getting together your payment.

32 The untrue wife who takes strange lovers in place of her husband!

33 They give payment to all loose women: but you give rewards to your lovers, offering them payment so that they may come to you on every side for your cheap love.

34 And in your loose behaviour you are different from other women, for no one goes after you to make love to you: and because you give payment and no payment is given to you, in this you are different from them.

35 For this cause, O loose woman, give ear to the voice of the Lord:

36 This is what the Lord has said: Because your unclean behaviour was let loose and your body uncovered in your loose ways with your lovers and with your disgusting images, and for the blood of your children which you gave to them;

37 For this cause I will get together all your lovers with whom you have taken your pleasure, and all those to whom you have given your love, with all those who were hated by you; I will even make them come together against you on every side, and I will have you uncovered before them so that they may see your shame.

38 And you will be judged by me as women are judged who have been untrue to their husbands and have taken life; and I will let loose against you passion and bitter feeling.

39 I will give you into their hands, and your arched room will be overturned and your high places broken down; they will take your clothing off you and take away your fair jewels: and when they have done, you will be uncovered and shamed.

40 And they will get together a meeting against you, stoning you with stones and wounding you with their swords.

41 And they will have you burned with fire, sending punishments on you before the eyes of great numbers of women; and I will put an end to your loose ways, and you will no longer give payment.

42 And the heat of my wrath against you will have an end, and my bitter feeling will be turned away from you, and I will be quiet and will be angry no longer.

43 Because you have not kept in mind the days when you were young, but have been troubling me with all these things; for this reason I will make the punishment of your ways come on your head, says the Lord, because you have done this evil thing in addition to all your disgusting acts.

44 See, in every common saying about you it will be said, As the mother is, so is her daughter.

45 You are the daughter of your mother whose soul is turned in disgust from her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters who were turned in disgust from their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.

46 Your older sister is Samaria, living at your left hand, she and her daughters: and your younger sister, living at your right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.

47 Still you have not gone in their ways or done the disgusting things which they have done; but, as if that was only a little thing, you have gone deeper in evil than they in all your ways.

48 By my life, says the Lord, Sodom your sister never did, she or her daughters, what you and your daughters have done.

49 Truly, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: pride, a full measure of food, and the comforts of wealth in peace, were seen in her and her daughters, and she gave no help to the poor or to those in need.

50 They were full of pride and did what was disgusting to me: and so I took them away as you have seen.

51 And Samaria has not done half your sins; but you have made the number of your disgusting acts greater than theirs, making your sisters seem more upright than you by all the disgusting things which you have done.

52 And you yourself will be put to shame, in that you have given the decision for your sisters; through your sins, which are more disgusting than theirs, they are more upright than you: truly, you will be shamed and made low, for you have made your sisters seem upright.

53 And I will let their fate be changed, the fate of Sodom and her daughters, and the fate of Samaria and her daughters, and your fate with theirs.

54 So that you will be shamed and made low because of all you have done, when I have mercy on you.

55 And your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, will go back to their first condition, and Samaria and her daughters will go back to their first condition, and you and your daughters will go back to your first condition.

56 Was not your sister Sodom an oath in your mouth in the day of your pride,

57 Before your shame was uncovered? Now you have become like her a word of shame to the daughters of Edom and all who are round about you, the daughters of the Philistines who put shame on you round about.

58 The reward of your evil designs and your disgusting ways has come on you, says the Lord.

59 For this is what the Lord has said: I will do to you as you have done, you who, putting the oath on one side, have let the agreement be broken.

60 But still I will keep in mind the agreement made with you in the days when you were young, and I will make with you an eternal agreement.

61 Then at the memory of your ways you will be overcome with shame, when I take your sisters, the older and the younger, and give them to you for daughters, but not by your agreement.

62 And I will make my agreement with you; and you will be certain that I am the Lord:

63 So that, at the memory of these things, you may be at a loss, never opening your mouth because of your shame; when you have my forgiveness for all you have done, says the Lord.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 4735

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4735. 'Do not shed blood' means not to do violence to what is holy. This is clear from the meaning of 'blood' as that which is holy, dealt with below, and therefore 'shedding blood' means doing violence to it. Everything holy in heaven proceeds from the Lord's Divine Human, as consequently does everything holy in the Church. For this reason to prevent people from doing violence to that which is holy the Lord instituted the Holy Supper, in which it is explicitly declared that the bread there is His flesh and the wine His blood, thus that His Divine Human is the source of that which is holy in the Holy Supper. Among the Ancients 'flesh and blood' meant the human proprium, for that which is human consists of flesh and blood. This explains what the Lord said to Simon,

Blessed are you, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 16:17.

Therefore the flesh and blood meant in the Holy Supper by the bread and wine are the Lord's Human Proprium. The Lord's actual Proprium which He acquired to Himself by His own power is Divine. His Proprium was since His conception that which He had from Jehovah His Father and was Jehovah Himself, and therefore the Proprium which He acquired to Himself within the Human was Divine. It is this Divine Proprium within the Human that is called flesh and blood, 'flesh' being His Divine Good, 3813, 'blood' Divine Truth that goes with Divine Good.

[2] The Lord's Human, now that it has been glorified or made Divine, cannot be thought of as something merely human but as Divine Love within a human form. This is more true of Him than it is of angels, who - when they come to be seen, as I myself have seen them - are seen as forms of love and charity taking on a human appearance, the Lord enabling this to be so. For it was by Divine Love that the Lord made His Human Divine, even, as has been stated, as heavenly love serves to make someone an angel after death, so that he too is seen as a form of love and charity taking on a human appearance. From this it is evident that in the celestial sense the Lord's Divine Human means Divine Love itself, which is a love directed towards the whole human race whom He wishes to save, making them blessed and happy for ever, and to whom He wishes to impart, insofar as its members can accept it, what is His and is Divine, so that it becomes their own. This love, and man's reciprocated love to the Lord as well as his love towards the neighbour, are meant and represented in the Holy Supper, Divine celestial love by the flesh or bread in it and Divine spiritual love by the blood or wine.

[3] From all this one may now see what is meant by eating the Lord's flesh and drinking His blood in John,

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live for ever. But the bread which I shall give is My flesh. Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drank His blood you will have no life in you. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. This is the bread which came down from heaven. John 6:50-58.

Because 'flesh' and 'blood' mean the Divine Celestial and the Divine Spiritual that proceed from the Lord's Divine Human, as has been stated, or what amounts to the same, mean Divine Good and Divine Truth that proceed from His Love, 'eating' and 'drinking' mean making these things one's own. They become one's own through the life of love and charity which is also the life of faith. For 'eating' means making good one's own, and 'drinking' making truth one's own, see 2187, 3069, 3168, 3513, 3596, 3734, 3832, 4017, 4018.

[4] Because 'blood' in the celestial sense means the Divine Spiritual or Divine Truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human, it therefore means that which is holy, for Divine Truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human is Holiness itself. There is no other Holiness, nor any other source of it.

[5] As regards 'blood' meaning that Holiness, this may be seen from many places in the Word, of which let the following be quoted here: In Ezekiel,

Son of man, thus said the Lord Jehovih, Say to every bird of the air, to every wild animal of the field, Assemble and come, gather yourselves from all around to My sacrifice which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, so that you may eat flesh and drink wine. You will eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth - rams, lambs, and he-goats, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And you will eat fat till you are glutted and drink blood till you are drunk, from My sacrifice which I will sacrifice for you. You will be glutted at My table with horse and chariot, with the mighty, and with every man of war. Thus will I set My glory among the nations. Ezekiel 39:17-21.

This refers to the calling together of all people to the Lord's kingdom, and specifically to the establishment of the Church among gentiles. 'Eating flesh and drinking wine' means making Divine Good and Divine Truth one's own, and so making one's own the Holiness which proceeds from the Lord's Divine Human. Is there anyone who cannot see that here in the references to their eating the flesh of the mighty and drinking the blood of the princes of the earth, and their being glutted with horse, chariot, the mighty, and every man of war, 'flesh' is not used to mean flesh nor 'blood' to mean blood?

[6] Similarly in John,

I saw an angel standing in the sun, who called out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds flying in mid-heaven, Come, gather yourselves together to the supper of the Great God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and those seated on them, and the flesh of all, free men and slaves, small and great. Revelation 19:17-18.

Can anyone ever understand these things unless he knows what 'flesh' means in the internal sense, or what 'kings', 'captains', 'mighty men', 'horses', 'those seated on them', 'free men and slaves' mean?

[7] Also in Zechariah,

He will speak peace to the nations; His dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River even to the ends of the earth As for you also, through the blood of your covenant I will let out your bound ones from the pit. Zechariah 9:10-11.

This refers to the Lord. 'The blood of the covenant' is Divine Truth proceeding from His Divine Human and is the Holiness itself which has gone out from Him since He was glorified. This Holiness is that which is also called the Holy Spirit, as is evident in John,

Jesus said, If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. This He said about the spirit which those believing in Him were to receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:37-39.

As regards the holiness proceeding from the Lord being 'the spirit', see John 6:63.

[8] Further to 'blood' meaning the holiness proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human - in David,

From deceit and from violence He will redeem 1 their soul, and precious will their blood be in His eyes. Psalms 72:14.

'Precious blood' stands for the holiness which they are to receive. In John,

These are they who are coming out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7:14.

And in the same author,

They have conquered the dragon by the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their testimony; and they did not love their soul even to death. Revelation 12:11.

[9] The Church at the present day knows no more than this, that 'the blood of the Lamb' here means the Lord's passion, for it believes that people are saved solely through the Lord's passion and that it was to endure this that He was sent into the world, a belief which may be enough for the simple who are incapable of grasping interior arcana. The Lord's passion was the last stage of His temptation, by which He fully glorified His Humanity, Luke 24:26; John 12:23, 27-28; 13:31-32; 17:1, 4-5. But 'the blood of the Lamb' here in Revelation is the same as the Divine Truth or that which is holy proceeding from His Divine Human, and so is the same as 'the blood of the covenant' referred to just above, and also in Moses,

[10] Moses took the book of the covenant, and read it in the ears of the people, who said, All that Jehovah has spoken we will do and hear. Then Moses took the blood and sprinkled it over the people. and said, Behold the blood of the covenant which Jehovah has made with you, upon all these words. Exodus 24:7-8.

'The book of the covenant' was Divine Truth as it existed with them at that time, which Truth was corroborated by means of the blood that bore witness to the fact that such Truth proceeded from His Divine Human.

[11] In the ritual requirements of the Jewish Church 'blood' meant nothing other than the holiness proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human. When people were being consecrated blood was therefore used to effect this, as when Aaron was consecrated along with his sons. At that time the blood was sprinkled over the horns of the altar, the residue being poured out at the base of it. Some was also put on the tip of their right ear, on their right thumb and the big toe of their right foot, and on their vestments, Exodus 29:12, 16, 20-21; Leviticus 8:15, 19, 23, 30. And when Aaron went within the veil to the mercy-seat the blood had also to be sprinkled with his finger seven times over the east side of the mercy-seat, Leviticus 16:12-15. Likewise in all other consecrations, as well as expiations and cleansings, mentioned in Exodus 12:7, 13, 22; 30:10; Leviticus 1:5, 11, 15; 3:2 , 8, 13; 4:6-7, 17-18, 25, 30, 34; 5:9; 6:27-28; 14:14-19, 25-30; 16:12-15, 18-19; Deuteronomy 12:27.

[12] As 'blood' in the genuine sense means that which is holy, so in the contrary sense 'blood' and 'bloods' mean things which bring violence to it. This is because 'shedding innocent blood' means doing violence to that which is holy. For the same reason too infamous deeds in life and profane acts of worship are called 'blood'. The fact that such things are meant by 'blood' and 'bloods' is clear from the following places: In Isaiah,

When the Lord will have washed the excrement of the daughters of Zion and washed away the blood of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of purging. Isaiah 4:4.

In the same prophet,

The waters of Dimon are full of blood. Isaiah 15:9.

In the same prophet,

Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Isaiah 59:3, 7.

In Jeremiah,

Yes, in your skirts the blood of poor innocent souls is found. Jeremiah 2:34.

[13] In the same prophet,

For the sins of the prophets, the iniquities of the priests who shed in the midst of Jerusalem the blood of the righteous. They went astray blind in the streets, they are defiled with blood. Things which have no power they touch with their garments. Lamentations 4:13-14.

In Ezekiel,

I passed by you and saw you weltering in your blood, 2 and I said to you, Live in your blood; 2 I indeed said to you, Live in your blood'. I washed you with water and washed away your blood 2 from upon you, and anointed you with oil. Ezekiel 16:6, 9.

In the same prophet,

You, son of man, will you dispute with the city of blood? 2 Declare to her all her abominations. By your blood which you have shed you have become guilty, and by the idols which you have made you are defiled. Behold, the princes of Israel, each according to his power, 3 have been among you and have shed blood. Men of intrigue have been among you, [ready] to shed blood, and among you have eaten on the mountains. Ezekiel 22:2-4, 6, 9.

In Moses,

If anyone sacrifices anywhere else than on the altar at the tent of meeting it shall be [regarded as] blood, and as though he had shed blood. Leviticus 17:1-9.

[14] Truth that has been falsified and rendered profane is meant in the following references to 'blood': In Joel,

I will give portents in the heavens and on earth, blood and fire, and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into thick darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah comes. Joel 2:30-31.

In John,

The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the full moon became like blood. Revelation 6:12.

In the same author,

The second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third part of the sea became blood. Revelation 8:8.

In the same author,

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of one dead, from which every living soul died in the sea. The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and into the fountains of water, and blood was made. Revelation 16:3-4.

[15] A similar meaning occurs in the turning of the rivers, pools and ponds in Egypt into blood, Exodus 7:15-22, for 'Egypt' means knowledge which enters of its own accord into heavenly arcana and as a consequence perverts Divine truths, refuses to accept them, and renders them profane, 1164, 1165, 1186. Being Divine ones, all the miracles performed in Egypt embodied the same kind of meanings. 'The rivers' which were turned into blood means the truths that go with intelligence and wisdom, 108, 109, 3051, as likewise do 'waters', 680, 2702, 3058, and 'springs', 2702, 3096, 3424. 'Seas' means factual truths taken as a single whole, 28. 'The moon', which, it is also said, is to be turned into blood, means Divine Truth, 1529-1531, 2495, 4060. From this it is evident that the turning of the moon, sea, springs, waters, and rivers into blood means Truth that has been falsified and rendered profane.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. The Latin means bring back (imperative singular), but the Hebrew means He will redeem.

2. literally, bloods

3. literally, arm

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