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Ezekiel 38

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

2 Son of man, let your face be turned against Gog, of the land of Magog, the ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and be a prophet against him,

3 And say, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am against you, O Gog, ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

4 And turning you round, I will put hooks in your mouth and make you come out with all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them in full war-dress, a great force with breastplate and body-cover, all of them armed with swords:

5 Persia, Cush, and Put with them; all of them with body-cover and metal head-dress:

6 Gomer and all her forces; the people of Togarmah in the inmost parts of the north, with all his forces: a great number of peoples with you.

7 Be ready, make yourself ready, you and all the forces who are with you, and be ready for my orders.

8 After a long time you will get your orders: in the last years you will come into the land which has been given back from the sword, which has been got together out of a great number of peoples, on the mountains of Israel which have ever been a waste: but it has been taken out from the peoples and they will be living, all of them, without fear of danger.

9 And you will go up, you will come like a storm, you will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your forces, and a great number of peoples with you.

10 This is what the Lord has said: In that day it will come about that things will come into your mind, and you will have thoughts of an evil design:

11 And you will say, I will go up to the land of small unwalled towns; I will go to those who are quiet, living, all of them, without fear of danger, without walls or locks or doors:

12 To take their property by force and go off with their goods; turning your hand against the waste places which now are peopled, and against the people who have been got together out of the nations, who have got cattle and goods for themselves, who are living in the middle of the earth.

13 Sheba, and Dedan and her traders, Tarshish with all her traders, will say to you, Have you come to take our goods? have you got your armies together to take away our property by force? to take away silver and gold, cattle and goods, to go off with great wealth?

14 For this cause, son of man, be a prophet and say to Gog, These are the words of the Lord: In that day, when my people Israel are living without fear of danger, will you not be moved against them?

15 And you will come from your place in the inmost parts of the north, you and a great number of peoples with you, all of them on horseback, a great force and a strong army:

16 And you will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land; and it will come about, in the last days, that I will make you come against my land, so that the nations may have knowledge of me when I make myself holy in you, O Gog, before their eyes.

17 This is what the Lord has said: You are he of whom I gave them word in earlier times by my servants, the prophets of Israel, who in those days went on saying, year after year, that I would make you come up against them.

18 And it will come about in that day, when Gog comes up against the land of Israel, says the Lord, that my wrath will come up, and my passion and my bitter feeling.

19 For in the fire of my wrath I have said, Truly, in that day there will be a great shaking in the land of Israel;

20 So that the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and the beasts of the field and everything moving on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth, will be shaking before me, and the mountains will be overturned and the high places will come down, and every wall will come falling down to the earth.

21 And I will send to all my mountains for a sword against him, says the Lord: every man's sword will be against his brother.

22 And I will take up my cause against him with disease and with blood; and I will send down on him and on his forces and on the peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower and great ice-drops, fire, and burning.

23 And I will make my name great and make myself holy, and I will make myself clear to a number of nations; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1691

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1691. That 'a mountain' means self-love and love of the world becomes clear from the meaning of 'a mountain', dealt with immediately below. All evil and falsity arise from self-love and love of the world; they have no other origin. Indeed self-love and love of the world are the reverse of celestial and spiritual love. And being the reverse they are loves which endeavour all the time to destroy the celestial and spiritual things of God's kingdom. From self-love and love of the world all kinds of hatred arise, and from hatred all kinds of revenge and cruelty, and from both the former and the latter all kinds of deception, in short, all the hells.

[2] That 'mountains' in the Word means self-love and love of the world becomes clear from the following places: In Isaiah,

The eyes of man's (homo) loftiness will be humbled, and the height of men (homo) brought low; the day of Jehovah Zebaoth will be against everyone that is lofty and high, against all high mountains, and against all hills that are lifted up, and against every lofty tower. Isaiah 2:11-12, 14-15.

'High mountains' plainly stands for self-love, and 'hills that are lifted up' for love of the world.

[3] In the same prophet,

Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low. Isaiah 40:4.

This too plainly stands for self-love and love of the world. In the same prophet,

I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up every plant on them. Isaiah 42:15.

Here similarly 'mountains' stands for self-love, and 'hills' for love of the world. In Ezekiel,

The mountains will be overturned, and the terraced ridges will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground. Ezekiel 38:20.

[4] In Jeremiah,

Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, destroying the whole earth, and I will stretch out My hand against you and roll you down from the rocks and make you into a mountain of burning. Jeremiah 51:25.

This refers to Babel and Chaldea, which, as shown already, mean self-love and love of the world. In the Song of Moses,

A fire has flared up in My anger, and will burn right down to the lowest hell, and will devour the land and its increase, and will set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Deuteronomy 32:22.

'The foundations of the mountains' stands for the hells, as is explicitly stated. They are called 'the foundations of the mountains' because self-love and love of the world reign there and have their origin in them.

[5] In Jonah,

The waters surrounded me, even to my soul, the deep closed around me, seaweed was wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the bars of the land were upon me for ever. Yet You brought up my life 1 from the pit, O Jehovah my God. Jonah 2:5-6.

The Lord's temptations against the hells are described in this prophetic manner by Jonah when in the stomach of the great fish, as also in other parts of the Word, especially in David. A person undergoing temptation is within the hells. Being in the hells is not at all a question of place but of state.

[6] Since 'mountains' and 'towers' mean self-love and love of the world, it may therefore become clear what is meant by the reference to the Lord being led by the devil on to a high mountain and on to the pinnacle of the temple, namely that He was led into conflicts that constitute temptations - the most extreme conflicts of all - against self-love and love of the world, that is, against the hells. Mountains are also used, as is usual, in the contrary sense; in that sense they mean celestial and spiritual love, as shown already in 795, 796.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, my lives

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