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Ezekiel 42

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1 And he took me out into the inner square in the direction of the north: and he took me into the rooms which were opposite the separate place and opposite the building to the north.

2 On the north side it was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide,

3 Opposite the space of twenty cubits which was part of the inner square, and opposite the stone floor of the outer square. There were covered ways facing one another on the third floor.

4 And in front of the rooms was a walk, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long; and their doors were facing north.

5 And the higher rooms were shorter: for the covered ways took up more space from these than from the lower and middle rooms.

6 For they were on three floors, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the outer square; so the highest was narrower than the lowest and middle floors from the earth level.

7 And the wall which went outside by the side of the rooms, in the direction of the outer square in front of the rooms, was fifty cubits long.

8 For the rooms in the outer square were fifty cubits long: and in front of the Temple was a space of a hundred cubits.

9 And under these rooms was the way in from the east side, as one goes into them from the outer square at the head of the outer wall.

10 (And he took me) to the south, and in front of the separate place and in front of the building there were rooms.

11 And there was a walk in front of them like that by the rooms on the north; they were equally long and wide; and the ways out of them were the same in design and had the same sort of doors.

12 And under the rooms on the south was a door at the head of the outer wall in the direction of the east as one goes in.

13 And he said to me, The north rooms and the south rooms in front of the separate place are the holy rooms, where the priests who come near the Lord take the most holy things for their food: there the most holy things are placed, with the meal offering and the sin-offering and the offering for error; for the place is holy.

14 When the priests go in, they may not go out of the holy place into the outer square, and there they are to put the robes in which they do the work of the Lord's house, for they are holy: and they have to put on other clothing before they come near that which has to do with the people.

15 And when he had come to the end of measuring the inner house, he took me out to the doorway looking to the east, and took its measure all round.

16 He went round and took the measure of it on the east side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

17 And he went round and took the measure of it on the north side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

18 And he went round and took the measure of it on the south side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

19 And he went round and took the measure of it on the west side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

20 He took its measure on the four sides: and it had a wall all round, five hundred long and five hundred wide, separating what was holy from what was common.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 9437

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9437. 'And Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights' means the instructions given and influx in their completeness. This is clear from the meaning of 'forty' as completeness. 'Forty' means completeness because 'four' means that which is complete, 9103, as similarly does 'ten', 3107, 4638, and forty is the product of four multiplied by ten. For compound numbers have a meaning similar to the simple numbers of which they are the product, 5291, 5335, 5708, 7973; and all numbers in the Word mean spiritual realities, see 575, 3252, 4264, 4495, 4670, 5265, 6175. All this goes to explain why Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights. The fact that 'forty' here means the instructions given and the influx in their completeness is evident from Chapters 25-32 which come next, recording the instructions Moses received, that is, instructions regarding the ark, Aaron, the urim and thummim, and sacrifices. The reason why influx in its completeness is also meant is that at that time Moses began to represent the outward holiness of the Word, which acted as the intermediary between the Lord and the people, and mediation is accomplished by means of influx through that holiness into the representative existing among that people, 9419.

[2] It was because 'forty' represented completeness that Moses remained on Mount Sinai forty days and forty nights not only this time but also on another occasion, Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:18, 25; 10:10. For the same reason the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness forty years until, as it says in Numbers 14:33-34; 32:13, all that generation had been consumed; Jonah told the Ninevites that their city would be overturned after forty days, Jonah 3:4; the prophet was commanded to lie on his right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, Ezekiel 4:6; it says regarding Egypt that it would be made completely desolate for forty years, after which they would be gathered from the peoples, Ezekiel 29:11-13; and the earth was rained on forty days and forty nights, so that it was inundated with the flood, Genesis 7:4, 12, 17. From all this it is evident why the wicked person was to receive forty blows, Deuteronomy 25:3, for 'forty blows' meant the punishment in its completeness. It is also evident what should be understood in the prophecy of Deborah and Barak when it says that no shield or spear was seen among the forty thousand of Israel, Judges 5:8, 'among the forty thousand of Israel' meaning among them all. It is in addition evident why the temple built by Solomon was forty cubits long, 1 Kings 6:17, as was the new temple, according to Ezekiel 41:2; for in the highest sense 'the temple' means the Lord, and in the internal sense heaven and the Church, so that 'forty' means completeness in respect of representation. And it has a like meaning in other places.

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