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Jeremiah 17

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1 The sin of Judah is recorded with a pen of iron, and with the sharp point of a jewel it is cut on their hearts of stone, and on the horns of their altars for a sign to them:

2 Their altars and their wood pillars under every branching tree, on the high hills and the mountains in the field.

3 I will give your wealth and all your stores to be taken away in war without a price, because of your sins in every part of your land.

4 And your hand will have to let go your heritage which I gave you; and I will make you a servant to your haters in a land which is strange to you: for you have put my wrath on fire with a flame which will go on burning for ever.

5 This is what the Lord has said: Cursed is the man who puts his faith in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart is turned away from the Lord.

6 For he will be like the brushwood in the upland, and will not see when good comes; but his living-place will be in the dry places in the waste land, in a salt and unpeopled land.

7 A blessing is on the man who puts his faith in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.

8 For he will be like a tree planted by the waters, pushing out its roots by the stream; he will have no fear when the heat comes, but his leaf will be green; in a dry year he will have no care, and will go on giving fruit.

9 The heart is a twisted thing, not to be searched out by man: who is able to have knowledge of it?

10 I the Lord am the searcher of the heart, the tester of the thoughts, so that I may give to every man the reward of his ways, in keeping with the fruit of his doings.

11 Like the partridge, getting eggs together but not producing young, is a man who gets wealth but not by right; before half his days are ended, it will go from him, and at his end he will be foolish.

12 A seat of glory, placed on high from the first, is our holy place.

13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who give you up will be put to shame; those who go away from you will be cut off from the earth, because they have given up the Lord, the fountain of living waters.

14 Make me well, O Lord, and I will be well; be my saviour, and I will be safe: for you are my hope.

15 See, they say to me, Where is the word of the Lord? let it come now.

16 As for me, I have not said; Let the day of trouble come to them quickly; and I have not been hoping for the death-giving day; you have knowledge of what came from my lips; it was open before you.

17 Be not a cause of fear to me: you are my safe place in the day of evil.

18 Let them be put to shame who are attacking me, but let me not be shamed; let them be overcome with fear, but let me not be overcome: send on them the day of evil, and put them to destruction twice over.

19 This is what the Lord has said to me: Go and take your place in the doorway of Benjamin, where the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the doorways of Jerusalem;

20 And say to them, Give ear to the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all the people of Jerusalem who come in by these doors:

21 This is what the Lord has said: See to yourselves, that you take up no weight on the Sabbath day, or take it in through the doors of Jerusalem;

22 And take no weight out of your houses on the Sabbath day, or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I gave orders to your fathers;

23 But they gave no attention and would not give ear, but they made their necks stiff so that they might not give ear and might not get teaching.

24 And it will be, that if with all care you give ear to me, says the Lord, and take no weight through the doorways of this town on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy and do no work in it;

25 Then through the doors of this town there will come kings and princes, seated on the seat of David, going in carriages and on horseback, they and their princes, and the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem: and this town will keep its place for ever.

26 And they will come from the towns of Judah, and from the places round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowlands, and from the mountains, and from the South, with burned offerings and offerings of beasts and meal offerings and perfume and offerings of praise, to the house of the Lord.

27 But if you do not give ear to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy, and to let no weight be lifted and taken through the doors of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day: then I will put a fire in its doorways, burning up the great houses of Jerusalem, and it will never be put out.

   

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Apocalypse Explained # 1115

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1115. And double unto her double according to her works, signifies as much retribution as they have profaned good. This is evident from the signification of "doubling double," as being to make much retribution, or to render much punishment (of which presently); also from the signification of "works," as being profanations of good, for the works of such are profanations; therefore "doubling double" signifies as much retribution as they have profaned good.

"Doubling double" has this signification because "two" does not signify two, nor does any number signify the quantity of the thing, but its quality, and two signifies the quality of a thing as to union, and is predicated of good and of evil (See above, n. 532, 984); and here "double" is predicated of the retribution of evil on account of the profanation of good; from which it is clear that "double" here does not mean double, but much of evil.

[2] That "double" is predicated of retribution and of remuneration, and signifies much, is evident from these passages in the Word. In Jeremiah:

Let my persecutors be ashamed, bring upon them the day of evil, and break them with a double breaking (Jeremiah 17:18).

"To bring upon them the day of evil and to break them with a double breaking" signifies much retribution of evil on account of persecution. In Zechariah:

Return to the stronghold, ye prisoner of hope, and this day do I declare that I will render double unto thee (Zechariah 9:12).

"To render double," signifies to give much reward.

[3] In Isaiah:

Comfort ye, My people, and speak unto the heart of Jerusalem that her warfare is accomplished and that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received from the hand double for all her sins (Isaiah 40:1-2

This is said of the Lord's coming and of a new church to be established by Him. That new church is meant by "Jerusalem," unto whose heart they should speak; the "warfare" that is accomplished signifies combats against evils; the "iniquity" that is pardoned signifies evil removed by the Lord; "they received double for all sins" signifies to endure much in combat or temptation. In the same:

Ye shall be called priests of Jehovah, ministers of our God; it shall be said unto you, Ye shall eat the riches of the nations, and in their glory shall ye glory. For your shame double, and for reproach they shall sing in their portion; therefore in their land they shall possess double, the joy of eternity shall be unto them (Isaiah 61:6-7).

Here, too, "double" signifies not double but much, and is predicated of retribution.

(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith and respecting the Lord)

[4] But I will relate what cannot but seem wonderful. In the thought of his spirit every man sees God as Man, even he who in the thought of his body sees Him like a cloud, a mist, air, or ether, and even he who has denied that God is Man. A man is in the idea of his spirit when he thinks abstractly, and in the idea of his body when he does not think abstractly. That every man in the idea of his spirit sees God as Man has been made evident to me by men after death, who are then in the ideas of the spirit; for after death a man becomes a spirit, and then it is impossible for him to think of God otherwise than as Man. An experiment was made whether they could think otherwise, and for this purpose they were let down into the state in which they had been in the world, and then they thought about God. The thought of some was that of the universe, others that of nature in her inmost, others that of a cloud in midair, others that of a beam of light, and others thought in other ways; but the moment they came out of that state into a state of the spirit they thought of God as Man. At this they were surprised, and declared that it was something implanted in every spirit. But evil spirits who have denied God in the world deny Him also after death, and yet in place of God they worship some spirit, who gains power over the rest by diabolical arts.

[5] It has been said that to think of God as Man has been implanted in every spirit. That this comes through an influx of the Lord into the interiors of their thoughts is evident from the fact that the angels of all the heavens acknowledge the Lord alone. They acknowledge His Divine which is called the Father, they see His Divine Human, and they are in the Divine proceeding, for the whole angelic heaven is the Lord's Divine proceeding. An angel is not an angel from what is his own, but from the Divine that he receives from the Lord. From this they are in the Lord; consequently when they think of God they can think of no other than the Lord in whom they are and from whom they think. Add to this that the whole angelic heaven in its complex before the Lord is as one Man, which maybe called the Greatest Man; consequently the angels in heaven are in the Man that is the Lord's Divine proceeding, as has been said; and since their thoughts have direction there according to the form of heaven, they are unable when they think of God to think of any other than the Lord. In a word, all the angels of the three heavens think of God as Man, and are unable to think otherwise. If they wished to think otherwise thought would cease, and they would fall from heaven. This, then, is why to every spirit and to every man, when he is in the idea of his spirit, it is instinctive to think of God as Man.

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