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Deuteronomy 9

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1 Hear, O Israel: Thou shalt go over the Jordan this day; to possess nations very great, and stronger than thyself, cities great, and walled up to the sky,

2 A People great and tall, the sons of the Enacims, whom thou hast seen, and heard of, against whom no man is able to stand.

3 Thou shalt know therefore this day that the Lord thy God himself will pass over before thee, a devouring and consuming fire, to destroy and extirpate and bring them to nothing before thy face quickly, as he hath spoken to thee.

4 Say not in thy heart, when the Lord thy God shall have destroyed them in thy sight: For my justice hath the Lord brought me in to possess this land, whereas these nations are destroyed for their wickedness.

5 For it is not for thy justices, and the uprightness of thy heart that thou shalt go in to possess their lands: but because they have done wickedly, they are destroyed at thy coming in: and that the Lord might accomplish his word, which he promised by oath to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

6 Know therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this excellent land in possession for thy justices, for thou art a very stiffnecked people.

7 Remember, and forget not how then provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that thou camest out of Egypt unto this place, thou hast always strove against the Lord.

8 For in Horeb also thou didst provoke him, and he was angry, and would have destroyed thee,

9 When I went up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you: and I continued in the mount forty days and nights, neither eating bread, nor drinking water.

10 And the Lord gave me two tables of stone written with the finger of God, and containing all the words that he spoke to you in the mount from the midst of the Are, when the people were assembled together.

11 And when forty days were passed, and as many nights, the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant,

12 And said to me: Arise, and go down from hence quickly: for thy people, which thou hast brought out of Egypt, have quickly forsaken the way that thou hast shewn them, and have made to themselves a molten idol.

13 And again the Lord said to me: I see that this people is stiffnecked:

14 Let me alone that I may destroy them, and abolish their name from under heaven, and set thee over a nation, that is greater and stronger than this.

15 And when I came down from the burning mount, and held the two tables of the covenant with both hands,

16 And saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made to yourselves a molten calf, and had quickly forsaken his way, which he had shewn you:

17 I cast the tables out of my hands, and broke them in your sight.

18 And I fell down before the Lord se before, forty days and nights neither eating bread, nor drinking water, for all your sins, which you had committed against the Lord, and had provoked him to wrath:

19 For I feared his indignation and anger, wherewith being moved against you, he would have destroyed you. And the Lord heard me this time also.

20 And he was exceeding angry against Aaron also, and would have destroyed him, and I prayed in like manner for him.

21 And your sin that you had committed, that is, the calf, I took, and burned it with fire, and breaking it into pieces, until it was as small as dust, I threw it into the torrent, which cometh down from the mountain.

22 At the burning also, and at the place of temptation, and at the graves of lust you provoked the Lord:

23 And when he sent you from Cadesbarne, saying: Go up, and possess the land that I have given you, and you slighted the commandment of the Lord your God, and did not believe him, neither would you hearken to his voice:

24 But were always rebellious from the day that I began to know you.

25 And I lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights, in which I humbly besought him, that he would not destroy you as he had threatened:

26 And praying, I said: 0 Lord God, destroy not thy people, and thy inheritance, which thou hast redeemed in thy greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a strong hand.

27 Remember thy servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: look not on the stubbornness of this people, nor on their wickedness and sin:

28 Lest perhaps the inhabitants of the land, out of which thou hast brought us, say: The Lord could not bring them into the land that he promised them, and he hated them: therefore he brought them out, that he might kill them in the wilderness,

29 Who are thy people and thy inheritance, whom thou hast brought out by thy great strength, and in thy stretched out arm.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 748

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748. "And eat her flesh and burn her with fire." This symbolically means that Protestants will with hatred condemn and destroy in themselves the evils and falsities inherent in the Roman Catholic religion, and will renounce the religion itself and expunge it in themselves.

This is said of Protestants, who will deal thus with the harlot, that is, with the Roman Catholic religion. To eat her flesh means, symbolically, with hatred to condemn and destroy in themselves the inherent characteristics of that religion, which are evils and falsities, about which we will say more below. And to burn her with fire means, symbolically, to renounce that religion as profane and expunge it in themselves.

This is what burning with fire means because the penalty for profaning something holy was burning. Therefore, according to Divine law, people who profaned the name of Jehovah by worshiping other gods were burned with fire - they and all their belongings (Deuteronomy 13:12-18). Therefore Moses burned with fire the golden calf that the children of Israel were profanely worshiping (Exodus 32:20, Deuteronomy 9:21). Moreover, because two of Aaron's sons profaned holy things, they were consumed by fire from heaven (Leviticus 10:1-6). Nor is anything else symbolized by the fire and pyre in Tophet but the fire of hell, which awaits those who profane holy things (Isaiah 30:33, Jeremiah 7:11, 31-32; 19:5-6, 2 Kings 23:10), for there the people worshiped Molech with a heinous sacrifice. 1

[2] Since the fourth beast in Daniel 7 symbolizes a religion that profanes the Word and consequently the sanctities of the church (no. 717), therefore we are told that it was burned with fire (Daniel 7:11).

Now, because it is profane worship to worship a person instead of the Lord, we are accordingly told here that they burnt the harlot with fire, which symbolically means that they renounced the religion itself and expunged it in themselves.

To eat her flesh means, symbolically, with hatred to condemn and destroy in themselves the inherent characteristics of that religion, which are evils and falsities, because that is the symbolic meaning of eating her flesh. For flesh symbolizes the inherent characteristics of a thing which relate to goods and truths, and in an opposite sense, to evils and falsities, and to eat means, symbolically, to consume, thus to destroy.

That flesh symbolizes a person's inherent character, which in itself is evil, is clear from the following passages:

It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. (John 6:63)

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6)

As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to be children of God...: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh... (John 1:12-13)

(God) remembered that they were flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again. (Psalms 78:39)

The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. (Isaiah 31:3)

(Jerusalem) committed harlotry with the Egyptians..., great of flesh. (Ezekiel 16:26)

Jesus... said to (Peter), ."..flesh and blood has not revealed this to you...." (Matthew 16:17)

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm... (Jeremiah 17:5)

[3] Because flesh symbolizes a person's inherent character, and people who hate others attack their personal character with the intention of destroying it, therefore to eat the flesh has also this symbolic meaning, as in the following passages:

Let the dying die, and the cut off be cut off. Those that are left eat each other's flesh. (Zechariah 11:9)

They shall devour Israel with the whole mouth... Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm - Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh. (Isaiah 9:12, 20-21)

I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh... (Isaiah 49:26)

...everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend... (Jeremiah 19:9)

To eat the flesh of sons and daughters (Jeremiah 19:9, Leviticus 26:29, Deuteronomy 28:53) means, symbolically, to destroy truths and goods in oneself, for sons symbolize truths, and daughters goods, as may be seen in nos. 139, 543, 545, 612[1-4] above.

Moreover, in the Word we find reference to "all flesh," and this symbolically means all mankind (Genesis 6:12-13, 17, 19).

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. The heinous sacrifice consisted of "passing infants through the fire to Molech," by burning them alive on a sacrificial altar. Vestiges of this worship have been found elsewhere, as far as northern Africa. Tophet was a site in the valley of Hinnom at the foot of Mount Zion on the south side. Because of the nature of its worship, the valley of Hinnon (Ge' Hinnom = Gehenna) became synonymous with Hades or hell.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.