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Ezekiel 21

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

2 Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and let thy speech flow towards the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel:

3 And say to the land of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off in thee the just, and the wicked.

4 And forasmuch as I have cut off in thee the just, and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, from the south even to the north.

5 That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn my sword out of its sheath not to be turned back.

6 And thou, son of man, mourn with the breaking of thy loins, and with bitterness sigh before them.

7 And when they shall say to thee: Why mournest thou? thou shalt say: For that which I hear: because it cometh, and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be made feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and water shall run down every knee: behold it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord God.

8 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

9 Son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: say: The sword, the sword is sharpened, and furbished.

10 It is sharpened to kill victims: it is furbished that it may glitter: thou removest the sceptre of my son, thou hast cut down every tree.

11 And I have given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, that it may be in the hand of the slayer.

12 Cry, and howl, 0 son of man, for this sword is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel, that are fled: they are delivered up to the sword with my people, strike therefore upon thy thigh,

13 Because it is tried: and that when it shall overthrow the sceptre, and it shall not be, saith the Lord God.

14 Thou therefore, O son of man, prophesy, and strike thy hands together, and let the sword be doubled, and let the sword of the slain be tripled: this is the sword of a great slaughter, that maketh them stand amazed,

15 And languish in heart, and that multiplieth ruins. In all their gates I have set the dread of the sharp sword, the sword that is furbished to glitter, that is made ready for slaughter.

16 Be thou sharpened, go to the right hand, or to the left, which way soever thou hast a mind to set thy face.

17 And I will clap my hands together, and will satisfy my indignation: I the Lord have spoken.

18 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

19 And thou son of man, set thee two ways, for the sword of the king of Babylon to come: both shall come forth out of one land: and with his hand he shall draw lots, he shall consult at the head of the way of the city.

20 Thou shalt make a way that the sword may come to Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and to Juda unto Jerusalem the strong city.

21 For the king of Babylon stood in the highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination, shuffling arrows: he inquired of the idols, and consulted entrails.

22 On his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in slaughter, to lift up the voice in howling, to set engines against the gates, to cast up a mount, to build forts.

23 And he shall be in their eyes as one consulting the oracle in vain, and imitating the leisure of sabbaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity that they may be taken.

24 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you have remembered your iniquity, and have discovered your prevarications, and your sins have appeared in all your devices: because, I say, you have remembered, you shall be taken with the hand.

25 But thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come that hath been appointed in the time of iniquity:

26 Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, take off the crown: is it not this that hath exalted the low one, and brought down him that was high?

27 I will shew it to be iniquity, iniquity, iniquity: but this was not done till he came to whom judgment belongeth, and I will give it him.

28 And thou son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach, and thou shalt say: sword, O sword, come out of the scabbard to kill, be furbished to destroy, and to glitter,

29 Whilst they see vain things in thy regard, and they divine lies: to bring thee upon the necks of the wicked that are wounded, whose appointed day is come in the time of iniquity.

30 Return into thy sheath. I will judge thee in the place wherein thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

31 And I will pour out upon thee my indignation: in the fire of my rage will I blow upon thee, and will give thee into the hands of men that are brutish and contrive thy destruction.

32 Thou shalt be fuel for the fire, thy blood shall be in the midst of the land, thou shalt be forgotten: for I the Lord have spoken it.

   

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Pour out

  

'Pouring out the vials upon the earth, which contained the plagues,' in Revelation 16:1, signifies influx of the reformed into the church, or into people who study and receive the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Explained 16; Apocalypse Revealed 676)

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Arcana Coelestia # 9666

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9666. 'And the middle bar in the midst of the boards that passes through from end to end' means the chief power from which the power everywhere else extends. This is clear from the meaning of 'bar' or 'pole' as power, dealt with in 9496; from the meaning of 'middle' as what is inmost and chief, dealt with in 1074, 2940, 2973, 5897, 6084, 6103; from the meaning of 'passing through from end to end', when it refers to 'the bar' by which power is meant, as the power everywhere else that is derived and extends from it.

[2] None can have any real knowledge of these matters unless they know about the nature of things which are more internal and those which are more external in the spiritual world. Things that are the best and purest, and so more perfect than all others, exist in the inmost part. Those which are spread out from there towards more external parts are less and less perfect the further away they lie from inmost things, ending in those in the outermost parts, which are the least perfect of all, 9648. Things are said to be less perfect when they can be more easily twisted out of the shape and beauty they possess, and so out of the order that is theirs. The situation in all this is like that with fruits. Within them they have seeds, surrounded by the flesh. The seeds exist in a state more perfect than the flesh outside them, as becomes clear from the fact that when the flesh decays the seeds still remain intact. The like applies to the seeds themselves. Inmostly in these there is the reproductive germ, which exists in a perfect state compared with the parts outside it; for the germ remains in its intactness, producing a new tree or young plant when the more external parts of the seed are broken down. Things in heaven are arranged in the same way. The inmost things there, being closer to the Lord, exist in a perfect state compared with more external ones. For this reason the inmost heaven enjoys greater wisdom and intelligence, and consequently greater happiness than the heavens below. The like applies within each heaven; the inmost is more perfect than the surrounding parts. The like applies also to the person with whom the good of love and the truths of faith are present. That person's internal exists in a more perfect state than the external; for the internal man dwells in the heat and light of heaven, but the external in the heat and light of the world. In every form that is perfect the situation is the same, in that its inmost part is the best, the inmost being what is meant by 'the middle'.

[3] The reason why 'passing through from end to end', said in reference to a bar or pole, means the power everywhere else that is derived and extends from the chief power is that 'from end to end' means the first end and the final end, 1 thus from beginning to end since the first end is the beginning. Consequently by 'the ends' all things and everywhere are meant, as in Jeremiah,

The sword of Jehovah is devouring from [one] end of the land to the [other] end of it. Jeremiah 12:12.

'The sword' stands for truth engaged in conflict against falsity and destroying it, and in the contrary sense falsity engaged in conflict against truth and destroying it, 2799, 4499, 6353, 7102, 8294. 'Devouring from [one] end of the land to the [other] end of it' stands for all things of the Church, 'the land' being the Church, 9334. In David,

From the end of the heavens is His going forth, and His circuit to the ends of them. Psalms 19:6.

Here also 'from the end of the heavens to the ends of them' stands for all things and everywhere.

[4] In Mark,

He will send His angels and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth even to the end of heaven. Mark 13:27.

'The end of the earth' and 'the end of heaven' stand for all the external and the internal things of the Church, 'the earth' being the external part of the Church and 'heaven' the internal part of it, see 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 3355 (end), 4535, where it explains what a new earth and a new heaven are. The plural 'ends' has the same meaning, in Isaiah,

Look to Me, that you may be saved, all ends of the earth. Isaiah 45:22.

In David,

O God of our salvation, [You are] the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of the far-off parts of the sea. Psalms 65:5.

And the singular has the same meaning in the expression 'even to the end': In Isaiah,

... [that] you may be 2 My salvation even to the end of the earth. Isaiah 49:6.

In the same prophet,

Jehovah will cause it to be heard even to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation will come. Isaiah 62:11.

In Jeremiah,

A clamour will come even to the end of the earth. Jeremiah 25:31.

'Even to the end' implies from end to end.

[5] But when 'end' is used to denote solely what is outermost or last and lowest it means that which is the lowest part of heaven or of the Church, as in Isaiah,

Sing to Jehovah a new song; [sing] His praise, you end of the earth falling away to the sea, and you fullness of it (the islands and their inhabitants). Isaiah 42:10.

'You end of the earth falling away to the sea' stands for the last and lowest part of the Church where goodness and truth dwell in obscurity. For this meaning of 'the sea', see 9653. 'The islands' stands for those more remote from truths, and consequently from [true] worship, 1158.

[6] In the same prophet,

Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the end of the earth. Isaiah 43:6.

'Sons from afar' are those who dwell in obscurity in respect of truths, 'daughters from the end of the earth' those who do so in respect of forms of good, as gentile nations did. By 'sons' those in possession of truths are meant, and in the abstract sense truths themselves, see 264, 489, 491, 1147, 2623, 2803, 2813, 3373, 3704, and by 'daughters' those with whom forms of good exist, and in the abstract sense the forms of good themselves, 489-491, 2362, 3963, 8994. From this it is also evident that 'end' has regard to good and 'afar' to truth, as also in Psalms 65:5 and Isaiah 13:5. But it should be remembered that by 'the end of heaven' not an end that is spatial but a state of goodness and truth should be understood; for there is no space in heaven, only an appearance of it that is determined by states of goodness and truth.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. i.e. the initial end in view and the subsequent accomplishment of that end

2. Reading Sis (you may be) for Sit (he may be)

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