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Ezekiel 22

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

2 And thou son of man, dost thou not judge, dost thou not judge the city of blood?

3 And thou shalt shew her all her abominations, and shalt say: Thus saith the Lord God: This is the city that sheddeth blood in the midst of her, that her time may come: and that hath made idols against herself, to defile herself.

4 Thou art become guilty in thy blood which thou hast shed: and thou art defiled in thy idols which thou hast made: and thou hast made thy days to draw near, and hast brought on the time of thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach to the Gentiles, and a mockery to all countries.

5 Those that are near, and those that are far from thee, shall triumph over thee: thou filthy one, infamous, great in destruction.

6 Behold the princes of Israel, every one hath employed his arm in thee to shed blood.

7 They have abused father and mother in thee, they have oppressed the stranger in the midst of thee, they have grieved the fatherless and widow in thee.

8 Thou hast despised my sanctuaries, and profaned my sabbaths.

9 Slanderers have been in thee to shed blood, and they have eaten upon the mountains in thee, they have committed wickedness in the midst of thee.

10 They have discovered the nakedness of their father in thee, they have humbled the uncleanness of the menstruous woman in thee.

11 And every one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife, and the father in law hath wickedly defiled his daughter in law, the brother hath oppressed his sister the daughter of his father in thee.

12 They have taken gifts in thee to shed blood: thou hast taken usury and increase, and hast covetously oppressed thy neighbours: and then hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.

13 Behold, I have clapped my hands at thy covetousness, which thou hast exercised and at the blood that hath been shed: In the midst of thee.

14 Shall thy heart endure, or shall thy hands prevail ill the days which I will bring upon thee: I the Lord have spoken, and will do it.

15 And I will disperse thee in the nations, and will scatter thee among the countries, and I will put an end to thy uncleanness in thee.

16 And I will possess thee in the sight of the Gentiles, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.

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

18 Son of man, the house of Israel is become dress to me: all these are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace: they are become the dress of silver.

19 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you are all turned into dress, therefore behold I will gather you together in the midst of Jerusalem.

20 As they gather silver, and brass, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace: that I may kindle a fire in it to melt it: so will I gather you together in my fury and in my wrath, and will take my rest, and I will melt you down.

21 And I will gather you together, and will burn you in the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst thereof.

22 As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be in the midst thereof: and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have poured out my indignation upon you.

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

24 Son of man, say to her: Thou art a land that is unclean, and not rained upon in the day of wrath.

25 There is a conspiracy of prophets in the midst thereof: like a lion that roareth and catcheth the prey, they have devoured souls, they have taken riches and hire, they have made many widows in the midst thereof.

26 Her priests have despised my law, and have defiled my sanctuaries: they have put no difference between holy and profane: nor have distinguished between the polluted and the clean: and they have turned away their eyes from my sabbaths, and I was profaned in the midst of them.

27 Her princes in the midst of her, are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood, and to destroy souls, and to run after gains through covetousness.

28 And her prophets have daubed them without tempering the mortar, seeing vain things, and divining lies unto them, saying: Thus saith the Lord God: when the Lord hath not spoken.

29 The people of the land have used oppression, and committed robbery: they afflicted the needy and poor, and they oppressed the stranger by calumny without judgment.

30 And I sought among them for a man that might set up a hedge, and stand in the gap before me in favour of the land, that I might not destroy it: and I found none.

31 And I poured out my indignation upon them, in the fire of my wrath I consumed them: I have rendered their way upon their own head, saith the Lord God.

   

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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.

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Remove

  

As with many verbs, the meaning of "remove" in the Bible varies a good bit depending on context. It generally involves a separation of spiritual states, and in most cases specifically refers to a kind of sorting-out process to separate true ideas from false ones.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 932, 3993, 4544, 6371, 7392, 9258; The Apocalypse Explained 811 [6])