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Ezekiel 38

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

2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal: and prophesy of him,

3 And say to him: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal.

4 And I will turn thee about, and I will put a bit in thy jaws: and I will bring thee forth, and ail thy army, horses and horsemen all clothed with coats of mail, a great multitude, armed with spears and shields and swords.

5 The Persians, Ethiopians, and Libyans with them, all with shields and helmets.

6 Gomer, and all his bands, the house of Thogorma, the northern parts and all his strength, and many peoples with thee.

7 Prepare and make thyself ready, and all thy multitude that is assembled about thee, and be thou commander over them.

8 After many days thou shalt be visited: at the end of years thou shalt come to the land that is returned from the sword, and is gathered out of many nations, to the mountains of Israel which have been continually waste: but it hath been brought forth out of the nations, and they shall all of them dwell securely in

9 And thou shalt go up and come like a storm, and like a cloud to cover the land, thou and all thy bands and many people with thee.

10 Thus saith the Lord God: In that day projects shall enter into thy heart, and thou shalt conceive a mischievous design.

11 And thou shalt say: I will go up to the land which is without a wall, I will come to them that are at rest, and dwell securely: all these dwell without a wall, they have no bars nor gates :

12 To take spoils, and lay hold on the prey, to lay thy hand upon them that had been wasted, and afterwards restored, and upon the people that is gathered together out of the nations, which hath begun to possess and to dwell in the midst of the earth.

13 Saba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tharsis, and all the lions thereof shall say to thee: Art thou come to take spoils? behold, thou hast gathered thy multitude to take a prey, to take silver, and gold, and to carry away goods and substance, and to take rich spoils.

14 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy and say to Cog: Thus saith the Lord God: Shalt thou not know, in that day, when my people of Israel shall dwell securely?

15 And then shalt come out of thy place from the northern parts, thou and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army.

16 And thou shalt come upon my people of Israel like a cloud, to cover the earth. Thou shalt be in the latter days, and I will bring thee upon my land: that the nations may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.

17 Thus saith the Lord God: Thou then art he, of whom I have spoken in the days of old, by my servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in the days of those times that I would bring thee upon them.

18 And it shall come to pass in that day, in the day of the coming of Gog upon the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my indignation shall come up in my wrath.

19 And I have spoken in my zeal, and in the fire of my anger, that in that day there shall be a great commotion upon the land of Israel:

20 So that the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the ground, and all men that are upon the face of the earth, shall be moved at my presence: and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the hedges shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

21 And I will call in the sword against him in all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man's sword shall be pointed against his brother.

22 And I will judge him with pestilence, and with blood, and with violent rain, and vast hailstones: I will rain fire and brimstone upon him, and upon his army, and upon the many nations that are with him.

23 And I will be magnified, and I will be sanctified: and I will be known in the eyes of many nations: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

   

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Judge

  
St Lucy before the Judge, by Lorenzo Lotto

It's easy to see the connection between judging and truth. In a court of law, the whole purpose of the judge is to find the truth. Any time anyone judges anything, we hope it is on the basis of the truth. It's no wonder, then, that judging and judgment in the Bible represent truth being put to work. Depending on the circumstances judging can be teaching truth, determining someone's character from truth or setting order to things according to truth. There is a twist, though -- when the Lord is referred to as a judge, it actually signifies Divine Good, rather than Divine Truth. This is because the Lord judges us ultimately from love, and his truth flows from that love.

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 10160

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10160. When asked whether on their planet they live subject to the rule of governors or of kings they replied that they do not know what such rule is and that they live subject only to themselves, divided into clans, families, and households. When asked further whether they are therefore free from anxiety they said that they are free from it since one family is not at all envious of another and has no wish at all to take anything away from it. They were annoyed by such questions, as though these charged them with the existence of enmity and the existence of some safeguard against robbers. What more, they declared, do people need to have apart from food and clothing, in order that they may dwell contented and at peace, subject only to themselves?

[2] It was recognized, they said, from the most ancient people who were from our own planet that these people had in their times led a similar kind of life and that then they had not known what it was to be stirred by self-love to rule over others or to be moved by love of the world to accumulate possessions in excess of the necessities of life. They perceived also that those people then enjoyed inward and at the same time outward peace, so that heaven dwelt with mankind. Those times were therefore referred to by the writers of old as the golden age, and were described as ones in which people were led to do what was right and fair by the law written on their hearts.

[3] The circumstances in which they lived in those times are described in the Word as ones in which they dwelt by themselves, in security, subject only to themselves, without doors or bars. Indeed they lived in tents, and therefore as a reminder of this a tent was made to serve as the house of God, and afterwards the feast of tents or tabernacles was established, when they were to rejoice heartily. And since those who led this kind of life were devoid of the insane love of ruling for selfish reasons and of gaining the world for worldly reasons, heaven came down among them, and the Lord was seen in the human form by many.

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