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Ezekiel 39

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1 And thou, son of man, prophesy against Cog, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I come against thee, O Cog, the chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal.

2 And I will turn thee round, and I will lead thee out, and will make thee go up from the northern parts: and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.

3 And I will break thy bow in thy left hand, and I will cause thy arrows to fall out of thy right hand.

4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all thy bands, and thy nations that are with thee: I have given thee to the wild beasts, to the birds, and to every fowl, and to the beasts of the earth to be devoured.

5 Thou shalt fall upon the face of the field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell confidently in the islands: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

7 And I will make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel, and my holy name shall be profaned no more: and the Gentiles shall know that I am the Lord, the holy One of Israel.

8 Behold it cometh, and it is done, saith the Lord God: this is the day whereof I have spoken.

9 And the inhabitants shall go forth of the cities of Israel, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, the shields, and the spears, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves and the pikes: and they shall burn them with fire seven years.

10 And they shall not bring wood out of the countries, nor cut down out of the forests: for they shall burn the weapons with fire, and shall make a prey of them to whom they had been a prey, and they shall rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord God.

11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give Gog a noted place for a sepulchre in Israel: the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea, which shall cause astonishment in them that pass by: and there shall they bury Cog, and all his multitude, and it shall be called the valley of the multitude of Cog.

12 And the house of Israel shall bury them for seven months to cleanse the land.

13 And all the people of the land shall bury him, and it shall be unto them a noted day, wherein I was glorified, saith the Lord God.

14 And they shall appoint men to go continually about the land, to bury and to seek out them that were remaining upon the face of the earth, that they may cleanse it: and after seven months they shall begin to seek.

15 And they shall go about passing through the land: and when they shall see the bone of a man, they shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers bury it in the valley of the multitude of Cog.

16 And the name of the city shall be Amona, and they shall cleanse the land.

17 And thou, O son of man, saith the Lord God, say to every fowl, and to all the birds, and to all the beasts of the field: Assemble yourselves, make haste, come together from every side to my victim, which I slay for you, a great victim upon the mountains of Israel: to eat flesh, and drink blood.

18 You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and you shall drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, and of lambs, and of he goats, and bullocks, and of all that are well fed and fat.

19 And you shall eat the fat till you be full, and shall drink blood till you be drunk of the victim which I shall slay for you.

20 And you shall be filled at my table with horses, and mighty horsemen, and all the men of war, saith the Lord God.

21 And I will set my glory among the nations: and all nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.

22 And the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day and forward.

23 And the nations shall know that the house of Israel were made captives for their iniquity, because they forsook me, and I hid my face from them: and I delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and they fell all by the sword.

24 I have dealt with them according to their uncleanness, and wickedness, and hid my face from them.

25 Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Now will I bring back the captivity of Jacob, and will have mercy on all the house of Israel: and I will be jealous for my holy name.

26 And they shall bear their confusion, and all the transgressions wherewith they have transgressed against me, when they shall dwell in their land securely fearing no man:

27 And I shall have brought them back from among the nations, and shall have gathered them together out of the lands of their enemies, and shall be sanctified in them, in the sight of many nations.

28 And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I caused them to be carried away among the nations; and I have gathered them together unto their own land, and have not left any of them there.

29 And I will hide my face no more from them, for I have poured out my spirit upon all the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.

   

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Midst

  

The "midst" of something in the Bible represents the thing that is most central and most important to the spiritual state being described, the motivation that drives everything else. In general this will be something we love or feel, because at the core of things we are what we love; our loves define us.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Revealed 44, 90, 268; Arcana Coelestia 2252, 2940, 10153, 10365, 10557, 10635, 10641)

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Apocalypse Revealed # 90

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90. "'Which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.'" This symbolically means, inwardly in the truths of wisdom and faith.

In the midst means, symbolically, the inmost (nos. 44, 383), here within or inwardly. The Paradise of God symbolizes truths of wisdom and faith. Consequently the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God symbolizes the Lord accompanied by the goodness of love and charity inwardly in the truths of wisdom and faith. Good also exists inwardly within truths, for good is the essence of life, and truth is the consequent expression of life, as we showed many times in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom.

That the Paradise of God is the truth of wisdom and faith is apparent from the symbolic meaning of a garden in the Word. A garden there symbolizes wisdom and intelligence, because trees symbolize the people of the church, and their fruits goods of life. That is what the Garden of Eden symbolizes, for it describes the wisdom of Adam.

[2] The garden of God in Ezekiel has the same meaning:

With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself... You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering... (Ezekiel 28:4, 13)

The subject is Tyre, which symbolizes the church in respect to its concepts of truth and good, thus in respect to its intelligence. Accordingly it is said, "With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself." The precious stones which served as its covering symbolize truths of intelligence.

[3] In the same book:

Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon... The cedars in the garden of God did not hide it... No tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty... All the trees of Eden envied it... in the garden of God. (Ezekiel 31:3, 8-9)

This is said of Egypt and Assyria, because Egypt symbolizes knowledge, and Assyria rationality, which leads to intelligence. A cedar has a similar symbolism.

But because Egypt's rationality led also to a conceit in its own intelligence, therefore it is said of it,

To which of the trees in Eden were you then likened in glory and greatness, when you were brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth below, and you lay in the midst of the uncircumcised...? (Ezekiel 31:18)

The uncircumcised are people who lack the goodness of charity.

[4] In Isaiah:

...Jehovah will comfort Zion..., and make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah. (Isaiah 51:3)

Zion there is the church. The wilderness and desert are a deficiency of truth and ignorance of it. Eden and the garden of God are wisdom and intelligence.

Wisdom and intelligence are also symbolically meant by a garden in Isaiah 58:11; 61:11, Jeremiah 31:12, Amos 9:14, and Numbers 24:6.

[5] A person of the church is also like a garden in respect to his intelligence when he possesses goodness of love from the Lord, because the spiritual warmth that enlivens him is love, and spiritual light is the resulting intelligence.

People know that these two, warmth and light, cause gardens in the world to bloom. It is the same in heaven. Paradisal gardens are seen in heaven, with trees bearing fruit in accordance with the inhabitants' wisdom that springs from their goodness of love from the Lord. But around people who possess intelligence without the goodness of love, no gardens are seen, but grass, while around those whose faith is divorced from charity, not even grass is seen, but sand.

  
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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.