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Joel 3

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1 Sillä katso, niinä päivinä ja sillä ajalla, kuin minä Juudan ja Jerusalemin vankiuden palautan,

2 Tahdon minä koota kaikki pakanat, ja viedä heitä alas Josaphatin laaksoon; ja tahdon siellä heidän kanssansa riidellä, minun kansani ja minun perimiseni Israelin tähden, jonka he pakanain sekaan hajoittivat, ja jakoivat minun maani itsellensä,

3 Ja ovat minun kansastani arpaa heittäneet; ja ovat pojan porton edestä antaneet, ja piian myyneet viinan edestä, ja sen juoneet.

4 Mitä myös minun on teidän kanssanne, te Tyrosta ja Zidonista, ja te kaikki Philistealaisten rajat? vai tahdotteko te minulle kaiketi kostaa? Jos te minulle tahdotte kostaa, niin minä tahdon sen äkisti ja pian kostaa teidän päänne päälle.

5 Sillä te olette minun hopiani ja kultani ottaneet, ja minun kauniit kappaleeni teidän kirkkoihinne vieneet;

6 Ja myyneet Juudan ja Jerusalemin lapset Grekiläisille, heitä kauvas heidän rajoistansa saattaaksenne.

7 Katso, minä tahdon heidät sieltä herättää, johonka te heidät myyneet olette; ja tahdon sen kostaa teidän päänne päälle;

8 Ja tahdon myydä jälleen teidän poikanne ja tyttärenne Juudan lasten kautta; ne pitää heidät rikkaasen Arabiaan, kaukaisen maan kansalle myymän; sillä Herra on sen puhunut.

9 Julistakaat näitä pakanain seassa, pyhittäkäät sota, herättäkäät väkevät, käyköön edes, ja menköön ylös kaikki sotaväki.

10 Tehkäät vannanne miekoiksi ja viikahteenne keihäiksi. Ja joka heikko on, se sanokaan: minä olen väkevä.

11 Kootkaat teitänne, ja tulkaat tänne kaikki pakanat ympäristöltä, ja kootkaat teitänne; anna, Herra, sinun väkevät sinne astua alas.

12 Nouskaat pakanat ja menkäät ylös Josaphatin laaksoon; sillä minä tahdon siellä istua, ja tuomita kaikki pakanat ympäristöltä.

13 Sivaltakaat viikahteella, sillä elo on kypsä; tulkaat ja astukaat alas; sillä kuurnat ovat täydet, ja kuurna-astiat kuohuvat; sillä heidän pahuutensa on suuri.

14 Paljo kansaa pitää oleman ympärillä joka paikassa Tuomiolaaksossa; sillä Herran päivä on läsnä Tuomiolaaksossa.

15 Aurinko ja kuu pimenevät, ja tähdet peittävät valkeutensa.

16 Ja Herra on Zionista kiljuva, ja antaa kuulla äänensä Jerusalemista, että taivaan ja maan pitää vapiseman. Mutta Herra on kansansa turva, ja linna Israelin lapsille.

17 Ja teidän pitää tietämän, että minä Herra teidän Jumalanne asun Zionissa minun pyhällä vuorellani; silloin on Jerusalem pyhäksi tuleva, ja ei pidä muukalaisen käymän enään sen lävitse.

18 Sillä ajalla pitää vuoret makiaa viinaa tiukkuman, ja kukkulat rieskaa vuotaman, ja kaikki Juudan ojat pitää vettä täynnä oleman; ja lähde pitää Herran huoneessa käymän, ja Sittimin ojaan juokseman.

19 Vaan Egyptin pitää autioksi tuleman, ja Edom synkiäksi erämaaksi; sen vääryyden tähden, mikä Juudan lapsille tehty on, että he viattoman veren heidän maassansa vuodattaneet ovat.

20 Mutta Juudassa pitää ijankaikkisesti asuttaman, ja Jerusalemissa ijankaikkiseen aikaan.

21 Ja minä tahdon puhdistaa heidän verensä, jota en minä ennen ole puhdistanut; ja Herra on asuva Zionissa.

   


SWORD version by Tero Favorin (tero at favorin dot com)

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Sacred Scripture # 14

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14. When the Lord speaks to his disciples about the close of the age, which is the last time of the church, at the end of his predictions about the sequence of changes of state he says,

Immediately after the affliction of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Humanity will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will wail; and they will see the Son of Humanity coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a trumpet and a loud voice, and they will gather his chosen people from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)

[2] Spiritually understood, this does not mean that the sun and moon will be darkened, that the stars will fall from heaven, and that a sign of the Lord will appear in heaven and he will be seen in the clouds accompanied by angels with trumpets. Rather, the particular words are here used to mean spiritual events that have to do with the church, spiritual events about its state at its end. The underlying reason is that in the spiritual meaning the sun that will be darkened is the Lord as an object of love; the moon that will not give its light is the Lord as an object of faith; the stars that will fall from heaven are the knowledge of what is good and what is true that will come to an end; the sign of the Son of Humanity in heaven is the manifestation of divine truth; the tribes of the earth that will wail are a complete lack of true belief and of good actions that come from love; the coming of the Son of Humanity in the clouds of heaven with power and glory is the Lord’s presence in the Word, and a revelation - the clouds being the literal meaning of the Word and the glory being the spiritual meaning of the Word. The angels with a trumpet and a loud voice mean heaven as our source of divine truth; and the gathering of the chosen people from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other, means a new kind of church, specifically its love and faith.

[3] It is obvious from the prophets that this does not mean the darkening of the sun and the moon and the falling of the stars to earth, because things like this are said there about the state of the church when the Lord will come into the world. It says in Isaiah, for example:

Behold, the fierce day of Jehovah is coming, a day of blazing wrath. The stars of the heavens and their constellations will not shine their light. The sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not make its light shine. I will execute judgment upon the world for its malice. (Isaiah 13:9-11; 24:21, 23)

In Joel,

The day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and gloom; the sun and the moon will be darkened and the stars will withhold their light. (Joel 2:1-2, 10; 3:15)

In Ezekiel,

I will cover the heavens and darken the stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. I will darken all the bright lights and bring darkness upon the land. (Ezekiel 32:7-8)

The day of Jehovah means the Coming of the Lord, which happened when there was no longer anything good or true left in the church, and there was no knowledge of the Lord.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

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Sacred Scripture # 18

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18. 3. The spiritual meaning is what makes the Word divinely inspired and makes every word in it holy. We hear it said in the church that the Word is holy, but this is because Jehovah God spoke it. However, because people do not see anything holy about it from the letter alone, once they begin to have doubts about its holiness for this reason, then when they read the Word, there is much they can find to justify this attitude. That is, they think, “Is this holy? Is this divine?” To prevent this kind of thinking from spreading to more and more people and then gaining strength and so destroying the Lord’s union with the church where the Word is, it has now pleased the Lord to unveil the spiritual meaning so that we may know where in the Word that “holy material” lies hidden.

[2] But let me illustrate this too with some examples.

Sometimes the Word talks about Egypt, sometimes about Assyria, sometimes about Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, Tyre and Sidon, and Gog. If we do not know that these names mean matters of heaven and the church, we may be misled and believe that the Word has a lot to say about nations and peoples and only a little about heaven and the church - a lot about earthly matters and not much about heavenly ones. However, if we know what is meant by these nations and peoples or by their names, we can come out of error into truth.

[3] By the same token, when we see in the Word the frequent mention of gardens, groves, forests, and their trees, such as olive, grapevine, cedar, poplar, and oak; when we see mention of lambs, sheep, goats, calves, and cattle, as well as mountains, hills, valleys, and their springs, rivers, waters, and so on; if we know nothing about the spiritual meaning of the Word, we can only believe that these and nothing else are the things that they mean. We would not know that garden, grove, and forest mean wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge; that the olive, grapevine, cedar, poplar, and oak mean the heavenly, spiritual, rational, earthly, and sensory types of goodness and truth in the church; that lambs, sheep, goats, calves, and cattle mean innocence, caring, and earthly feelings; that mountains, hills, and valleys mean the higher, lower, and lowest forms of the church; and that Egypt means knowledge, Assyria reasoning, Edom what is earthly, Moab the corruption of what is good, Ammonites the corruption of what is true, Tyre and Sidon the knowledge of what is true and good, and Gog outward worship with no inner content. Once we know this, though, we can think that the Word is about nothing but heavenly matters and that these earthly things are only the vessels that contain them.

[4] But let me illustrate this with another example from the Word. We read in David,

The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; Jehovah is upon great waters. The voice of Jehovah breaks the cedars. Jehovah shatters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them leap like a calf, and Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice of Jehovah comes down like a flame of fire. The voice of Jehovah makes the wilderness quake; it makes the wilderness of Kadesh quake. The voice of Jehovah makes the deer give birth and strips the woodlands bare, but in his temple, everyone says, “Glory!” (Psalms 29:3-9)

Anyone who is strictly earthly-minded and does not realize that the details, including every single word here, are holy and divine may say, “What is all this - Jehovah sitting on waters, breaking cedars with his voice, making them leap like a calf and Lebanon like a young unicorn, making deer give birth, and so on?” Such people do not realize that spiritually understood, these statements serve as a description of the power of divine truth or the Word.

[5] When understood in this way, the “voice of Jehovah” (which here speaks in thunder) means divine truth or the Word in its power. The great waters on which Jehovah sits mean its truths; both the cedars that it breaks and [the cedars of] Lebanon that it shatters mean distortions produced by human reasoning; the calf and the young unicorn mean distortions produced by the earthly and sense-centered self; the flame of fire means the urge to distort; the wilderness and the wilderness of Kadesh mean the church where there is nothing true and nothing good; the deer that the voice of Jehovah causes to give birth mean people who are engaged in doing good on an earthly level; and the woodlands that he strips bare mean the facts and concepts the Word makes accessible to them. That is why it goes on to say that everyone in his temple says, “Glory!” This means that there are divine truths in the details of the Word, since the temple means the Lord and therefore the Word, as well as heaven and the church, and glory means divine truth.

We can see from all this that there is not a single word in this passage that is not describing the divine power of the Word against all kinds of false beliefs and perceptions in earthly people, and the divine power to reform people.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.