Deuteronomio 28:66
To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.
Apocalypse Revealed # 424
424. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth. (9:3) This symbolically means that from them issued falsities of the lowest sort, such as are found in the case of people who have become sensual and who view and judge everything in accordance with the senses and their fallacies.
Falsities that we term falsities of the lowest sort are those which occur on the lowest level of a person's life, called sensual, which we will speak of below. These falsities are symbolized in the Word by locusts. It should be known, however, that the locusts here did not look like the locusts found in fields, which hop about and devastate pastures and crops. Instead they looked like pygmies or midgets, as is apparent also from their description, as for instance, that they had crowns on their heads, faces like the faces of men, hair like women's hair, teeth like lions' teeth, breastplates of iron, and the angel of the bottomless pit as king over them.
Ancient peoples, too, called midgets locusts, as we can conclude from these verses:
(Those who spied out the land of Canaan said:) ."..we saw the Nephilim, the descendants of the Anakim..., and we were like locusts... in their sight." (Numbers 13:33)
(Jehovah) who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants like locusts... (Isaiah 40:22)
[2] However, because falsities of the lowest sort, such as existed in the people here, are in the Word symbolized by locusts, therefore in Nahum the people are called locusts, as well as being termed crowned and commanders:
...the fire will devour you..., it will eat you up like a locust's larva. Make yourself many like the locust's larva! Make yourself many like locusts! ...Your crowned ones are like locusts, and your commanders like great locusts... (Nahum 3:15-17)
Because falsities of the lowest sort devour the growing truths and goods of the church in a person, they are symbolized by locusts which devour the grasses in fields and the vegetation on farms, as is clear from the following passages:
You shall carry much seed out to the field, but... the locust shall consume it. (Deuteronomy 28:38)
What the caterpillar left, the locust will eat; what the locust left, the beetle grub will eat; and what the beetle grub left, the locust's larva will eat. (Joel 1:4)
I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the beetle grub, the locust's larva, and the caterpillar... (Joel 2:25)
[3] The locusts in Egypt have the same symbolic meaning, of which we read the following in Exodus:
Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and... the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt...; previously there had been no such locusts...; and they ate every herb... of the field... (Exodus 10:12ff.)
And afterward Moses stretched out his rod, and the locusts were cast into the Red Sea.
Further, in the book of Psalms:
He gave their produce to the locust's larva, and their labor to the locust. (Psalms 78:46, cf. 105:34-35)
The miracles in Egypt describe the devastation of the church, and this particular miracle, its devastation by falsities of the lowest sort. And when the inner levels of a person's life are closed, on which the lowest levels depend, the lowest levels become hellish. Therefore the locusts were cast into the Red Sea, which symbolizes hell.
[4] Since few people today know what we mean by the sensual level, or what the character of a sensual person is, and since this is what locusts symbolize, therefore we will introduce from our Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven) the following extracts regarding it:
The sensual level is the lowest of a person's mental life, attaching to and uniting with his five physical senses (nos. 5077 5767, 9212, 9216, 9331, 9730).
That person is called sensual who judges of everything in accordance with his physical senses, and who believes in nothing but what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands, saying that if he can, it is real, and rejecting everything else (nos. 5094 7693).
The inner levels of that person's mind, which see in the light of heaven, are closed, so that he sees no truth on those levels which has to do with heaven and the church (nos. 6564, 6844, 6845).
A person like that thinks on the lowest levels, and not interiorly in any spiritual light (nos. 5089 5094, 6564, 7693).
In a word, people like that have a crude natural sight (nos. 6201 6310, 6564, 6844, 6845, 6612, 6614, 6622, 6624).
Inwardly they are therefore hostile to matters having to do with heaven and the church, though it is possible for them to speak in favor of them outwardly, even ardently, according to the power they have by virtue of them (nos. 6201, 6316, 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949).
The educated and learned who have deeply confirmed themselves in falsities, and still more those who are hostile to the Word's truths, are more sensual than others (no. 6316).
Sensual people reason keenly and skillfully, because their thinking is so near to speech as to almost reside in it, and to be, so to speak, on the lips, and because they place all intelligence in speech from the memory alone; moreover, some of them can cleverly defend falsities, and after they have done so, believe they are true (nos. 195 196, 5700, 10236).
They reason from fallacies of the senses and defend them, which they use to captivate and persuade the populace (nos. 5084 6948, 6949, 7693).
Sensual people are craftier and more malicious than others (nos. 7693, 10236).
Greedy people, adulterers, hedonists, and the deceitful are especially sensual, even though to the world they do not appear so (no. 6310).
The interiors of their minds are foul and filthy (no. 6201).
Through them they are in communication with the hells (no. 6311).
People residing in the hells are sensual, and the more so the deeper the hell (nos. 4623 6311).
The atmosphere of spirits in hell mixes with a person's sensual level from behind (no. 6312).
People who have based their reasoning on the evidence of the senses only, and so are hostile to the genuine truths of the church, were called by ancient peoples serpents of the tree of knowledge (nos. 195, 196, 197, 6398, 6399, 10313).
In addition, a person's sensual level and the sensual person are described (no. 10236), together with the extent of the sensual things in a person (no. 9731).
Sensual things ought to be held in last place, and not in first place, and in a wise and intelligent person they are held in last place, subject to more interior ones, while in a foolish person they are in first place and dominant; the latter are those properly called sensual (nos. 5077 5125, 5128, 7645).
If sensual things are in last place, they are the means by which a path is opened to understanding, and truths are refined by a process of abstraction (no. 5580).
These sensual things are the closest to the world, and they admit things that flow in from the world and, so to speak, sift them (no. 9726).
By these sensual things a person is in communication with the world, and by rational things with heaven (no. 4009).
Sensual things supply materials that are of service to the interior levels of the mind (nos. 5077 5081).
Some sensual things are of service to the intellectual faculty, and some are of service to the volitional faculty (no. 5077).
If a person does not raise his thought from sensual things, he is hardly wise (no. 5089).
A wise person thinks above the level of sensual things (nos. 5089, 5094).
When a person raises his thinking above the level of sensual things, he comes into a clearer sight, and finally into the light of heaven (nos. 6183 6313, 6315, 9407, 9730, 9922).
An elevation above the level of sensual things and withdrawal from them was something known to ancient peoples (no. 6313).
A person can be conscious in his spirit of things that occur in the spiritual world, if he can be withdrawn from sensual things by the Lord and elevated into the light of heaven (no. 4622). That is because it is not the body that thinks, but a person's spirit in the body, and to the extent that it dwells in the body, it thinks dimly and in a state of darkness; however, to the extent that it does not dwell in the body, it thinks clearly and in a state of light - but only as regards spiritual matters (nos. 4622, 6614, 6622).
The lowest level of the intellect is sensual knowledge, and the lowest level of the will is sensual delight (no. 9996).
The difference between sensual characteristics possessed in common with animals, and those not possessed in common with them (no. 10236).
Some sensual people are not evil, because their interior levels have not been closed: their state in the other life (no. 6311).
Numbers 13
1
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
2
"Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall Send a man, every one a prince among them."
3
Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the commandment of Yahweh: all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.
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These were their names: Of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur.
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Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori.
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Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
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Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph.
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Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun.
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Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu.
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Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi.
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Of the tribe of Joseph, [namely], of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi.
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Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli.
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Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael.
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Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi.
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Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
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These are the names of the men who Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.
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Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, "Go up this way by the South, and Go up into the hill country:
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and see the land, what it is; and the people who dwell therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many;
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and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds;
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and what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is wood therein, or not. Be courageous, and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes."
21
So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath.
22
They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23
They came to the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it on a staff between two; [they brought] also of the pomegranates, and of the figs.
24
That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from there.
25
They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days.
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They went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them, and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.
27
They told him, and said, "We came to the land where you sent us; and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is its fruit.
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However the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified, [and] very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.
29
Amalek dwells in the land of the South: and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, dwell in the hill country; and the Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan."
30
Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, "Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it."
31
But the men who went up with him said, "We aren't able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we."
32
They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature.
33
There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."
