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Deuteronomy 32

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1 Give·​·ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the sayings of my mouth.

2 My doctrine shall drip·​·down as the rain, what· I ·say shall stream as the dew, as the dewdrops upon the tender·​·herb, and as the raindrops upon the herb;

3 because I will proclaim the name of Jehovah; give ye greatness to our God.

4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are judgment: a God of faithfulness and no perversity, just and upright is He.

5 They have corrupted themselves, they are not His sons, it is their blemish; they are a twisted and contorted generation.

6 Do you thus recompense Jehovah, O foolish people and unwise? Is not He thy father that has bought thee? Has He not made thee, and established thee?

7 Remember the days of eternity, understand the years of generation and generation; ask thy father, and he will·​·tell thee; thine elders, and they will say it to thee.

8 When the Most·​·High caused the nations to inherit, when He separated the sons of man, He set·​·up the borders of the people according to the number of the sons of Israel.

9 For Jehovah’s portion is His people; Jacob is the region of His inheritance.

10 He found him in a land of wilderness, and in the void of howling solitude; He led· him ·around, He caused him to understand, He preserved him as the pupil of His eye.

11 As an eagle stirs·​·up its nest, flutters over its young, spreads its wings, takes them, bears them on its wings*;

12 So Jehovah alone did lead him, and there was no foreign god with him.

13 He made him ride on the high·​·places of the earth, that he might eat the bounty of the fields; and He made him to nurse on honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock;

14 butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs and rams, of the sons of Bashan, and of the he-goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the unmixed blood of the grape.

15 But Jeshurun became·​·fat, and kicked; thou art become·​·fat, thou art·​·thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he abandoned God who made him, and disparaged the Rock of his salvation.

16 They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they Him.

17 They sacrificed to demons, not to God; to gods that they knew not, to new gods that came from nearby, at which your fathers shuddered not.

18 Of the Rock who begot thee thou hast been oblivious, and hast forgotten God who brought thee forth*.

19 And Jehovah saw it, and He disdained them, because of the provocation of His sons, and of His daughters.

20 And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their posterity shall be; for they are a very perverse generation, sons in whom is no faithfulness.

21 They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked Me with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them with a foolish nation.

22 For a fire is ignited in My anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell, and shall eat·​·up the earth and her produce, and set·​·flame·​·to the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will add against them evils; I will consume·​·all My arrows on them.

24 They shall be burnt with famine, and devoured with embers, and with bitter disaster; I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of the snakes of the dust.

25 The sword outside, and terror from the chambers, shall bereave both the young·​·man and the virgin, the nursing infant with the man of gray·​·hairs.

26 I said, I would push· them ·to·​·the·​·corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from man;

27 except that I be·​·afraid of the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should make· themselves ·unrecognizable, and lest they should say, Our hands are lifted·​·high, and Jehovah has not worked all this.

28 For they are a nation void* of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

29 Would·​·that they were·​·wise, that they had·​·intelligence in this, that they would understand their future!

30 How should one pursue a thousand, and two put· myriads ·to·​·flight, except their Rock had sold them, and Jehovah had closed· them ·in?

31 For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, the bitter clusters are theirs.

33 their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel gall of adders.

34 Is not this laid up in store with Me, and sealed among My treasures?

35 To Me belongs vengeance, and repayment; their foot shall move in due time; for the day of their downfall is near, and their fortunes* shall hurry upon them.

36 For Jehovah shall make·​·judgment for His people, and repent Himself for His servants; for He sees that their hand* is spent, and nothing is restrained or forsaken.

37 And He shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they confide,

38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their poured·​·offerings? Let them rise·​·up and help you, and be a hiding·​·place over you.

39 See now that I, I am He, and there is no god with Me; I put·​·to·​·death, and I make·​·alive; I strike, and I heal; and there is none who can rescue from My hand.

40 For I lift up My hand to heaven, and say, I am alive to eternity.

41 If I sharpen My lightning sword, and My hand seizes on judgment; I will return vengeance to My adversaries, and will repay those who hate Me.

42 I will make· My arrows ·drunk from blood, and My sword shall eat·​·up flesh, from the blood of the slain and of the captivity, from the gall of revenging* the enemy.

43 Sing·​·aloud, O ye nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will return vengeance upon His adversaries, and will make·​·atonement for His ground for His people.

44 And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea* the son of Nun.

45 And Moses completed speaking all these words to all Israel;

46 and he said to them, Set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your sons to take·​·heed to do, all the words of this law.

47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life; and through this thing you shall prolong your days on the ground, whither you cross·​·over Jordan to possess it.

48 And Jehovah spoke to Moses that same day, saying,

49 Go·​·up to this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, which is over before Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel for a possession;

50 and die in the mountain whither thou goest up, and be gathered to thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people;

51 because you trespassed against Me among the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you sanctified Me not in the midst of the sons of Israel.

52 For thou shalt see the land in·​·front·​·of thee; but thither thou shalt not go·​·in to the land which I give to the sons of Israel.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Apocalypse Revealed # 649

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649. And he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes of the vine of the earth." This symbolizes the Lord's operation from the goodness of His love through the Word's Divine truth into the works of charity and faith among people belonging to the Christian Church.

This is the spiritual meaning of these words, inasmuch as the two angels symbolize the heavens of the Lord's spiritual and celestial kingdoms (nos. 647, 648), and the heavens do nothing of themselves, but from the Lord. For the angels in the heavens are only recipient vessels. Consequently in the spiritual sense nothing else is symbolized but the Lord's operation, here His operation into the church in the Christian world and into the works of charity and faith among the people in it. The vine, indeed, symbolizes that church, as we shall see after this in number 651, and grapes and clusters of grapes symbolize works of charity. This is the symbolism of grapes and clusters of grapes because they are the fruits of the vine in a vineyard, and fruits in the Word symbolize good works.

[2] The angel who came out from the altar told the angel who came out of the temple to thrust in his sickle and gather the grapes because, as we said before, the angel who came out from the altar symbolizes the heavens of the celestial kingdom, or heavens characterized by the goodness of love, while the angel who came out of the temple symbolizes the heavens of the spiritual kingdom, or heavens characterized by truths of wisdom; and the goodness of love does nothing by itself, but only through the truth of wisdom, and the truth of wisdom does nothing by itself, but only in response to the goodness of love. The reality of this is something we showed many times in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom. That is why the angel who came out from the altar told the angel who came out of the temple to thrust in his sickle and gather the clusters of grapes of the vine of the earth.

That now is why this description symbolizes the Lord's operation from the goodness of His love through the Divine truth of His Word.

[3] That grapes and clusters of grapes symbolize goods and the works of charity can be seen from the following passages:

Woe is me! ...I have become like the gatherings of summer, like the gleanings of vintage grapes; there is no cluster to eat; first-ripe fruit my soul desires. The holy man has perished from the earth, and the upright among men. (Micah 7:1-2)

Their grapes are grapes of gall, they have bitter clusters. (Deuteronomy 32:32)

My beloved had a vineyard... He expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced wild grapes. (Isaiah 5:1-2, 4)

They look to other gods, they love flagons of grapes. (Hosea 3:1)

...every tree is known by its own fruit. ...people do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. (Luke 6:44)

...in the midst of the land... it shall be... like the gleanings of grapes when the grape harvest is done. (Isaiah 24:12-13)

If the gatherers of the grapes come to you, they will not leave any gleanings. (Jeremiah 49:9, cf. Obadiah verses 4, 5)

The plunderer has fallen on... your grape harvest. (Jeremiah 48:32-33)

You will be troubled, you complacent ones, for the grape harvest is failing, the gathering will not come. (Isaiah 32:9-10)

And so on elsewhere where the fruit of the vineyard and the fruit of the vine are mentioned.

Some goods are the goods of a celestial love, and some are the goods of a spiritual love. The goods of a celestial love are those of love toward the Lord, and the goods of a spiritual love are those of a love for the neighbor. The latter goods are called goods of charity and are those meant by the fruits of the vineyard, which are grapes and clusters of grapes. But the goods of love toward the Lord are meant in the Word by the fruits of trees, primarily olives.

[4] "For her grapes are ripe." This symbolically means, because the Christian Church has reached its last state.

The ripening of the vineyard's grapes has the same symbolic meaning as the drying of the harvest above, but a harvest is mentioned in reference to the church in general, while a vineyard is mentioned in reference to the church in particular. The drying of the harvest symbolizes the last state of the church, as may be seen in no. 645 above, and so likewise does the ripening of the grapes of the vineyard.

A vineyard symbolize the church which has the Word's Divine truth and where the Lord is thereby known, since wine symbolizes the interior truth that comes from the Lord through the Word. The vineyard here accordingly symbolizes the Christian Church.

That wine symbolizes truth springing from the goodness of love, thus from the Lord, may be seen in no. 316 above.

  
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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.