Bible

 

Ezekiel 4

Studie

   

1 And thou, son of man, take thee a brick, and put it before thee, and portray upon her the city of Jerusalem;

2 and put a siege against her, and build a ramp against her, and pour·​·out an embankment against her; put the camp against her, and set battering rams against her all around.

3 And take thou to thee an iron griddle, and put it for a wall of iron between thee and the city; and establish thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt besiege it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

4 And thou, lie also on thy left side, and set the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; the number of the days that thou shalt lie on it thou shalt bear their iniquity.

5 And I have put upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

6 And when thou hast completed these, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days; I have given to thee a day for a year, a day for a year.

7 And thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be made·​·bare, and thou shalt prophesy against it.

8 And, behold, I will put ropes on thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from thy side to thy side, until thou hast completed the days of thy siege.

9 And take thou unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie on thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat of it.

10 And thy food which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from time to time shalt thou eat it.

11 And thou shalt drink water by volume, the sixth part of a hin; from time to time shalt thou drink.

12 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt make·​·the·​·cake with excrement that goes out of man, before their eyes.

13 And Jehovah said, In·​·this·​·manner shall the sons of Israel eat their unclean bread among the nations, whither I will compel them.

14 And I said, Alas, Lord Jehovih*! Behold, my soul has not been defiled; and from my youth until now I have not eaten of the carcass and of what is torn; and there came not the flesh of abomination into my mouth.

15 And He said to me, See, I have given thee the dung of cattle instead·​·of the excrement of man, and thou shalt make thy bread with it.

16 And He said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the rod of bread in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread by weight, and with anxiety; and they shall drink water by volume, and with astonishment,

17 in·​·order·​·that they may have·​·want of bread and water, and be desolate, a man and his brother, and waste·​·away in their iniquity.

   


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

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 7602

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 10837  
  

7602. 'And the barley' means its good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the barley' as the good of the exterior natural. The reason why 'the barley' means that good is that it is a product of the field and is a grain that serves for food. For 'grain' in general means the good of truth, 3580, 5295, 5410, 5959, as do 'barley and wheat' in particular - 'barley' the good of the exterior natural, and 'wheat' the good of the interior natural. The former is meant by 'the barley' in Joel,

The minchah has been cut off, and the drink offering, from the house of Jehovah; the priests have been mourning, the ministers of Jehovah. The field has been devastated, the land has been mourning because the grain has been laid waste, the new wine has failed, the oil languishes. Farmers have been put to shame, vine dressers have wailed over the wheat and over the barley, for the reason that the harvest of the field has perished. Joel 1:9-11.

The prophet is referring at this point to a laying waste of what is good and true, as is clear from what follows it there. Not those products therefore are meant by 'the grain', 'the new wine', 'the wheat', and 'the barley', but spiritual things; that is, 'the wheat' means interior good, and 'the barley' exterior good. 'Barley' has a similar meaning in Ezekiel 4:9 and Deuteronomy 8:8. In the Book of Judges,

When Gideon reached the camp, there was a man recounting a dream to his companion. And he said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream; and behold, a cake of barley bread rolled towards the camp of Midian, and came all the way to a tent, and struck it so that it fell, and overturned it, and so the tent collapsed. Judges 7:13.

'Midian' means those who are guided by the truth that goes with simple good, and in the contrary sense those who fail to lead a good life, 3242, 4756, 4788, 6777. This good is the good of the exterior natural and is meant by 'barley bread'. But sensory pleasure, if this is what a person has in view instead of that good, is what is meant by 'a cake of barley bread'. This is the state that the Midianites described here represented on that occasion.

  
/ 10837  
  

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