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Jonah 4

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1 And it was·​·evil to Jonah, a great evil, and he was·​·incensed by it.

2 And he prayed to Jehovah, and said, I pray Thee, O Jehovah, was not this my word, when I was yet upon my own ground? Therefore I went·​·before to run·​·away to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a God gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and of much mercy, and repenting concerning the evil.

3 And now, O Jehovah, take, I pray Thee, my soul from me; for my death is better than my life.

4 And Jehovah said, Doest· thou ·well to be·​·incensed?

5 And Jonah went·​·out from the city, and sat from the east to the city, and there made for himself a shelter, and sat under it in the shadow, until he might see what would become of the city.

6 And Jehovah God provided a kikajon*, and it went·​·up over Jonah, and it was a shade over his head, to rescue him from his evil. And Jonah was·​·glad on·​·account·​·of the kikajon, with great gladness.

7 But God provided a worm when the dawn came·​·up on the morrow, and it smote the kikajon, and it dried·​·up.

8 And it was, as the sun rose, that God provided a drying east wind; and the sun smote upon the head of Jonah, and he was·​·fatigued, and asked·​·for his soul to die, and said, My death would be better than my living.

9 And God said to Jonah, Doest· thou ·well to be·​·incensed for the kikajon? And he said, I do·​·well to be·​·incensed, even·​·to death.

10 And Jehovah said, Thou wouldst spare the kikajon, on which thou hast not labored, and didst not cause to grow·​·up; which is the son of a night, and the son of a night perishes;

11 and should not I spare Nineveh, the great city, in which are multiplied more than twelve myriads* of man* who knows not between his right·​·hand and his left; and also many beasts?

   


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

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Wind (as in west wind)

  
Storm in the Sea, by Théodore Gudin

In the Bible, the wind represents the power of the Lord working on us through the heavens. The Lord is love itself, and by extending His love He created the energy that created the universe, the energy that still sustains and empowers us. That love, and the wisdom that is its form, can act on us more or less directly depending on our spiritual states. A powerful wind indicates a more direct force.

It's interesting to note that the sun corresponds to the Lord, that its heat corresponds to the Lord's love and its light to the Lord's wisdom. In the natural world, the sun's heat causes wind by warming the air. In the spiritual world, the Lord's love causes spiritual wind by acting through heaven.

The Bible also talks about four winds, an east wind and a "wind of the sea." The four winds stand for the whole of the impact of the Lord's love. The east wind is withering, devastating – it represents the Lord's love as experienced by those in hell. The west wind represents stopping or turning aside the flow of the Lord's love – in Israel the "wind of the sea" would come from the west, opposing the east wind.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Explained 418, 419; Apocalypse Revealed 343 [2-4]; Arcana Coelestia 7679, 7702)