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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.

Komentář

 

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)

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings # 169

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169. After we have examined ourselves, acknowledged our sins, and repented of them, we must for the rest of our lives remain constant in our devotion to doing what is good. If instead we backslide into our former evil life and embrace it again, then we commit profanation because we are then joining evil and goodness together. 1 This makes our latter state worse than our former one, according to the Lord's words:

When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it wanders through dry places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, "I will go back to my house, the house I left. " When the spirit comes and finds the house empty, swept, and decorated for it, then it goes and recruits seven other spirits worse than itself, and they come in and live there, and the latter times of that person become worse than the first. (Matthew 12:43, 44, 45)

For what profanation is, see below [§172].

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. Profanation, as Swedenborg defines it, is taking the good and true things of the church, which are holy in themselves, and distorting them for selfish and materialistic ends, such as gaining personal wealth and power. It necessarily involves denying truths previously known, though those who do profane them may think of themselves as believing the truth; those who are simply ignorant of spiritual truth cannot profane it. In Swedenborg's theology, those who commit profanation are in the lowest and harshest hells because they have mixed good and truth with evil and falsity, and the fundamental conflict between these opposites tears people apart from the inside out, destroying much of their life in the process. This concept of profanation has echoes in Bible passages such as 2 Peter 2:21, which reads: "It would have been better for them [the evil] never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them" (New Revised Standard Version). See also John 5:14; 12:40, which are mentioned in New Jerusalem 172[2], as well as Matthew 12:43-45; 13:13; Luke 8:10. Given this biblical underpinning, it is not surprising that the concept is not unique to Swedenborgian theology. Compare, for example, Aquinas Summa Theologiae 2:2:10:6 (= Aquinas 2012, 17:100-101). For an extensive list of references to Secrets of Heaven on profaners and profanation, see New Jerusalem 172. Particularly useful passages include Secrets of Heaven 1008, 1327, 2357, 3398; and see also Divine Providence 221-233. For more on the condition of profaners in hell after death, see Secrets of Heaven 6348[3], 6959, 10287; Divine Providence 226; Revelation Explained (= Swedenborg 1994-1997a) §§1047:3, 1050:2, 1055:4, 1059:2, 1063:3. [LSW, SS]

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