Bible

 

Obadiah 1

Studie

1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord Jehovih* as·​·to Edom; We have heard a report from Jehovah, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, Rise· ye ·up, and let us Rise·​·up against her into battle.

2 Behold, I have made thee small among the nations; thou art exceedingly despised.

3 The presumptuousness of thy heart has beguiled thee, thou who inhabitest the fissures of the rock, on·​·high is his dwelling; saying in his heart, Who shall bring· me ·down to the earth?

4 If thou make· thyself ·lofty as the eagle, and if thou set thy nest between the stars, thence will I bring· thee ·down, says Jehovah.

5 If thieves came to thee, if devastators by night—oh, how thou wilt be cut·​·off—would they not steal until they had enough? If the grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave a cluster for the gleaning?

6 How are the things of Esau searched out!—his secret things discovered!

7 All the men of thy covenant have sent· thee ·away even·​·to the border; the men of thy peace have beguiled thee, and prevailed against thee; thy bread they have set as a wound under thee. There is no understanding in him.

8 Shall I not in that day, says Jehovah, even make· the wise men out·​·of Edom ·perish, and understanding out·​·of the mountain of Esau?

9 And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be·​·dismayed, so·​·that a man from the mountain of Esau may be cut·​·off by killing.

10 For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut·​·off for eternity.

11 In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers took· his forces ·captive, and foreigners came into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.

12 But thou shouldest not have looked on in the day of thy brother, in the day that he became a foreigner; and thou shouldest not have·​·been·​·glad over the sons of Judah in the day they perished; and thou shouldest not have magnified thy mouth in the day of adversity.

13 Thou shouldest not have come into the gate of My people in the day of their downfall; even thou shouldest not have looked on their evil in the day of his downfall, and thou shouldest not have put·​·forth hands on his belongings in the day of his downfall;

14 neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut·​·off those of his who escaped; neither shouldest thou have closed·​·in those his survivors in the day of adversity.

15 For the day of Jehovah is near upon all the nations; as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee; thy recompense shall return upon thine own head.

16 For as you have drunk upon the mountain of My holiness, so shall all the nations drink continually, and they shall drink, and they shall swallow·​·down, and they shall be as though they had not been.

17 But upon Mount Zion shall be escape, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall inflame them, and devour them; and there shall not be a survivor for the house of Esau; for Jehovah has spoken.

19 And they of the south shall possess the mountain of Esau, and they of the lowland the Philistines; and they shall possess the fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria; and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.

20 And the exile of this host of the sons of Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites, even·​·to Zarephath; and the exile of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south.

21 And saviours shall come·​·up on Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Jehovah’s.


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

Komentář

 

Jerusalem

  

Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. Jerusalem first comes to our attention in 2 Samuel 5, when King David takes the city from the Jebusites and makes it his capital. In the next chapter he brings the Ark of the Covenant there, and later it is where Solomon builds the temple, and his own palace. From then on Jerusalem is the center of worship of the Israelitish church. It is the place where the Lord was presented in the temple as a baby, where He tarried to talk to the priests at age twelve, where He cleansed the temple, had the last supper, was crucified and then rose. It is a central place in both the old and new Testaments. The city was built on Mount Zion, the highest point of the mountains of Judea. A city, in the Word, represents doctrine, the organized knowledge of the truths of the church. Mountains represent love of the Lord and the consequent worship. If you put those things together, Jerusalem on Mount Zion signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. This is why David was led to make Jerusalem the most important city of the land, and why all worship was conducted there. And this is also why Jeroboam was condemned for introducing idol worship in Samaria. In the Book of Revelation, John's vision of the city New Jerusalem descending from God is a prophecy of a new dispensation of doctrine coming from the Lord.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4539, 8938; The Apocalypse Explained 365 [35-38])

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 4539

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 10837  
  

4539. 'Rise up, go up to Bethel' means concerning the Divine Natural, that is to say, the perception concerning this. This is clear from the meaning of 'rising up' as implying some kind of raising up, dealt with in 2401, 2785, 2912, 2927, 3171, 4103, here a raising up of the Natural towards the Divine; from the meaning of 'going up' as doing so towards aspects even more interior, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'Bethel' as the Divine within the natural, that is, within the ultimate degree of order, dealt with in 4089. In the original language Bethel means the house of God, and since 'the house of God' is a place where the cognitions of good and truth exist, 'Bethel' accordingly means, in the proximate sense, those cognitions, as shown in 1453. But because interior degrees are enveloped by and terminate in the parts which constitute the ultimate degree of order where they come together and so to speak inhabit the same house, and because man's natural is the ultimate degree, enveloping interior ones, 'Bethel' or the house of God therefore means, strictly speaking, the Natural, 3729, 4089, and in particular the good there. For 'a house' in the internal sense means good, 2233, 2234, 3720, 3729. It is also within the natural or the ultimate degree of order that cognitions exist.

[2] The reason why 'going up' means a raising up towards more interior aspects is that things which are interior are spoken of as those that are higher, 2148, and therefore when the subject in the internal sense is an advance towards things that are more interior the expression 'going up' is used. Examples of this usage are, going up from Egypt to the land of Canaan; going up into the interior parts of the land of Canaan itself; going up from any part there to Jerusalem; and when in Jerusalem itself, going up to the house of God there. Going up from Egypt to the land of Canaan is referred to in Moses,

Pharaoh said to Joseph, Go up and bury your father. And Joseph went up. And there went up with him all Pharaoh's servants. And there went up with him chariot and horseman. Genesis 50:6-9.

And in the Book of Judges,

The angel of Jehovah went up from Gilgal to Bochim, and he said, I caused you to go up out of Egypt. Judges 2:1.

In the internal sense 'Egypt' means factual knowledge which helps people to have some conception of things belonging to the Lord's kingdom, while 'the land of Canaan' means the Lord's kingdom. And because facts are lower, or what amounts to the same, exterior, while things belonging to the Lord's kingdom are higher, or what amounts to the same, interior, the Word therefore speaks of 'going up' from Egypt to the land of Canaan, or - when travelling in the opposite direction - of 'going down' from the land of Canaan to Egypt, as in Genesis 42:2-3; 43:4-5, 15; and elsewhere.

[3] Going up into the interior parts of the land of Canaan itself is spoken of in Joshua,

Joshua said, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai, and they resumed to Joshua and said to him, Do not let all the people go up; let about 2000 men or about 3000 men go up. Therefore there went up of the people about 3000 men. Joshua 7:2-4.

Because 'the land of Canaan' means the Lord's kingdom, parts further in from its border regions meant things that are interior; hence the use in this quotation of the verb 'to go up'. The same is true of Jerusalem in relation to all the regions surrounding it, and of the house of God in relation to Jerusalem within which it stood, 1 Kings 12:27-28; 2 Kings 20:5, 8; Matthew 20:18; Mark 10:33; Luke 18:31; and in many other places besides these. For Jerusalem was the inmost part of the land because the Lord's spiritual kingdom was meant by it, and the house of God was the inmost part of Jerusalem because the Lord's celestial kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself were meant by it. This is why one speaks of 'going up' to these places. From all this one can see what is meant by 'rise up, go up to Bethel', namely that 'going up' means an advance towards things that are more interior, the subject dealt with in the present chapter, [see] 4536.

  
/ 10837  
  

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