10228. 'To make expiation for your souls' means in order that evils may be removed. This is clear from the meaning of 'expiation being made for their souls' as being purified or delivered from evils by means of the truth of faith, dealt with above in 10218; and since purification or deliverance from evils is nothing other than the removal of them, this too is meant by the same words.

A person is not delivered from evils and consequently purified, but is withheld from them when he is maintained in good by the Lord; and in this way evils are removed, see the places referred to in 10057(end).

Nebuchadnezzar was a powerful king of the Babylonian empire. His fiery furnace and his dreams of the great tree and the statue are all told in the first four chapters of the book of Daniel. He is also mentioned in 2 Kings 24, and in Jeremiah 27 -- 39 where he destroys the kingdom of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar represents the kind of church that starts out well but then degenerates into a lust of power that demands obedience to human leaders. Such a church comes to believe that it has the power to to save or condemn, thus falsely claiming a power that belongs only to God.

(Odkazy: 2 Kings 24:1, 24:8, 24:10, 24:11, 25:1; Jeremiah 27:6, 27:8, 27:20, 39, 39:5; The Apocalypse Explained 650 [29], 652 [16])