34
Jų Atpirkėjas yra stiprus, kareivijų Viešpats yra Jo vardas. Jis rūpinsis jų byla ir suteiks kraštui ramybę, bet privers drebėti Babilono gyventojus.
Jeremijas 50:34
Heaven and Hell # 365
365. We may gather from this that rich people arrive in heaven just as much as poor people do, one as easily as the other. The reason people believe that it is easy for the poor and hard for the rich is that the Word is misunderstood when it talks about the rich and the poor. In the spiritual meaning of the Word, "the rich" means people who are amply supplied with understandings of what is true and good, that is, people in the church where the Word is. "The poor" means people who lack these understandings but who long for them, or people outside the church, where the Word is not found.
[2] The rich person dressed in purple and fine linen who was cast into hell means the Jewish nation. Because they had the Word and were therefore amply supplied with understandings of what is good and true, they are called "rich." The garments of purple actually mean understandings of what is good, and the fine linen means understandings of what is true. 1 The poor person who was lying in the gateway and who longed to feast on the crumbs that were falling from the rich person's table, who was carried up into heaven by angels, means the non-Jews who did not have understandings of what is good and true but who still longed for them (Luke 16:19, 31).
The rich who were invited to the great feast but who excused themselves also mean the Jewish nation, and the poor who were brought in to replace them mean the non-Jews who were outside the church (Luke 12:16-24, 14:16-24).
[3] We need also to explain who are meant by the rich of whom the Lord said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). "The rich person" here means the rich in both senses, natural and spiritual. Rich people in the natural sense are people who have abundant wealth and set their hearts on it, while in a spiritual sense they are people who are amply supplied with insights and knowledge (for these are spiritual wealth) and who want to use them to get themselves into heavenly and ecclesiastical circles by their own intellect. Since this is contrary to the divine design, it says that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. On this level of meaning, a camel means our cognitive and informational level in general, and the eye of a needle means spiritual truth. 2
Nowadays people do not know that this is the meaning of the camel and the eye of a needle because there has not yet been any access to the knowledge that teaches what is meant spiritually by the things that the Word says literally. There is spiritual meaning in the details of the Word, and natural meaning as well; because the Word was written in pure correspondences of natural realities with spiritual ones in order to effect a union of heaven and the world, or of angels with us, once the direct union had ceased. We can see from this exactly who are meant by the rich in the Word.
[4] We may gather from a number of passages that on the spiritual level "the rich" in the Word refers to people who enjoy insights into what is good and true and that wealth means those insights themselves, which are spiritual riches: see Isaiah 10:12-14; 30:6-7; 45:3, Jeremiah 17:3; 47:7 [Jeremiah 48:7?], Jeremiah 50:36-37; 51:13, Daniel 5:2-4, Ezekiel 26:7, 12; 27:1-36; Zechariah 9:3-4; Psalms 45:12; Hosea 12:9; Revelation 3:17-18, Luke 14:33, and elsewhere. On the poor in the spiritual sense as people who do not have insights into what is good and true but who long for them, see Matthew 11:5; Luke 6:20-21; 14:21; Isaiah 14:30; 29:19; 41:17-18; Zephaniah 3:12, 18 [13]. An explanation of the spiritual meaning of all these passages may be found in 10227 of Secrets of Heaven.
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Garments mean things that are true, and therefore insights: 1033 [1073?], 2576, 5319, 5954, 9212, 9216, 9952, 10536. Purple means heavenly good: 9467. Linen means truth of a heavenly origin: 5319, 9469, 9744.
2. [Swedenborg's footnote] A camel in the Word means our cognitive and informational level in general: 3048, 3071, 3143, 3145. What embroidery, embroidering, and therefore needles Arcana Coelestia 9688. To start from outward facts in order to gain access to truths of faith is contrary to the divine design: 10236. People who do this become insane in matters of heaven and the church: 128-130, 232-233, 6047; and in the other life, when they think about spiritual things, they become virtually drunk: 1072. More about their nature: 196. Examples to illustrate the fact that spiritual things cannot be grasped if they are approached on this basis: 233, 2094, 2196, 2203, 2209. It is all right to go from spiritual truth into the knowledge appropriate to our natural level, but not the other way around, because there is an inflow of the spiritual into the natural but not an inflow of the natural into the spiritual: 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427-5428, 5478, 6322, 9110-9111 [10199?]. We need first to acknowledge the truths of the Word and the church, and then it is all right to take our secular learning into account; but not the other way around: 6047.
Isaiah 5
1
Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.
2
He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in its midst, and also cut out a winepress therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
3
"Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.
4
What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?
5
Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down.
6
I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it."
7
For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.
8
Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!
9
In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: "Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.
10
For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah."
11
Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!
12
The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don't respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.
13
Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.
14
Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.
15
So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled;
16
but Yahweh of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.
17
Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.
18
Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope;
19
Who say, "Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!"
20
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22
Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;
23
who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!
24
Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25
Therefore Yahweh's anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them, and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.
26
He will lift up a banner to the nations from far, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.
27
None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:
28
whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses' hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
29
Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver.
30
They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.
