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Ezekiel 34:28

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28 και-C ου-D ειμι-VF--FMI3P ετι-D εν-P προνομη-N1--DSF ο- A--DPN εθνος-N3E-DPN και-C ο- A--NPN θηριον-N2N-NPN ο- A--GSF γη-N1--GSF ουκετι-D μη-D εσθιω-VB--AAS3P αυτος- D--APM και-C καταοικεω-VF--FAI3P εν-P ελπις-N3D-DSF και-C ου-D ειμι-VF--FMI3S ο- A--NSM εκφοβεω-V2--PAPNSM αυτος- D--APM

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Apocalypse Revealed # 496

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496. These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy. (11:6) This symbolically means that people who turn away from these two essential elements of the New Church cannot receive any truth from heaven.

Heaven here means the angelic heaven. Thus the rain symbolizes truth for the church from there. Consequently to close heaven so that no rain falls means, symbolically, that people cannot receive any truth for the church from heaven. Truth for the church from heaven is doctrinal truth from the Word.

We are told that the two witnesses have the power to shut heaven, but as in no. 494 above, the meaning here is not that they have that power, but that people who turn away from the two essential elements of the New Church close heaven to themselves, because they continue to be caught up in their falsities.

That rain symbolizes Divine truth from heaven is clear from the following passages:

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My word shall fall as the dew... (Deuteronomy 32:2)

(If) you... serve other gods..., (Jehovah will) shut up heaven so that there be no rain... (Deuteronomy 11:16-17, see also 11:11, 11:14)

I will lay waste (My vineyard).... I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. (Isaiah 5:6)

The showers have been withheld, and there has been no late rain. Yet you continue to have a harlot's forehead... (Jeremiah 3:3)

For as the rain comes down... from heaven..., so shall My word (go) forth from My mouth. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

Rejoice then, you children of Zion, and be glad in Jehovah... For He has given you seasonable rain in righteousness. (Joel 2:23)

You have caused to drop, O God, a kindly rain... (Psalms 68:9)

He shall come down like rain upon the grass of the meadow... In His days the righteous shall flourish... (Psalms 72:6-7)

He will come to us as rain, as the late... rain waters the earth. (Hosea 6:3)

...my word shall rain down on them, and they will wait for me as for the rain, and they will open their mouth for the late rain. (Job 29:22-23)

Son of man, say...: "You are a land that is not cleansed, which will have no rain in the day of wrath. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst... (Ezekiel 22:24-25)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 30:23; Jeremiah 5:24; 10:12-13; 14:3-4; 51:16.

A flooding rain stands for the destruction of truth in Ezekiel 13:11, 13-14; 38:22. For temptation or trial in Matthew 7:24-27.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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Arcana Coelestia # 927

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927. 'I will curse the ground no more on account of man' means that never again would man thus turn himself away as the people who belonged to the descendants of the Most Ancient Church had done. This is clear from what has been stated already about the descendants of the Most Ancient Church. 'Cursing' in the internal sense means turning oneself away; see what has appeared already in 223, 245.

[2] The implications of these matters and of those that follow, namely that never again would man thus turn himself away as the member of the Most Ancient Church had done and that he would never again be able to destroy himself in that way, also becomes clear from what has been stated already about the descendants of the Most Ancient Church who died out and about the new Church called Noah. That is to say, the member of the Most Ancient Church was one in whom will and understanding formed one single mind, that is, with him love was implanted in the will part of his mind, and so at the same time faith, which occupied the second or understanding part. Their descendants therefore inherited a will and an understanding that made one. Consequently when self-love and resulting insane desires began to take possession of their will part where love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour had been previously, not only did the will part, or the will itself, at that point become utterly corrupted, but so also at the same time did the understanding part, or the understanding itself, all the more so when the final descendants immersed falsities in their desires and in so doing became the Nephilim. They became the kind of people therefore for whom no restoration was possible since both parts of their mind, that is, their whole mind, had been ruined.

[3] Foreseeing this however, the Lord also made provision for mankind to be rehabilitated in the following particular manner: Man could be reformed and regenerated as regards the second part of his mind, the understanding part, and a new will, which is conscience, could be implanted in him, by means of which the Lord might stimulate the good that stems from love or charity, and the truth of faith. In this way did the Lord's Divine mercy restore man. These are the things meant in this verse by 'I will curse the ground no more on account of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his childhood', and by 'I will no more strike every living thing, as I have done'.

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