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Osija 13

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1 Kad Jefrem govoraše, beše strah; beše se uzvisio u Izrailju; ali se ogreši o Vala, te umre.

2 I sada jednako greše i grade sebi lijući od srebra svog po razumu svom likove, koji su svi delo umetničko, a oni govore za njih: Ljudi koji prinose žrtve neka celuju teoce.

3 Zato će biti kao oblak jutarnji i kao rosa koja u zoru padne, pa je nestane, kao pleva, koju odnosi vetar s gumna, i kao dim iz dimnjaka.

4 A ja sam Gospod Bog tvoj od zemlje misirske, i Boga osim mene nisi poznao, i osim mene nema ko bi spasao.

5 Ja te poznah u pustinji, u zemlji zasušenoj.

6 Imajući dobru pašu behu siti; ali čim se nasitiše, ponese se srce njihovo, zato me zaboraviše.

7 Zato ću im biti kao lav, kao ris vrebaću ih na putu.

8 Srešću ih kao medvedica kojoj uzmu medvediće, i rastrgaću im sve srce njihovo i izješću ih onde kao lav; zverje poljsko raskinuće ih.

9 Propao si, Izrailju; ali ti je pomoću meni.

10 Gde ti je car? Gde je? Neka te sačuva u svim gradovima tvojim; gde li su sudije tvoje, za koje si govorio: Daj mi cara i knezove?

11 Dadoh ti cara u gnevu svom, i uzeh ga u jarosti svojoj.

12 Svezano je bezakonje Jefremovo, ostavljen je greh njegov.

13 Bolovi kao u porodilje spopašće ga, sin je nerazuman, jer ne bi toliko vremena ostao u utrobi.

14 Od groba ću ih izbaviti, od smrti ću ih sačuvati; gde je, smrti, pomor tvoj, gde je, grobe, pogibao tvoja? Kajanje će biti sakriveno od očiju mojih.

15 Rodan će biti među braćom svojom; ali će doći istočni vetar, vetar Gospodnji, koji ide od pustinje, i usahnuće mu izvor, i studenac će mu zasušiti; on će odneti blago od svih dragih zaklada.

16 Samarija će opusteti, jer se odmetnu od Boga svog; oni će pasti od mača, deca će se njihova razmrskati i trudne žene njihove rasporiti.

   

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Sacred Scripture # 79

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79. There are many passages in the prophets about our understanding of the Word, passages about the church, where it tells us that the church exists only where the Word is properly understood, and that the quality of a church depends on the quality of the understanding of the Word among its members. There are also many passages in the prophets that describe the church among the Israelite and Jewish people, a church that was utterly destroyed and annihilated by the distortion of the Word’s meaning or message, for this is exactly what destroys a church.

[2] The name Ephraim in the prophets, especially in Hosea, symbolizes both true and false understandings of the Word, because Ephraim in the Word means the understanding of the Word in the church. It is because the understanding of the Word makes a church that Ephraim is called “a precious child, and one born of delights” (Jeremiah 31:20), “the firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9), “the strength of Jehovah’s head” (Psalms 60:7; 108:8), “powerful” (Zechariah 10:7), and “filled with a bow” (Zechariah 9:13); and the children of Ephraim are called “armed” and “bow-shooters” (Psalms 78:9). The bow means a body of teaching from the Word fighting against what is false.

So too, Ephraim was transferred to the right of Israel and blessed, and accepted in place of Reuben (Genesis 48:5, 11, and following; [1 Chronicles 5:1]). And therefore Ephraim, together with his brother Manasseh, was exalted over all by Moses in his blessing of the children of Israel in the name of their father Joseph (Deuteronomy 33:13-17).

[3] The prophets, especially Hosea, also use “Ephraim” to describe what the church is like when its understanding of the Word has been lost, as we can see from the following:

Israel and Ephraim will stumble. Ephraim will be desolate. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment. I will be like a lion to Ephraim: I will tear them and leave; I will carry them off and no one will rescue them. (Hosea 5:5, 9, 11, 14)

What shall I do to you, Ephraim? Your holiness goes away like a cloud at dawn and like the morning dew that falls. (Hosea 6:4)

[4] They will not dwell in the land of Jehovah: Ephraim will go back to Egypt and will eat what is unclean in Assyria. (Hosea 9:3)

The land of Jehovah is the church, Egypt is the preoccupation of the earthly self with mere facts, and Assyria is rationalizing based on those facts; all of which lead to distortion of the Word in regard to the way it is understood. That is why it says that Ephraim will go back to Egypt and will eat what is unclean in Assyria.

[5] Ephraim feeds on the wind and chases the east wind. Every day he increases lies and devastation. He makes a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried down into Egypt. (Hosea 12:1)

To feed on the wind, chase the east wind, and increase lies and devastation is to distort what is true and in this way destroy the church.

[6] Much the same is also meant by Ephraim’s whoredom, since whoredom means distortion of the way the Word is understood - that is, distortion of its genuine truth. See the following passages:

I know Ephraim; he has committed whoredom in every way and Israel has been defiled. (Hosea 5:3)

I have seen something foul in the house of Israel: Ephraim has committed whoredom there, and Israel has been defiled. (Hosea 6:10)

Israel is the church itself and Ephraim is the understanding of the Word that is the source of the church and that determines its quality, so it says that Ephraim has committed whoredom and Israel has been defiled.

[7] Since the church among Jews had been completely destroyed because of its distortions, it says of Ephraim,

Am I to give you up, Ephraim? Am I to hand you over, Israel? Like Admah? Shall I make you like Zeboiim? (Hosea 11:8)

Since the book of the prophet Hosea, from the first chapter to the last, is about the distortion of the Word and the consequent destruction of the church, and since whoredom means the distortion of truth in the church, the prophet was commanded to represent that state of the church by taking a whore as his wife and fathering children by her (chapter 1); and also by forming a relationship with a woman who was committing adultery (chapter 3).

[8] These instances have been presented so that readers may know and be assured from the Word that the quality of a church depends on the quality of the understanding of the Word in it - outstanding and priceless if its understanding comes from genuine truths from the Word, but in ruins, actually filthy, if it comes from distortions.

For further evidence that Ephraim means the understanding of the Word, and in its opposite sense a distorted understanding leading to the destruction of the church, you may check some other passages that deal with Ephraim: Hosea 4:17-18; 7:1, 11; 8:9, 11; 9:11-13, 16; 10:11; 11:3; 12:1, 8, 14; 13:1, 8, 14; Isaiah 17:3; 28:1; Jeremiah 4:15; 31:6, 18; 50:19; Ezekiel 37:16; 48:5; Obadiah verse 19; Zechariah 9:10.

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

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Jeremiah 7

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1 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,

2 "Stand in the gate of Yahweh's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.

3 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

4 Don't trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, The temple of Yahweh, are these.

5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor;

6 if you don't oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don't shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt:

7 then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore.

8 Behold, you trust in lying words, that can't profit.

9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,

10 and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations?

11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh.

12 But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

13 Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer:

14 therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

15 I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

16 Therefore don't pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.

17 Don't you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

19 Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh; [do they] not [provoke] themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?

20 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

21 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.

22 For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

23 but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.

24 But they didn't listen nor turn their ear, but walked in [their own] counsels [and] in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

26 yet they didn't listen to me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers.

27 You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you.

28 You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

29 Cut off your hair, [Jerusalem], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

30 For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, says Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.

31 They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn't command, nor did it come into my mind.

32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place [to bury].

33 The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away.

34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.