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Deuteronomy 11

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1 Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always.

2 And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children who have not known, and who have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his out-stretched arm,

3 And his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and to all his land;

4 And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD hath destroyed them to this day;

5 And what he did to you in the wilderness, until ye came to this place;

6 And what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel:

7 But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which he did.

8 Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it;

9 And that ye may prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them, and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey.

10 For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou didst sow thy seed, and water it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs:

11 But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:

12 A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.

13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently to my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

14 That I will give you the rain of your land in its due season, the former rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine and thy oil.

15 And I will give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.

16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;

17 And then the LORD'S wrath shall be kindled against you, and he shall shut up the heaven, that there shall be no rain, and the land shall not yield her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.

18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.

19 And ye shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

20 And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thy house, and upon thy gates:

21 That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.

22 For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave to him;

23 Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.

24 Every place on which the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the uttermost sea shall your limit be.

25 There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you, and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said to you.

26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse:

27 A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you this day;

28 And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which ye have not known.

29 And it shall come to pass when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in to the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.

30 Are they not on the other side of Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down in the land of the Canaanites, who dwell in the plain over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?

31 For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell in it.

32 And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 444

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444. "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. This symbolically means, to remove from them external bonds, to enable the interiors of their minds to appear.

It is impossible for anyone to know that this is the symbolic meaning of these words, and scarcely possible for anyone to suspect it, if he does not know what is meant by the great river Euphrates, and by the four angels bound there.

In the Word, the Euphrates symbolizes the inner constituents of the human mind, called rational, which in people governed by truths springing from goodness are full of wisdom, but which in people caught up in falsities springing from evil are full of irrationality.

This is the symbolic meaning of the river Euphrates in the Word. The reason is that this river formed the boundary between the land of Canaan and Assyria, and the land of Canaan symbolized the church, and Assyria its rational component. Therefore the river that formed the boundary between them symbolizes the inner constituents of the mind called rational, and this in both senses. For there are three components that form the person of the church: the spiritual component; the rational or intellectual component; and the natural component, which is one of knowledge. The spiritual component of the church is symbolized by the land of Canaan and its rivers; the rational or intellectual component of the church by Asshur or Assyria and its river, the Euphrates; and the natural component of the church, which is one of knowledge, by Egypt and its river, the Nile. But for more on this subject, see no. 503 below.

The four angels bound at the river Euphrates symbolize these interior constituents in people of the church, and they are said to be bound because they are kept hidden from public view. For it is hellish spirits that are meant by these four angels, inasmuch as we are told that they were prepared to kill a third of mankind, as we will presently see in no. 446; and people's inner constituents are affiliated with spirits, either hellish ones or heavenly ones, since they dwell together. To release them means, symbolically, to remove external bonds, to enable the interiors of their minds to appear.

This is the symbolic meaning of these words.

[2] That the Euphrates symbolizes the interiors of a person's mind coextensive with the spiritual tenets of his church can be seen from passages in the Word where Asshur or Assyria are mentioned. In the following passages, however, the Euphrates occurs in an opposite sense, in which it symbolizes interiors full of falsities and thus insanities:

...behold, (God) is causing to rise up upon them the waters of the River (Euphrates), strong and mighty - the king of Asshur... It will pass through Judah, flood it and pass over it... (Isaiah 8:7-8)

...why take the road to Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? Or why take the road to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River? (Jeremiah 2:18)

Jehovah will devote to destruction the tongue of the Sea of Egypt; ...He will shake His hand over the River (Euphrates).... (Isaiah 11:15-16)

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the... river Euphrates, and its water was dried up... (Revelation 16:12)

The prophet Jeremiah was commanded to put a sash around his loins, and afterward to hide it in a hole in a rock by the Euphrates; and when, after a short time, he recovered it, behold, it was ruined and profitable for nothing (Jeremiah 13:1-7, 11).

The same prophet was also commanded, after he had finished reading a book, to throw it into the middle of the Euphrates and say, "Thus shall Babylon sink and not rise" (Jeremiah 51:63-64).

These events represented the interior qualities of the state of the church among the children of Israel.

That the river Nile in Egypt and the river Euphrates in Assyria were boundaries of the land of Canaan is apparent from the following verse:

...Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river... Euphrates." (Genesis 15:18)

To be shown that the Euphrates was one boundary, see Exodus 23:31, Deuteronomy 1:7-8; 11:24, Joshua 1:4, Micah 7:12.

  
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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.