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Deuteronomy 13

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1 If there shall arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and give thee a sign or a wonder.

2 And the sign or the wonder shall come to pass, of which he spoke to thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

3 Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave to him.

5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou remove the evil from the midst of thee.

6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, who is as thy own soul, shall entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

7 Namely, of the gods of the people who are around you, nigh to thee, or far off from thee, from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth;

8 Thou shalt not consent to him, nor hearken to him; neither shall thy eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:

9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

10 And thou shalt stone him with stones that he shall die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.

11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is, among you.

12 If thou shalt hear, in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,

13 Certain men, the children of Belial, have gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;

14 Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and behold, if it is truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;

15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is in it, and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.

16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of its street, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil of it every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be a heap forever; it shalt not be built again.

17 And there shall cleave naught of the cursed thing to thy hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn to thy fathers;

18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.

   

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The sword, famine, and pestilence

  

The three words, sword, famine and pestilence, appear in a group in 26 different Bible verses. That's not an accident. Sword, famine and pestilence describe a trio of bad things that can happen to us physically.

In the Word, those three words describe spiritual destruction we can bring upon ourselves if we believe false ideas and develop evil habits.

In Apocalypse Revealed 323, we read that:

1) a sword means the destruction of spiritual life by falsities,

2) famine means the destruction of spiritual life by evils

3) pestilence means a complete destruction.

Rev. Jonathan Rose provides an interesting Bible Study on this subject, in a related video, shown here.

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Spirit and Life Bible Study broadcast from 10/8/2014. The complete series is available at: www.spiritandlifebiblestudy.com

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Apocalypse Revealed # 323

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323. With sword, with famine, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. This symbolically means, by doctrinal falsities, by evil practices, by self-love, and by lusts.

To be shown that a sword symbolizes truths fighting against evils and falsities and destroying them, and in an opposite sense, falsity fighting against goods and truths and destroying them, see nos. 52, 108, 117 above. Accordingly, because the subject is the destruction of all good in the church, a sword here symbolizes doctrinal falsities.

That a famine symbolizes evil practices - this we will confirm below.

Death symbolizes a person's self-love because death symbolizes the extinction of spiritual life, and thus natural life divorced from any spiritual life, as shown in no. 321 above, and this life is the life of a person's self-love; for this life causes a person to love nothing but himself and the world, and so to love also evils of every kind, evils which, because of that life's love, are delightful to him.

That beasts of the earth symbolize lusts arising from the love will be seen in no. 567 below.

Here we will say something about the symbolic meaning of famine. A famine symbolizes the privation and rejection of concepts of truth and goodness, springing from evil practices. It symbolizes as well an ignorance of concepts of truth and goodness, owing to an absence of these in the church. And it symbolizes also a desire to know and understand them.

[2] I. That a famine symbolizes the privation and rejection of concepts of truth and goodness, springing from evil practices, and thus symbolizes evil practices, can be seen from the following passages:

They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, so that their corpses become food for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth. (Jeremiah 16:4)

These two things shall befall you...: devastation and ruin, and famine and sword... (Isaiah 51:19)

Behold, I am visiting punishment upon them. The young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine. (Jeremiah 11:22)

...deliver up her children to famine, and cause them to flow down upon the hands of the sword..., that their men may be put to death... (Jeremiah 18:21)

...I will send on them the sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them like rough figs that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence. (Jeremiah 29:17-18)

I will send upon them the sword, famine, and pestilence, till they are consumed from the land... (Jeremiah 24:10)

...I proclaim liberty to you..., to the sword, to pestilence, and famine! And I will deliver you for turmoil to all nations. (Jeremiah 34:17)

...because you have defiled My sanctuary..., a third of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine...; and a third shall fall by the sword... When I send against them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for destruction... (Ezekiel 5:11-12, 16-17)

The sword is outside, and the pestilence and famine within. (Ezekiel 7:15)

...for all the evil abominations... they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. (Ezekiel 6:11-12)

...I will send My four evil judgments on Jerusalem - the sword, famine and wild beast, and pestilence - to cut off man and beast from it. (Ezekiel 14:13, 15, 21)

And so, too, elsewhere, as in Jeremiah 14:12-13, 15-16; 42:13-14, 16-18, 22; 44:12-13, 27, Mark 13:8, Luke 21:11. Sword, famine, pestilence and beasts in these places have similar symbolic meanings to those of the sword, famine, death, and beasts of the earth in the present verse. For the Word has a spiritual meaning in it in every single constituent, in which a sword means the destruction of spiritual life by falsities, in which famine means the destruction of spiritual life by evils, in which a beast of the earth means the destruction of spiritual life by the lusts accompanying falsity and evil, and in which pestilence and death means a complete destruction and thus damnation.

[3] II. That famine, or hunger, symbolizes an ignorance of concepts of truth and goodness, owing to an absence of these in the church, is clear as well from various passages in the Word, as in Isaiah 5:13; 8:19-22, Lamentations 2:19; 5:8-10, Amos 8:11-14, Job 5:17, 20, and elsewhere.

III. That famine or hunger symbolizes a desire to know and understand the church's truths and goods is apparent from the following: Isaiah 8:21; 32:6; 49:10; 58:6-7; Matthew 5:6; 25:35, 37, 44; Luke 1:53; John 6:35; and elsewhere.

  
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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.