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Deuteronomy 4

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1 Now therefore hearken, O Israel, to the statutes and to the judgments, which I teach you, to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you.

2 Ye shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baal-peor: for all the men that followed Baal-peor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you.

4 But ye who adhered to the LORD your God, are alive every one of you this day.

5 Behold, I have taught you statutes, and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.

6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which will hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

7 For what nation is there so great, which hath God so nigh to them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?

8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?

9 Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou shouldst forget the things which thy eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them to thy sons, and thy sons' sons:

10 Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.

11 And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.

12 And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.

13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.

14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it.

15 Take ye therefore good heed to yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire;

16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make to you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

17 The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air,

18 The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:

19 And lest thou shouldst lift up thy eyes to heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided to all nations under the whole heaven.

20 But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, even from Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.

21 Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not enter that good land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance:

22 But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.

23 Take heed to yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.

24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

25 When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:

26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from the land to which ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall be utterly destroyed.

27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.

28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou shalt seek him with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.

30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things have come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou shalt turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient to his voice;

31 (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which he swore to them.

32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven to the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?

33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?

34 Or hath God essayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an out-stretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

35 To thee it was shown, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none besides him.

36 Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee; and upon earth he showed thee his great fire; and thou heardst his words from the midst of the fire.

37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out of Egypt in his sight with his mighty power.

38 To drive out nations from before thee, greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.

39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.

40 Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes and his commandments which I command thee this day, that it may be well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, for ever.

41 Then Moses set apart three cities on the side of Jordan, towards the sun-rising;

42 That the slayer might flee thither, who should kill his neighbor unawares, and when he had not hated him in times past; and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:

43 Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites.

44 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel.

45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses spoke to the children of Israel, after they came forth from Egypt,

46 On the east side of Jordan, in the valley over against Beth-Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel smote, after they had come forth from Egypt:

47 And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were on the side of Jordan, towards the sun-rising;

48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even to mount Sion, which is Hermon,

49 And all the plain on the side of Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 8286

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8286. 'And with the wind of Your nostrils the waters were heaped up' means falsities gathered together through heaven's presence. This is clear from the meaning of 'the wind of Your nostrils' as heaven, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'being heaped up' as being gathered into one; and from the meaning of 'the waters' as falsities, dealt with in 7307, 8137, 8138. Damnation and being cast into hell involves having all the falsities arising from evil gathered together, and then being hemmed in by them, see 8146, 8210, 8232; and this happens as a result simply of the Lord's presence, 8265. The reason why 'the wind of Jehovah's, or the Lord's, nostrils' means heaven is that the expression is used to denote the breath of life, that is, God's life; and since God's life constitutes heaven's life, heaven is meant by 'the wind of Jehovah's nostrils'. This also explains why the same word in the original language means both wind and spirit.

[2] The fact that Jehovah's wind or His breath means heaven's life, and the life of a person in heaven, that is, of one who has been regenerated, is clear in David,

By the Word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all their host by the spirit (wind) of His mouth. Psalms 33:6.

In the same author,

You gather up their spirit, they breathe their last and fall back into their dust. You send forth Your spirit (wind), they are created. Psalms 104:29-30.

In Ezekiel,

Jehovah said to me, Will these bones live? Then He said, Prophesy over the spirit, prophesy, O son of man, and say to the wind, Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Come from the four winds, O spirit, and breathe into these killed, that they may live. And the spirit came into them, and they lived again. Ezekiel 37:3, 9-10.

In John,

I saw four angels standing over the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, in order that the wind should not blow onto the earth, nor onto the sea, nor onto any tree. Revelation 7:1.

Here 'the wind' stands for heaven's life, which is God's life, as also in Job,

The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of Shaddai 1 has given me life. Job 33:4.

[3] Since 'wind' meant life the Lord also says, in His teaching about a person's regeneration,

The spirit (or wind) blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or goes away to; so it is with everyone who has been born from the spirit. John 3:8.

And since life from God was meant by 'Jehovah's wind' or 'His breath' it therefore says of Jehovah, when Adam's new life is the subject, that

He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.

The word 'nostrils' is used because a person breathes by means of them and by means of breathing has life, as in Isaiah,

Turn yourselves away from the person in whose nostrils there is breath. 2 Isaiah 2:22.

In Jeremiah,

The Breath 3 Lamentations 4:20Job 27:3.

[4] Since therefore 'the wind of Jehovah's nostrils' means life which comes from the Lord, and so in the universal sense means heaven, and since through the Lord's presence - or through the presence of heaven, where the Lord is - evils and falsities are cast into hell, 8265, so also is the accomplishment of this meant by 'the wind of Jehovah's nostrils', as in David,

The channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were revealed, because of Jehovah's rebuke, at the blast of breath from His nostrils. 4 Psalms 18:8, 15; 2 Samuel 22:16. 5

In Isaiah,

The breath of Jehovah like a stream 6 of brimstone sets it alight. Isaiah 30:33.

In the same prophet,

Indeed they are not planted, indeed they are not sown, indeed their trunk does not take root in the earth, and also He breathes onto them and they wither, so that the whirlwind may bear them away like stubble. Isaiah 40:24Psalms 147:1718

In addition this explains why 'the nose', when used in reference to Jehovah or the Lord, also means wrath, and so the punishment, vastation, and damnation suffered by those ruled by evils and falsities, as in Numbers 25:4; Deuteronomy 7:4; Judges 2:14; Isaiah 9:12; Jeremiah 4:8Hosea 14:4; Psalms 6:1; 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; and very many other times elsewhere. It explains too why 'breathing with the nostrils' or 'breathing out' means being angry, Deuteronomy 4:21; Isaiah 12:1; Psalms 2:12; 6:1; 60:1; 79:5; 85:5.

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