Bible

 

Ezekiel 19

Studie

   

1 Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

2 And say, What is thy mother: A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.

3 And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.

4 The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains to the land of Egypt.

5 Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.

6 And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.

7 And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fullness of it, by the noise of his roaring.

8 Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit.

9 And they put him in custody in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

10 Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

11 And she had strong rods for the scepters of them that bore rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her hight with the multitude of her branches.

12 But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

13 And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.

14 And fire hath gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.

   

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

True Christianity # 156

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 853  
  

156. 6. Our spirits are our minds and whatever comes from them. Our "spirit" really means nothing else but our mind. Our mind is what lives on after death. It is then called a spirit. If it is good, it is called an angelic spirit and later on an angel. If it is evil, it is called a satanic spirit and later on a satan. For each one of us, our mind is our inner self, our true self. It lives inside our outer self that constitutes our body. When our body is cast aside, which death does for us, we are in a complete human form.

People are wrong, then, to believe that our mind exists only in our head. Our mind is present in our head only in its primary structures. Everything that we think with our intellect and do from our will first emanates from these primary structures. In the rest of our body, our mind is present in extensions of these primary structures that have been designed to allow us sensation and action. Because our mind is inwardly connected to the parts of our body, our mind supplies those parts with sensation and motion and also inspires awareness as if our body thought and acted on its own, although every wise person knows this is not how it is.

Now, because our spirit thinks with its intellect and acts with its will, and our body thinks and acts not on its own but with the help of our spirit, it follows that our "spirit" means our intelligence and our type of love, as well as whatever emanates from our love and intelligence and has an effect.

Many passages in the Word make clear that our "spirit" means the nature of our mind. When I quote only a few of these passages, anyone will be able to see that this is exactly what "spirit" means. The following are just a few of the many:

And Bezaleel was filled with the spirit of wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge. (Exodus 31:3)

Nebuchadnezzar said of Daniel that there was "an excellent spirit" of knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom in him (Daniel 5:12).

Joshua was filled with the spirit of wisdom. (Deuteronomy 34:9)

Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. (Ezekiel 18:31)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of the heavens consists of such people. (Matthew 5:3)

I live among people with a beaten and humble spirit so that I may revive the spirit of the lowly. (Isaiah 57:15)

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. (Psalms 51:17)

I will give a cloak of praise to replace a constricted spirit. (Isaiah 61:3)

And so on.

"Spirit" can also mean the nature of a corrupt and unjust mind, as the following passages make clear:

He spoke to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit. (Ezekiel 13:3)

Conceive garbage, give birth to stubble; in your spirit, fire will consume you. (Isaiah 33:11)

A man who is a wanderer in his spirit and who babbles a lie. (Micah 2:11)

A generation whose spirit was not steadfast with God. (Psalms 78:8)

A spirit of promiscuity. (Hosea 5:4; 4:12)

To melt every heart and constrict every spirit. (Ezekiel 21:7)

What has come up in your spirit will never be done. (Ezekiel 20:32)

Provided there is no guile in their spirit. (Psalms 32:2)

The spirit of Pharaoh was disturbed. (Genesis 41:8)

Likewise the spirit of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:3). These and many other passages make it obvious that our "spirit" means our mind and its characteristics.

  
/ 853  
  

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

Komentář

 

Stone

  

Stones in the Bible in general represent truths, or things we know concerning the Lord and what He wants from us and for us in life. This is why the people of Israel built altars of stone, and is also why stoning was a principal form of capital punishment (using truth to destroy falsity, or in the negative sense using falsity to destroy truth). It is also why precious stones are described in such detail on Aaron's breastplate and ephod, and also in the New Jerusalem in Revelation; precious stones represent true ideas directly from the Lord with the various colors showing various forms of love. Stones are not alone in representing truth, of course -- it sometimes seems that almost everything in the Bible represents either true ideas or desires for good. But that makes sense, since our thoughts and our desires together are everything we are in life, and the interplay between them is what life is all about. The many ways they are represented in the Bible reflect the incredible variety in our feelings and thoughts, though we can only distantly understand how those representations work. In the case of stones, in their weight, strength and permanence they tend to represent true ideas that come from a desire for good, the understanding we can have if we are truly good and loving -- and in the highest sense the exalted ideas that come from the Lord's love. Those ideas are ones that are not easily moved or changed, and make wonderful foundations for the things we want to build in our spiritual lives.