Jeremiah 25
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The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon;
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Which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying,
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From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even to this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the LORD hath come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking; but ye have not hearkened.
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And the LORD hath sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear.
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They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given to you and to your fathers for ever and ever:
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And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.
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Yet ye have not hearkened to me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.
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Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words,
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Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
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Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.
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And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
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And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
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And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations.
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For many nations and great kings shall reduce them to subjection also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.
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For thus saith the LORD God of Israel to me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.
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And they shall drink, and be moved, and enraged, because of the sword that I will send among them.
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Then I took the cup at the LORD'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom the LORD had sent me:
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To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and her kings, and her princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse; as it is this day;
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Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people;
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And all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod,
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Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon,
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And all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea,
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Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners,
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And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert,
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And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes,
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And all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.
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Therefore thou shalt say to them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Drink ye, and be drunken, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.
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And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thy hand to drink, then shalt thou say to them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink.
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For lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the LORD of hosts.
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Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say to them, The LORD shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.
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A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the LORD hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the LORD.
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Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised from the borders of the earth.
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And the slain of the LORD shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.
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Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and ye shall fall like a pleasant vessel.
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And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.
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A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and a howling of the principal of the flock, shall be heard: for the LORD hath laid waste their pasture.
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And the peaceable habitations are cut down, because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
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He hath forsaken his covert, as the lion: for their land is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor, and because of his fierce anger.
Sacred Scripture # 15
15. To show that the prophetic books of the Word of the Old Testament are in many places unintelligible apart from their spiritual meaning, I should like to cite just a few. This from Isaiah, for example:
Then Jehovah will rouse up a whip against Assyria, like the blow against Midian on the rock Oreb; his staff will be stretched out over the sea, and he will lift it against the way of Egypt. And it will happen on that day that his burden will depart from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck. He will come against Aiath; he will cross over into Migron. He will command his weapons against Michmash; they will cross Mabara. Gibeah will be a place of lodging for us; Ramah will tremble with fear; Gibeah of Saul will flee. Wail with your voice, daughter of Gallim! Listen to Laishah, unfortunate Anathoth! Madmenah will wander; the inhabitants of Gebim will gather together. In Nob is it still a day for standing firm? The mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem, will move its hand. Jehovah will cut down the tangled places in the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by means of the Mighty One. (Isaiah 10:24-34)
All we find here are names from which we can draw no sense without the aid of the spiritual meaning, in which all the names in the Word point to matters of heaven and the church. We gather from this meaning that this passage refers to the ruin of the whole church by information that corrupted every true teaching and supported every false teaching.
[2] In another passage from the same prophet,
On that day the rivalry of Ephraim will wane and the enemies of Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will not compete with Judah, and Judah will not trouble Ephraim, but they will swoop down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the sea. Together they will plunder the children of the east. Edom and Moab will be [subject to] the stretching out of their hand. Jehovah will curse the tongue of the sea of Egypt and will shake his hand over the river with the vehemence of his spirit; and he will strike it into seven streams, to make a pathway [that can be trodden] with sandals. Then there will be a highway for the rest of his people, the remnant from Assyria. (Isaiah 11:11, 13-16)
Here too, only those who know what these particular names mean will see anything divine, when in fact this is about the Lord’s Coming and what will happen then, as is perfectly obvious from the first ten verses of the chapter. So without the aid of the spiritual meaning, who would see what these statements in this sequence mean, namely, that if people are caught up in false beliefs because of ignorance but have not let themselves be led astray by evil tendencies, they will find their way to the Lord, and that the church will then understand the Word, so that their false beliefs will no longer harm them?
[3] It is much the same in other passages where there are no names, as in Ezekiel:
Thus says the Lord Jehovih: “Son of Humanity, say to every winged bird and to every beast of the field, ‘Gather and come. Gather yourselves from all around for my sacrifice, which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, so that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You will eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the rulers of the earth. You will eat fat until you are full and drink blood until you are drunk, from my sacrifice, which I am sacrificing for you. At my table you will eat your fill of horses and chariots and the mighty and every man of war. This is how I will establish my glory among the nations.’” (Ezekiel 39:17-21)
If readers do not know from the spiritual sense the meaning of a sacrifice, of flesh and blood, of horses, chariots, the mighty, and men of war, all they can conclude is that they are going to eat and drink things like this. The spiritual meaning, though, tells us that eating flesh and drinking blood from a sacrifice that the Lord Jehovih offers on the mountains of Israel means taking divine goodness and divine truth into ourselves from the Word. This passage is about summoning everyone to the Lord’s kingdom, specifically the Lord’s establishment of a church among the nations. Can anyone fail to see that flesh does not mean flesh and that blood does not mean blood in this text? The same holds true for drinking blood until we are drunk and eating our fill of horses, chariots, the mighty, and every man of war.
There are passages like this in a thousand other places in the prophets.
