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Ezekiel 7

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1 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

2 Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD to the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.

3 Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send my anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thy abominations.

4 And my eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

5 Thus saith the Lord GOD; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come.

6 An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.

7 The morning is come upon thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains.

8 Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish my anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thy abominations.

9 And my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thy abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth.

10 Behold the day, behold, it is come; the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.

11 Violence hath risen into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them.

12 The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

13 For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the vision is concerning the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.

14 They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof:

15 The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

16 But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.

17 All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.

18 They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.

19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity.

20 As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein: therefore have I set it far from them.

21 And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.

22 My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.

23 Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.

24 Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease, and their holy places shall be defiled.

25 Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

26 Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor shall be upon rumor; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

27 The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do to them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them, and they shall know that I am the LORD.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 20

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20. And makes us kings and priests. (1:6) This symbolically means, who grants those who are born from Him, that is, who are reborn or regenerated, to be governed by wisdom from Divine truths, and by love from Divine goods.

People know that in the Word the Lord is called a king and also a priest. He is called a king owing to His Divine wisdom, and a priest owing to His Divine love. People who are governed by wisdom from the Lord are consequently called children of the king, and also kings, while people who are governed by love from Him are called ministers and priests. For the wisdom and the love in them do not originate from them, and so are not theirs but the Lord's. It is these people who are therefore meant in the Word by kings and priests. Not that they are kings and priests, but that they have the Lord in them, and He causes them to be termed such.

Such people are called also children born of Him, children of the kingdom, children of the Father, and heirs - children born of Him in John 1:12-13ff.), children of the kingdom in Matthew 8:12; 13:38, children of their Father in heaven in Matthew 5:45, and heirs in Psalms 127:3, 1 Samuel 2:8, Matthew 25:34. And being heirs, children of the kingdom, and children born of the Lord as their Father, they are therefore called kings and priests. Moreover, in Revelation 3:21 it is also said that they will sit with the Lord on His throne.

[2] The whole of heaven has been divided into two kingdoms - the spiritual kingdom and the celestial kingdom. The spiritual kingdom is what is called the Lord's kingship, and because all who are in it are governed by wisdom founded on truths, therefore it is they who are meant by the kings that the Lord will make those people who are governed by wisdom from Him. The celestial kingdom, on the other hand, is what is called the Lord's priesthood, and because all who are in it are governed by love arising from goodness, therefore it is they who are meant by the priests that the Lord will make those people who are governed by love from Him. The Lord's church on earth is likewise divided into two kingdoms. Regarding these two kingdoms, see nos. 24, 226 in the book Heaven and Hell, published in London, 1758.

[3] Someone who does not know the spiritual meaning of kings and priests may be deluded in regard to many things said in the prophets and in the book of Revelation about them. For example, in regard to these statements in the prophets:

The sons of foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you... You shall suck the milk of gentiles, even the breasts of kings you shall suck, that you may know that I, Jehovah, am your Savior and your Redeemer... (Isaiah 60:10, 16)

Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their princesses your wet nurses. (Isaiah 49:23)

Also elsewhere, as in Genesis 49:20; Psalms 2:10; Isaiah 14:9; 24:21; 52:15; Jeremiah 2:26; 4:9; 49:3; Lamentations 2:6, 9; Ezekiel 7:26-27; Hosea 3:4; Zephaniah 1:8. Kings there do not mean kings, but people who are governed by Divine truths from the Lord, and abstractly, Divine truths themselves, from which comes wisdom.

"The king of the south" and "the king of the north" who waged war with each other in Daniel 11 do not mean kings either, but the king of the south means people who are governed by truths, and the king of the north people who are caught up in falsities.

[4] Likewise in the book of Revelation, which many times mentions kings, as in the following passages:

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the rising of the sun might be prepared. (Revelation 16:12)

(With) the great harlot who sits on many waters... the kings of the earth committed whoredom... (Revelation 17:1-2)

...of the wine of the wrath of (Babylon's) whoredom all the nations have drunk, and the kings of the earth have committed whoredom with her... (Revelation 18:3)

And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war with Him who sat on the (white) horse... (Revelation 19:19)

And the nations that are saved shall walk in His light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into (the New Jerusalem). (Revelation 21:24)

Elsewhere also, as in Revelation 16:14; 17:9-14; 18:9-10. The kings there means people who are governed by truths, and in an opposite sense, people caught up in falsities, and abstractly, truths or falsities themselves. The whoredom of Babylon with the kings of the earth means the falsification of the truth of the church. Obviously Babylon, or the woman who sat on the scarlet beast, did not commit whoredom with kings, but rather falsified truths of the Word.

[5] It is apparent from this that the Lord's going to make people who are wise from Him kings does not mean that they will be kings, but that they will be wise. The reality of this is also something that enlightened reason sees.

Likewise in the following:

You have made us kings and priests to our God, that we may reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:10)

That by king the Lord meant truth is apparent from His words to Pilate:

Pilate... said to Him, "Are You a king then?"

Jesus answered, "As you have said, because I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."

Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" (John 18:27, 38)

To bear witness to the truth is to be Himself the embodiment of truth. And because He called Himself a king by virtue of it, Pilate said, "What is truth?" - which is to say, "Is truth a king?

As for priests, we will see in later explanations that they symbolize people who are governed by the goodness of love, and abstractly, goods of love themselves.

  
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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.