Ezekiel 16
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Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
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Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
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And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD to Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.
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And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
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No eye pitied thee, to do any of these to thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.
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And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thy own blood, I said to thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yes, I said to thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.
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I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and become great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thy hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
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Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yes, I swore to thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
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Then I washed thee with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil.
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I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
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I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.
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And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and ear-rings in thy ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head.
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Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.
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And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.
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But thou didst trust in thy own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
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And of thy garments thou didst take, and deck thy high places with divers colors, and play the harlot upon them: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.
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Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and hast made to thyself images of men, and hast committed lewdness with them.
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And hast taken thy broidered garments, and covered them: and thou hast set my oil and my incense before them.
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My provisions also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, with which I fed thee, thou hast even set before them for a sweet savor: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD.
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Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne to me, and these hast thou sacrificed to them to be devoured. Is this of thy lewdness a small matter,
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That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?
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And in all thy abominations and thy deeds of lewdness thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.
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And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe to thee! saith the Lord GOD;)
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That thou hast also built to thee an eminent place, and hast made thee a high place in every street.
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Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast prostituted thyself to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy lewd deeds.
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Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbors, great of flesh; and hast multiplied thy lewd deeds, to provoke me to anger.
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Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thy ordinary food, and delivered thee to the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of thy lewd way.
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Thou hast played the harlot also with the Assyrians, because thou wast insatiable; yes, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldst not be satisfied.
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Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan to Chaldea; and yet with this thou wast not satisfied.
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How weak is thy heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious lewd woman;
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In that thou buildest thy eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thy high place in every street; and hast not been as a harlot, in that thou scornest hire;
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But as a wife that committeth adultery, who taketh strangers instead of her husband!
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They give gifts to all lewd women: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come to thee on every side for thy lewdness.
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And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy unlawful commerce, whereas none followeth thee to commit lewdness: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given to thee, therefore thou art contrary.
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Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD:
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Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness exposed through thy carnal connection with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give to them;
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Behold therefore, I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them on every side against thee, and will uncover thy nakedness to them, that they may see all thy nakedness.
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And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.
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And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thy eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.
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They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords.
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And they shall burn thy houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.
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So will I make my fury towards thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.
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Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast provoked me in all these things; behold therefore, I also will recompense thy way upon thy head, saith the Lord GOD: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thy abominations.
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Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.
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Thou art thy mother's daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, who lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
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And thy elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.
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Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.
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As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.
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Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
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And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
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Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thy abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thy abominations which thou hast done.
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Thou also, who hast judged thy sisters, bear thy own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yes, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.
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When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them:
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That thou mayest bear thy own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort to them.
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When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former state, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former state, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former state.
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For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride,
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Before thy wickedness was disclosed, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are around her, the daughters of the Philistines, who despise thee on every side.
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Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thy abominations, saith the LORD.
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For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, who hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
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Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish to thee an everlasting covenant.
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Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thy elder and thy younger: and I will give them to thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.
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And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD:
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That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD.
Arcana Coelestia # 9263
9263. The expressions the righteous, righteousness, and justifying 1 occur many times in the Word; but what they mean specifically is not yet known. Their specific meaning is not yet known because up to now no one has known that all the different expressions in the Word are used to mean such things as belong to the internal Church and such as belong to heaven, thus such things as belong to the internal man since the internal aspect of the Church, also heaven, has a place in the internal man. Nor has anyone known that these interior things in the Word are different from its exterior ones, that is, from those in the letter. They are as different as spiritual things are from natural ones or heavenly things from earthly ones, the difference between which is so great that to the natural man there seems to be scarcely any similarity at all, when yet they are in perfect accord with one another. Since none of this has been known no one has been able to know what 'the righteous', 'righteousness', and 'justifying' denote in the Word on its spiritual and heavenly level of meaning. Leaders of the Church suppose that the righteous and the justified are those who have learned the truths of faith from the teachings of the Church and from the Word, and from this knowledge are given the trust or assurance that they are saved through the Lord's righteousness, and that the Lord acquired righteousness by fulfilling all things of the Law, also merit because He endured the Cross, thereby making atonement for and redeeming mankind. By this faith alone, they suppose, is a person justified; and they also suppose that people such as this are the ones whom the Word calls 'the righteous'.
[2] These however are not the ones whom the Word calls 'the righteous' but those who are governed by the good of charity towards the neighbour, received from the Lord. For the Lord alone is righteous, since He alone is Righteousness; and therefore in the measure that a person receives good from the Lord, that is, in the measure that what composes the Lord's essential nature resides with him, he is righteous and has been justified. The Lord became Righteousness through making His Human, by His own power, Divine. This Divine virtue residing with a person who receives it is the Lord's Righteousness with him. And it is the true good of charity towards the neighbour; for the Lord is within the good of love and through this within the truth of faith, the Lord being Divine Love itself.
[3] The good of charity towards the neighbour is exterior good, which is meant by 'the righteous', whereas the good of love to the Lord is interior good, which is meant by 'the innocent', dealt with immediately above in 9262. The fact that the good of love towards the neighbour, received from the Lord, is meant by 'righteous' in the proper sense may be recognized from places in the Word in which the expressions 'the righteous', 'righteousness', and 'being justified' occur, such as in Matthew,
Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, When did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? But the King answering will say to them, Truly I say to you, Insofar as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers you did it to Me. And the righteous will go into eternal life. Matthew 25:37-40, 46.
[4] Here those people are called 'the righteous' who have performed the good deeds of charity towards the neighbour that are recounted in this passage. The fact that those good deeds of charity constitute the Lord's presence with them is explicitly stated in the words, 'Insofar as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers you did it to Me', see 4807-4810, 4954-4959, 5063-5071. Those people are also called 'the sheep', for those governed by the good of charity from the Lord are meant by 'sheep', 4169, whereas 'the goats', who are on the left and are damned, means those who adhere to faith separated from charity, 4169 (end), 4769. The same people are meant by 'the righteous' elsewhere in Matthew,
The angels will come out and separate the evil from the midst of the righteous. Matthew 13:49.
And in Luke,
You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. Luke 14:14.
[5] This shows what the meaning is of the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father, 2 Matthew 13:43, namely people governed by the good of love, received from the Lord. For the Lord is the Sun in the next life; and the good of love flows from the Lord as the Sun there, see 1053, 1521, 1529-1531, 2441, 2495, 3636, 3643, 4060, 4321 (end), 4696, 5097, 7078, 7083, 7171, 7173, 7270, 8487, 8812. This is why the Lord is called the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi 4:2. In Daniel,
Those who have intelligence will shine like the brightness of the expanse, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars for ever and ever. Daniel 12:3.
'Those who have intelligence' are people with whom the truth and good of faith are present, 'those who turn [many] to righteousness' are people who lead others by means of the truth and good of faith to the good of charity. 'Shining like the stars' means having an intelligent understanding of truth and a wise discernment of good, as a result of which they possess eternal happiness; for 'the stars' are cognitions or knowledge of truth and good, which lead on to intelligence and wisdom, 2495, 2849, 4697.
[6] 'A righteous person' is described in David as follows,
Jehovah upholds the righteous. The righteous shows mercy and gives. The righteous shows mercy all the day and lends. The righteous will possess the land and dwell in it forever. The mouth of the righteous utters 3 wisdom and his tongue speaks judgement. The law of his God is in his heart. Psalms 37:16-34.
These are good deeds of charity, which are those of 'the righteous'. The fact that these good deeds of charity are inspired by the Lord, so much so that they are the Lord's with a person, is well known to the Church. 'A righteous person' is also described in Ezekiel 18:5-9, 21; 33:15ff.
[7] All this shows what it is that 'the righteous' and 'righteousness' mean in the following places: In Matthew,
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6.
In the same gospel,
He who welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in a righteous person's name will receive a righteous person's reward. Matthew 10:41.
In the same gospel,
Many prophets and righteous people desired to see what you see, but did not see it. Matthew 13:17.
In the same gospel,
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous. On you will come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel ... Matthew 23:29, 35.
'The prophets' stands for those who teach the truths and forms of the good of faith, and in the abstract sense for doctrinal teachings that compose faith, 2534, 7269; and 'the righteous' stands for those who lead a charitable life, and in the abstract sense for the good of charity. Abel, who is called 'righteous', represented the good of charity, see 342, 374.
[8] In Isaiah,
The righteous has perished, and no man takes it to heart; and holy men are taken away, 4 and no one understands. For because of evil the righteous is taken away. 5 Isaiah 57:1.
In the same prophet,
Your people will all be righteous; they will possess the land forever. Isaiah 60:21.
In the same prophet,
Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain with righteousness; let the earth open, in order that [its inhabitants] may bring forth the fruit of salvation, and let righteousness spring up together. I Jehovah am speaking righteousness, declaring ways that are right. 6 Isaiah 45:8, 19.
'Righteousness' stands for what comes out of the good of love, 'ways that are right' for what comes out of the truths of faith. In the same prophet,
Thus said Jehovah, Keep judgement and do righteousness, for My salvation is near [to come], and My righteousness to be revealed. Isaiah 56:1.
'Judgement' means the truth that belongs to faith, and 'righteousness' the good that belongs to charity, which is why it says 'do righteousness'. The fact that 'righteousness' is the good of charity received from the Lord is what the words 'My righteousness is near to be revealed' are used to mean.
[9] Many times also, in other places, the words 'judgement and righteousness' are used, 'judgement' meaning truth and 'righteousness' meaning good, as in Jeremiah,
Thus said Jehovah, Do judgement and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Woe to him who builds his house in unrighteousness, and his upper rooms not in judgement! Did not your father eat and drink, and do judgement and righteousness? Then it was well with him. Jeremiah 22:3, 13, 15.
'Judgement' stands for those things that are matters of truth, and 'righteousness' for those that are aspects of good. In Ezekiel,
If the wicked person turns away from his sin and does judgement and righteousness, all his sins which he has committed will not be remembered; he has done judgement and righteousness, he will surely live. When the wicked turns away from his wickedness and does judgement and righteousness he will live because of these. Ezekiel 33:14, 16, 19.
Other places similar to these include Isaiah 9:7; 16:5; 26:7, 9; 33:5, 15; 56:1; 58:2; Jeremiah 9:24; 23:5; 33:15; Hosea 2:19-20; Amos 5:24; 6:12; Psalms 36:5-6; 119:164, 172. The words 'judgement and righteousness' are used because wherever truth is dealt with in the Word, so too is good, on account of the heavenly marriage in every detail of the Word, which is the marriage of goodness and truth, spoken of in 683, 793, 801, 2173, 2516, 2712, 4138 (end), 5138, 5502, 6343, 7945, 8339. Since righteousness is associated with good and judgement is associated with truth, other places again use the words righteousness and truth, such as Zechariah 8:8; Psalms 15:2; 36:5-6; 85:11-12.
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. Three closely related Latin words are used here - justus, justitia, and justificare. The first is sometimes rendered just, at other times righteous; the second is sometimes rendered justice, at other times righteousness; and the third is sometimes rendered justify, at other times make righteous.
2. The Latin means like the sun in heaven but the Greek means like the sun in the kingdom of their father, which Swedenborg has in other places where he quotes this verse.
3. literally, meditates
4. literally, and men of holiness are collected up
5. literally, collected up
6. literally, telling of or pointing out rectitudes
