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Jeremiah 50:31

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31 Behold, I am against thee, O thou most proud, saith the Lord GOD of hosts: for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee.

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Arcana Coelestia # 9229

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9229. 'And men of holiness shall you be to Me' means a state of life then composed of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'men of holiness' as those who are led by the Lord, for the Divine which emanates from the Lord is holiness itself, 6788, 7499, 8127 (end), 8302, 8806. Consequently those who receive that emanation in faith and also in love are called holy ones. Anyone who imagines that a person is holy from any other source, or that anything present with a person is holy apart from that which comes and is received from the Lord is very much mistaken; for that which is the person's own, and is called his proprium, is evil.

The human proprium is nothing but evil, see 210, 215, 694, 874-876, 987, 1047, 4328, 5660, 5786, 8480, 8944.

To the extent that a person can be withheld from his proprium, the Lord can be present with him, and therefore to the same extent holiness resides with him, 1023, 1044, 1581, 2256, 2388, 2406, 2411, 8206, 8393, 8988 (end), 9014.

[2] The truth that the Lord is the Only Holy One, and that nothing is holy except that which emanates from the Lord, and so that which a person receives from the Lord, is evident from everywhere in the Word, as in John,

I make Myself holy, that they also may be made holy in the truth. John 17:19.

'Making Himself holy' means making Himself Divine by His own power. Consequently those who receive Divine Truth emanating from the Lord in faith and life are said to be 'made holy in the truth'.

[3] This also explains why after the Resurrection, when the Lord spoke to the disciples, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit, John 20:22. 'Breathing on (or into)' was a sign that represented the imparting of life through faith and love, as also in Genesis,

Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man (homo) became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.

Other examples like this may be seen elsewhere, such as Psalms 33:6; 104:29-30; Job 32:8; 33:4; John 3:8. Therefore also the Word is said to be inspired because it comes from the Lord, and those who wrote the Word have been called 'inspired'. Breathing, and so breathing on or inspiring, corresponds to the life of faith, see 97, 1119, 1120, 3883-3896. This explains why the term spirit in the Word is derived from the word for wind, and holiness from the Lord is called Jehovah's wind, 8286, and why the Holy Spirit is the holiness emanating from the Lord, 3704, 4673 (end), 5307, 6788, 6982, 6993, 8127 (end), 8302, 9199.

[4] So also it says in John 1:33 that the Lord baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and in Luke 3:16 that He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 'Baptizing' in the internal sense means regenerating, 4255, 5120 (end), 9088; 'baptizing with the Holy Spirit' means regenerating by means of the good of faith; and 'baptizing with fire' means regenerating by means of the good of love, 'fire' being the good of love, see 934, 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324. In John,

Who is not going to fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. Revelation 15:4.

In Luke the angel telling Mary about the Lord said,

That which is holy will be born from you. Luke 1:35.

And in Daniel,

I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and behold, a vigilant and holy one came down from heaven. Daniel 4:13.

In these places 'that which is holy' and 'a holy one' stand for the Lord.

[5] Because the Lord alone is holy He is called in the Old Testament the Holy One of Israel, the Redeemer, the Saviour, and the Regenerator, as in Isaiah 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19; 30:11-12, 15; 31:1; 37:23; 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9, 14; Jeremiah 50:29; 51:5; Ezekiel 39:7; Psalms 71:22; 78:41; 89:18. This is why the Lord in heaven, and consequently heaven itself, is called the dwelling-place of holiness, Jeremiah 25:30; 31:23; 1 Isaiah 63:15; the sanctuary, 2 Ezekiel 11:16; 24:21; and also the mountain of holiness, Psalms 3:4. It is also why the middle of the tent [of meeting], where the ark containing the law was, was called The Holy of Holies, Exodus 26:33-34; for the law in the ark in the middle of the tent [of meeting], represented the Lord in respect of the Word. For the law is the Word, 6752, 7463.

[6] All this shows why it is that the angels are called holy in Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Psalms 149:1; Daniel 8:13; also the prophets, Luke 1:70; and the apostles too, Revelation 18:20. Not that they are holy by their own virtue but that the Lord, who alone is holy and the only source of holiness, makes them so. For truths are meant by 'the angels', because they are those who receive truth from the Lord, 1925, 4085, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8192, 8301; teachings which present the truth that comes through the Word from the Lord are meant by 'the prophets', 2534, 7269; and all the truths and forms of the good of faith in their entirety which come from the Lord are meant by 'the apostles', 3488, 3858 (end), 6397.

[7] Consecrations 3 among the Israelite and Jewish people took place in order that the Lord who alone was holy might be represented, and in order that holiness, which He alone is the source of, might be represented. This is the reason for the consecration of Aaron and his sons, Exodus 29:1ff; Leviticus 8:10-11, 13, 30; the consecration of their garments, Exodus 29:21ff; the consecration of the altar in order that it might be most holy, 4 Exodus 29:37ff; the consecration of the tent of meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table, all the vessels, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and its vessels, and the laver and its base, Exodus 30:26ff.

[8] The truth that the Lord is the real Holiness that was represented is evident also from the Lord's words in Matthew when they are seen in the internal sense,

Fools and blind! Which of the two is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold holy? And which of the two is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift holy? Matthew 23:17-19.

'The temple' represented the Lord Himself, and so did 'the altar', while 'the gold' was a sign of the good that comes from the Lord, and 'the gift' or a sacrifice was a sign of things constituting faith and charity that come from the Lord.

The Lord was represented by 'the temple', see 2777, 3720, and by 'the altar', 2777, 2811, 4489, 8935, 8940. 'Gold' was a sign of good that comes from the Lord, 1551, 1552, 5658, and 'a sacrifice' a sign of worship springing from faith and charity that come from the Lord, 922, 923, 2805, 2807, 2830, 6905, 8680, 8682, 8936.

[9] From all this it is now evident why it is that the children of Israel were called a holy people in Deuteronomy 26:19 and elsewhere, or as in the present verse men of holiness. That is to say, they were so called because every single aspect of their worship represented Divine realities that are the Lord's, and celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom and Church. On this account they were called holy in a representative sense; they themselves were not holy on that account, because representatives had regard to the holy things that were represented, not to the person who represented them, see 665, 1097 (end), 1361, 3147, 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288, 4293, 4307, 4444, 4500, 6304, 7048, 7439, 8588, 8788, 8806.

[10] On that account also was Jerusalem called holy, and Zion the mountain of holiness in Zechariah 8:3 and elsewhere, as well as in Matthew,

And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of dead holy ones were raised; and coming out of their tombs after the Lord's resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Matthew 27:52-53.

Here Jerusalem is called 'the holy city', when in fact, quite to the contrary, it was unholy because the Lord was crucified there at that time, for which reason it is called 'Sodom and Egypt' in John,

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Revelation 11:8.

Yet it is called holy, because it means the Lord's kingdom and the Church, 402, 2117, 3654. The appearance of 'dead holy ones' there, an event witnessed by some in vision, was a sign of the salvation of people who belonged to the spiritual Church, and of the raising of those people to the Holy Jerusalem, which is heaven - the people who had been kept up to that time on the lower earth, spoken of in 6854, 6914, 7091, 7828, 7932, 8049, 8054, 8159, 8321.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1Jeremiah 31:23 refers to a dwelling-place of righteousness [and] mountain of holiness, to be exact

2. i.e. an especially holy place

3. i.e. dedicating persons or things to holy functions or purposes

4. literally, the holiness of holinesses

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

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Ezekiel 48

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1 Now these are the names of the tribes: From the north end, beside the way of Hethlon to the entrance of Hamath, Hazar Enan at the border of Damascus, northward beside Hamath, (and they shall have their sides east [and] west), Dan, one [portion].

2 By the border of Dan, from the east side to the west side, Asher, one [portion].

3 By the border of Asher, from the east side even to the west side, Naphtali, one [portion].

4 By the border of Naphtali, from the east side to the west side, Manasseh, one [portion].

5 By the border of Manasseh, from the east side to the west side, Ephraim, one [portion].

6 By the border of Ephraim, from the east side even to the west side, Reuben, one [portion].

7 By the border of Reuben, from the east side to the west side, Judah, one [portion].

8 By the border of Judah, from the east side to the west side, shall be the offering which you shall offer, twenty-five thousand [reeds] in breadth, and in length as one of the portions, from the east side to the west side: and the sanctuary shall be in its midst.

9 The offering that you shall offer to Yahweh shall be twenty-five thousand [reeds] in length, and ten thousand in breadth.

10 For these, even for the priests, shall be the holy offering: toward the north twenty-five thousand [in length], and toward the west ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south twenty-five thousand in length: and the sanctuary of Yahweh shall be in its midst.

11 [It shall be] for the priests who are sanctified of the sons of Zadok, who have kept my instruction, who didn't go astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went astray.

12 It shall be to them an offering from the offering of the land, a thing most holy, by the border of the Levites.

13 Answerable to the border of the priests, the Levites shall have twenty-five thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth: all the length shall be twenty-five thousand, and the breadth ten thousand.

14 They shall sell none of it, nor exchange it, nor shall the first fruits of the land be alienated; for it is holy to Yahweh.

15 The five thousand that are left in the breadth, in front of the twenty-five thousand, shall be for common use, for the city, for dwelling and for suburbs; and the city shall be in its midst.

16 These shall be its measures: the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred.

17 The city shall have suburbs: toward the north two hundred fifty, and toward the south two hundred fifty, and toward the east two hundred fifty, and toward the west two hundred fifty.

18 The remainder in the length, answerable to the holy offering, shall be ten thousand eastward, and ten thousand westward; and it shall be answerable to the holy offering; and its increase shall be for food to those who labor in the city.

19 Those who labor in the city, out of all the tribes of Israel, shall cultivate it.

20 All the offering shall be twenty-five thousand by twenty-five thousand: you shall offer the holy offering foursquare, with the possession of the city.

21 The residue shall be for the prince, on the one side and on the other of the holy offering and of the possession of the city; in front of the twenty-five thousand of the offering toward the east border, and westward in front of the twenty-five thousand toward the west border, answerable to the portions, it shall be for the prince: and the holy offering and the sanctuary of the house shall be in its midst.

22 Moreover from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city, being in the midst of that which is the prince's, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, it shall be for the prince.

23 As for the rest of the tribes: from the east side to the west side, Benjamin, one [portion].

24 By the border of Benjamin, from the east side to the west side, Simeon, one [portion].

25 By the border of Simeon, from the east side to the west side, Issachar, one [portion].

26 By the border of Issachar, from the east side to the west side, Zebulun, one [portion].

27 By the border of Zebulun, from the east side to the west side, Gad, one [portion].

28 By the border of Gad, at the south side southward, the border shall be even from Tamar to the waters of Meribath Kadesh, to the brook [of Egypt], to the great sea.

29 This is the land which you shall divide by lot to the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their several portions, says the Lord Yahweh.

30 These are the exits of the city: On the north side four thousand and five hundred [reeds] by measure;

31 and the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel, three gates northward: the gate of Reuben, one; the gate of Judah, one; the gate of Levi, one.

32 At the east side four thousand and five hundred [reeds], and three gates: even the gate of Joseph, one; the gate of Benjamin, one; the gate of Dan, one.

33 At the south side four thousand and five hundred [reeds] by measure, and three gates: the gate of Simeon, one; the gate of Issachar, one; the gate of Zebulun, one.

34 At the west side four thousand and five hundred [reeds], with their three gates: the gate of Gad, one; the gate of Asher, one; the gate of Naphtali, one.

35 It shall be eighteen thousand [reeds] around: and the name of the city from that day shall be, Yahweh is there.