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Deuteronomy 28

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1 It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to the voice of Yahweh your God, to observe to do all his commandments which I command you this day, that Yahweh your God will set you on high above all the nations of the earth:

2 and all these blessings shall come on you, and overtake you, if you shall listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.

3 You shall be blessed in the city, and you shall be blessed in the field.

4 You shall be blessed in the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your animals, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock.

5 Your basket and your kneading trough shall be blessed.

6 You shall be blessed when you come in, and you shall be blessed when you go out.

7 Yahweh will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck before you. They will come out against you one way, and will flee before you seven ways.

8 Yahweh will command the blessing on you in your barns, and in all that you put your hand to; and he will bless you in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

9 Yahweh will establish you for a holy people to himself, as he has sworn to you; if you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and walk in his ways.

10 All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of Yahweh; and they shall be afraid of you.

11 Yahweh will make you plenteous for good, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you.

12 Yahweh will open to you his good treasure in the sky, to give the rain of your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend to many nations, and you shall not borrow.

13 Yahweh will make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath; if you shall listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I command you this day, to observe and to do [them],

14 and shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

15 But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come on you, and overtake you.

16 You shall be cursed in the city, and you shall be cursed in the field.

17 Your basket and your kneading trough shall be cursed.

18 The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock shall be cursed.

19 You shall be cursed when you come in, and you shall be cursed when you go out.

20 Yahweh will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly; because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me.

21 Yahweh will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land, where you go in to possess it.

22 Yahweh will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish.

23 Your sky that is over your head shall be brass, and the earth that is under you shall be iron.

24 Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust: from the sky shall it come down on you, until you are destroyed.

25 Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and shall flee seven ways before them: and you shall be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

26 Your dead body shall be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there shall be none to frighten them away.

27 Yahweh will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed.

28 Yahweh will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;

29 and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and robbed always, and there shall be none to save you.

30 You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: you shall build a house, and you shall not dwell therein: you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not use its fruit.

31 Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat of it: your donkey shall be violently taken away from before your face, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have none to save you.

32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people; and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nothing in the power of your hand.

33 The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you don't know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always;

34 so that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see.

35 Yahweh will strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

36 Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you shall set over you, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone.

37 You shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where Yahweh shall lead you away.

38 You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it.

39 You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine, nor gather [the grapes]; for the worm shall eat them.

40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olive shall cast [its fruit].

41 You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.

42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess.

43 The foreigner who is in the midst of you shall mount up above you higher and higher; and you shall come down lower and lower.

44 He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

45 All these curses shall come on you, and shall pursue you, and overtake you, until you are destroyed; because you didn't listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you:

46 and they shall be on you for a sign and for a wonder, and on your seed forever.

47 Because you didn't serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things;

48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom Yahweh shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he has destroyed you.

49 Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies; a nation whose language you shall not understand;

50 a nation of fierce facial expressions, that shall not respect the person of the old, nor show favor to the young,

51 and shall eat the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; that also shall not leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

52 They shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which Yahweh your God has given you.

53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

54 The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining;

55 so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates.

56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,

57 and toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your gates.

58 If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH YOUR GOD;

59 then Yahweh will make your plagues wonderful, and the plagues of your seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and severe sicknesses, and of long continuance.

60 He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cling to you.

61 Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, Yahweh will bring them on you, until you are destroyed.

62 You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the sky for multitude; because you didn't listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.

63 It shall happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to possess it.

64 Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.

65 Among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul;

66 and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life.

67 In the morning you shall say, "I wish it were evening!" and at evening you shall say, "I wish it were morning!" for the fear of your heart which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see.

68 Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I said to you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall sell yourselves to your enemies for bondservants and for bondmaids, and no man shall buy you.

   

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Apocalypse Explained # 584

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584. And the rest of the men who were not killed in these plagues.- That this signifies those who have not perished from the disorderly desires above mentioned, is evident from the signification of the rest of the men who were not killed, as denoting all those who have not perished. That to be killed, in the Word, signifies to be spiritually killed, or to perish in eternal death (morte aeterna), may be seen above (n. 547, 572); and from the signification of "these plagues," as denoting the disorderly desires above mentioned, or, the disorderly desires springing from the love of evil, and the love of falsity, also the lust (concupiscentia) of destroying the truths and goods of the church by the falsities of evil; all these are signified by the fire, smoke, and brimstone, going forth out of the mouths of the horses, (see above, n. 578). These are called plagues, because by plagues in the Word, are signified such things as destroy spiritual life with men, and therefore the church; they also signify those things that cause death understood in a spiritual sense, and these refer mainly to the disorderly desires arising from the loves of self and of the world; for these loves are the roots from which evils and falsities of every class and species are born and spring up.

[2] Such things are also signified by plagues in the following passages in the Apocalypse:

The two witnesses "have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with every plague as often as they desire" (11:6).

So again:

"Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great" (16:21).

And again:

"In one day shall the plagues come to" Babylon, "death, and mourning, and famine" (18:8).

And again:

"I saw seven angels having the seven last plagues, through which must be consummated the wrath of God" (15:1, 6, 8).

By plagues are meant such things as bring spiritual death upon man, which, consequently, altogether destroy and devastate the church with men individually, and thus generally, as will be seen in the explanation of the passages that follow where plagues are mentioned, and especially where the seven last plagues are treated of.

[3] Similar things are understood by plagues in the following passages in the prophets.

Thus in Isaiah:

"The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, in the day that Jehovah shall bind up the breach of his people, and heal the wound of their plague" (30:26).

And in Jeremiah:

"Thy bruise is incurable, and thy plague is grievous. For I have smitten thee with the plague of an enemy. I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy plagues" (30:12, 14, 17).

Again, in the same prophet:

"Every one that goeth by" Edom, "shall hiss at all the plagues thereof" (49:17).

Again:

"Every one that goeth by Babylon shall hiss at all her plagues" (50:13).

And in Moses:

"If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of the law, Jehovah will make thy plagues wonderful, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and evil diseases, and of long continuance. Every disease, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, will Jehovah secretly bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed" (Deuteronomy 28:58, 59, 61).

Plagues here signify spiritual plagues, which do not destroy the body, but the soul, and which are also enumerated in that chapter in Deuteronomy (verses 20-68).

[4] What plagues signify in the spiritual sense, is described by correspondences in Zechariah:

"This shall be the plague, wherewith Jehovah shall smite all the people that shall fight against Jerusalem; the flesh of each one shall consume away so that he shall stand upon his feet, and his eyes shall consume away in their holes, and his tongue shall consume away in his mouth. And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of every beast that shall be in those camps, as this plague" (14:12, 15).

These things are said concerning those who endeavour to destroy the truths of the church by means of falsities. Jerusalem signifies the church as to the truths of doctrine, and to fight against her denotes to endeavour to destroy those truths by means of falsities. That the flesh of each one shall consume away so that he shall stand upon his feet, signifies that all the will of good will perish with those who attempt this, and that thus they will become merely corporeal-natural, for flesh signifies the will and its good or evil, while the feet signify those things that pertain to the natural man; therefore to stand upon the feet signifies to live from them alone. The eyes consuming away in their holes signifies that all understanding of truth shall perish, eyes signifying that understanding; and by the tongue consuming away in his mouth, is signified, that all perception of truth and affection for good shall perish. Concerning these things it may be seen above (n.455:8),where this prophecy also is explained. Almost similar things are signified by the plagues of the horse, the mule, the camel, the ass, and every beast; for by the plague of these is signified the loss of all understanding of truth, both spiritual and natural; and by the plague of the beast is signified the loss of all affection for good.

[5] In Luke it is said that in the same hour in which John sent, Jesus "cured many of their diseases and plagues of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight" (7:21). The plagues of evil spirits mean the obsessions, and calamitous states at that time brought upon men by evil spirits, all of which nevertheless signified corresponding spiritual states. For all the cures of diseases wrought by the Lord signified spiritual healings, and therefore the miracles of the Lord were Divine; as for example, that He gave sight to many that were blind, which signified to impart the understanding of the truths of doctrine to those who were in ignorance of truth. So again, by the wounds (plagas) which the thieves inflicted on the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho (Luke 10:30), are also signified spiritual plagues, which were the falsities and evils insinuated into sojourners and Gentiles by the Scribes and Pharisees, as may be seen above (n. 444:13), where the spiritual sense of this parable is explained.

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.