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Deuteronomy 29

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1 These are the words of the covenant which Yahweh commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.

2 Moses called to all Israel, and said to them, You have seen all that Yahweh did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land;

3 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders:

4 but Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.

5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes have not grown old on you, and your shoes have not grown old on your feet.

6 You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink; that you may know that I am Yahweh your God.

7 When you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us to battle, and we struck them:

8 and we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of the Manassites.

9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.

10 You stand this day all of you before Yahweh your God; your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel,

11 your little ones, your wives, and your foreigner who is in the midst of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water;

12 that you may enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God, and into his oath, which Yahweh your God makes with you this day;

13 that he may establish you this day to himself for a people, and that he may be to you a God, as he spoke to you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath,

15 but with him who stands here with us this day before Yahweh our God, and also with him who is not here with us this day

16 (for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed;

17 and you have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them);

18 lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from Yahweh our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood;

19 and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to destroy the moist with the dry."

20 Yahweh will not pardon him, but then the anger of Yahweh and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book shall lie on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.

21 Yahweh will set him apart to evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.

22 The generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner who shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh has made it sick;

23 [and that] the whole land of it is sulfur, and salt, [and] a burning, [that] it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

24 even all the nations shall say, "Why has Yahweh done thus to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?"

25 Then men shall say, "Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,

26 and went and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods that they didn't know, and that he had not given to them:

27 therefore the anger of Yahweh was kindled against this land, to bring on it all the curse that is written in this book;

28 and Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day."

29 The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 2455

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2455. That 'she became a pillar of salt' means that all good accompanying truth was vastated becomes clear from the meaning of 'a pillar' and from the meaning of 'salt'. In the original language the word used for a pillar means something standing still, not however that used for a pillar which was erected either for worship, or as a sign or for a witness. Consequently 'the pillar of salt' mentioned here means that it - the truth meant by Lot's wife - stood as something vastated, 2454. Truth is said to be vastated when it no longer has any good within it - vastation itself being meant by 'salt'.

[2] As most things in the Word have two meanings, namely the genuine and the contrary to this, so also does 'salt'. In the genuine sense it means the affection for truth, in the contrary sense the vastation of the affection for truth, that is, of the good within truth. That 'salt' means the affection for truth, see Exodus 30:35; Leviticus 2:13; Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:49-50; Luke 14:34-35. That it also means the vastation of the affection for truth, that is, of the good within truth, is clear from the following places: In Moses,

The whole land will be brimstone and salt, a burning; it will not be sown, it will not sprout, nor will any plant come up on it, as at the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Admah and Zeboiim. Deuteronomy 29:23.

Here 'brimstone' is the vastation of good, and 'salt' the vastation of truth. That vastation is the meaning is evident from each detail.

[3] In Zephaniah,

Moab will be like Sodom, and the children of Ammon like Gomorrah, a place abandoned to the nettle, and a saltpit, and a desolation for ever. Zephaniah 2:9.

Here 'a place abandoned to the nettle' stands for vastated good, 'a salt pit' for vastated truth; for 'a place abandoned to the nettle' refers to Sodom, which has been shown to mean evil or vastated good, and 'a salt pit' to Gomorrah, which has been shown to mean falsity or vastated truth. That vastation is the meaning is evident from its being called 'a desolation for ever'. In Jeremiah,

He who makes flesh his arm will be like a bare shrub in the solitary place and will not see when good comes; and he will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Jeremiah 17:5-6.

Here 'a parched land' stands for vastated goods, 'a salt land' for vastated truths.

[4] In David,

Jehovah turns rivers into a wilderness, and outgoings of waters into a dryness, a fruitful land into a salty waste because of the wickedness of those inhabiting it. Psalms 107:33-34.

'A fruitful land into a salty waste' stands for the vastation of the good within truth. In Ezekiel,

Its swamps and its marshes are not healed, they will be given up to salt. Ezekiel 47:11.

'Given up to salt' stands for being utterly vastated as regards truth. Because 'salt' meant vastation and 'cities' matters of doctrine concerning truth, as shown in 402, 2268, 2428, 2451, cities that had been destroyed were in former times sown with salt to prevent their being rebuilt, Judges 9:45. The description at this point is of the fourth state of the Church represented by 'Lot', a state in which all truth has been vastated as regards good.

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