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Deuteronomy 32

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1 Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain. My speech shall condense as the dew, as the small rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb.

3 For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh. Ascribe greatness to our God!

4 The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice: a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he.

5 They have dealt corruptly with him, [they are] not his children, [it is] their blemish. [They are] a perverse and crooked generation.

6 Do you thus requite Yahweh, foolish people and unwise? Isn't he your father who has bought you? He has made you, and established you.

7 Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.

8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.

9 For Yahweh's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

10 He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.

11 As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers.

12 Yahweh alone led him. There was no foreign god with him.

13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock;

14 Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat. Of the blood of the grape you drank wine.

15 But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16 They moved him to jealousy with strange [gods]. They provoked him to anger with abominations.

17 They sacrificed to demons, [which were] no God, to gods that they didn't know, to new [gods] that came up of late, which your fathers didn't dread.

18 Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.

19 Yahweh saw [it], and abhorred [them], because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.

20 He said, "I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

22 For a fire is kindled in my anger, Burns to the lowest Sheol, Devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.

23 "I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them.

24 [They shall be] wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust.

25 Outside the sword shall bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, The nursing infant with the gray-haired man.

26 I said, I would scatter them afar. I would make the memory of them to cease from among men;

27 were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, lest they should say, 'Our hand is exalted, Yahweh has not done all this.'"

28 For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.

29 Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

30 How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had delivered them up?

31 For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter.

33 Their wine is the poison of serpents, The cruel venom of asps.

34 "Isn't this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures?

35 Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides; for the day of their calamity is at hand. The things that are to come on them shall make haste."

36 For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that [their] power is gone, There is none [remaining], shut up or left at large.

37 He will say, "Where are their gods, The rock in which they took refuge;

38 Which ate the fat of their sacrifices, And drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you! Let them be your protection.

39 "See now that I, even I, am he, There is no god with me. I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.

40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever,

41 if I whet my glittering sword, My hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, and will recompense those who hate me.

42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy."

43 Rejoice, you nations, [with] his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will render vengeance to his adversaries, And will make expiation for his land, for his people.

44 Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun.

45 Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel;

46 He said to them, "Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, [even] all the words of this law.

47 For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it."

48 Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying,

49 "Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession;

50 and die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people:

51 because you trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn't sanctify me in the midst of the children of Israel.

52 For you shall see the land before you; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel."

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1691

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1691. That 'a mountain' means self-love and love of the world becomes clear from the meaning of 'a mountain', dealt with immediately below. All evil and falsity arise from self-love and love of the world; they have no other origin. Indeed self-love and love of the world are the reverse of celestial and spiritual love. And being the reverse they are loves which endeavour all the time to destroy the celestial and spiritual things of God's kingdom. From self-love and love of the world all kinds of hatred arise, and from hatred all kinds of revenge and cruelty, and from both the former and the latter all kinds of deception, in short, all the hells.

[2] That 'mountains' in the Word means self-love and love of the world becomes clear from the following places: In Isaiah,

The eyes of man's (homo) loftiness will be humbled, and the height of men (homo) brought low; the day of Jehovah Zebaoth will be against everyone that is lofty and high, against all high mountains, and against all hills that are lifted up, and against every lofty tower. Isaiah 2:11-12, 14-15.

'High mountains' plainly stands for self-love, and 'hills that are lifted up' for love of the world.

[3] In the same prophet,

Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low. Isaiah 40:4.

This too plainly stands for self-love and love of the world. In the same prophet,

I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up every plant on them. Isaiah 42:15.

Here similarly 'mountains' stands for self-love, and 'hills' for love of the world. In Ezekiel,

The mountains will be overturned, and the terraced ridges will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground. Ezekiel 38:20.

[4] In Jeremiah,

Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, destroying the whole earth, and I will stretch out My hand against you and roll you down from the rocks and make you into a mountain of burning. Jeremiah 51:25.

This refers to Babel and Chaldea, which, as shown already, mean self-love and love of the world. In the Song of Moses,

A fire has flared up in My anger, and will burn right down to the lowest hell, and will devour the land and its increase, and will set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Deuteronomy 32:22.

'The foundations of the mountains' stands for the hells, as is explicitly stated. They are called 'the foundations of the mountains' because self-love and love of the world reign there and have their origin in them.

[5] In Jonah,

The waters surrounded me, even to my soul, the deep closed around me, seaweed was wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the bars of the land were upon me for ever. Yet You brought up my life 1 from the pit, O Jehovah my God. Jonah 2:5-6.

The Lord's temptations against the hells are described in this prophetic manner by Jonah when in the stomach of the great fish, as also in other parts of the Word, especially in David. A person undergoing temptation is within the hells. Being in the hells is not at all a question of place but of state.

[6] Since 'mountains' and 'towers' mean self-love and love of the world, it may therefore become clear what is meant by the reference to the Lord being led by the devil on to a high mountain and on to the pinnacle of the temple, namely that He was led into conflicts that constitute temptations - the most extreme conflicts of all - against self-love and love of the world, that is, against the hells. Mountains are also used, as is usual, in the contrary sense; in that sense they mean celestial and spiritual love, as shown already in 795, 796.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, my lives

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