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Ezekiel 34

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1 The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and tell them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shouldn't the shepherds feed the sheep?

3 You eat the fat, and you clothe yourself with the wool, you kill the fatlings; but you don't feed the sheep.

4 You haven't strengthened the diseased, neither have you healed that which was sick, neither have you bound up that which was broken, neither have you brought back that which was driven away, neither have you sought that which was lost; but with force and with rigor you have ruled over them.

5 They were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered.

6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill: yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth; and there was none who searched or sought.

7 Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh:

8 As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely because my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became food to all the animals of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and didn't feed my sheep;

9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh:

10 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; and I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them.

11 For thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.

12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

13 I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

14 I will feed them with good pasture; and on the mountains of the height of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie down in a good fold; and on fat pasture shall they feed on the mountains of Israel.

15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down, says the Lord Yahweh.

16 I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but the fat and the strong I will destroy; I will feed them in justice.

17 As for you, O my flock, thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, the rams and the male goats.

18 Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture? and to have drunk of the clear waters, but you must foul the residue with your feet?

19 As for my sheep, they eat that which you have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which you have fouled with your feet.

20 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh to them: Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

21 Because you thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the diseased with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad;

22 therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

23 I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

24 I, Yahweh, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them; I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

25 I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell securely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.

26 I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in its season; there shall be showers of blessing.

27 The tree of the field shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land; and they shall know that I am Yahweh, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them.

28 They shall no more be a prey to the nations, neither shall the animals of the earth devour them; but they shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid.

29 I will raise up to them a plantation for renown, and they shall be no more consumed with famine in the land, neither bear the shame of the nations any more.

30 They shall know that I, Yahweh, their God am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord Yahweh.

31 You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, says the Lord Yahweh.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 7051

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7051. People who know nothing at all about the internal sense of the Word cannot help thinking that the Israelite and Jewish nation was chosen in preference to every other nation and was therefore of superior quality to all the rest, as those who belonged to that nation also thought. And what is so astonishing, this is not only what that nation itself thinks but also what Christians think, no matter how well they know that this nation is eaten up by filthy kinds of love, by foul avarice, hatred, and pride, and in addition to this belittles and also loathes things of an internal nature that belong to charity and faith and are the Lord's. The reason why Christians also think that this nation was chosen in preference to others is that they think a person is chosen and saved as a result of mercy, irrespective of the life he leads, so that those who are criminal can be received into heaven just as well as the godly and upright. They give no consideration to the idea that choice or election is all-embracing, that is to say, that it includes all who lead a good life. Nor do they consider that the Lord's mercy is shown to every person who refrains from evil and wishes to lead a good life, and so who allows himself to be led by the Lord and to be regenerated, a process which is being effected throughout the course of his life.

[2] This goes to explain too why the majority of people in the Christian world also believe that that nation will again be chosen, and that when this happens they will be led back into the land of Canaan. And this belief is also in keeping with the sense of the letter, for example in the following places:

Isaiah 10:20-23; 11:11-12; Isaiah 29:14-end; 43:5, 6; 49:6-26; 56:8; 60:4; 61:3-10; 62;

Jeremiah 3:14-19; 15:4, 14; 16:13, 15; 23:7-8; 24:9-10; 31:31, 33; 25:29; 29:14, 18; 30:3, 8-11; 31:8-10, 17; 33:16, 20, 26;

Ezekiel 5:10, 12, 15; 16:60; 20:41; 22:15-16; 34:12-13; 37:21-22; 38:12; 39:23, 27-28;

Daniel 7:27; 12:7;

Hosea 3:4-5; Joel 2:32; 3; Amos 9:8-9 and following verses; Micah 5:7-8.

It is on the basis of these as well as other places that even Christians think that nation will again be chosen and led into the land of Canaan. They think this even though they know that nation is waiting for the Messiah who will then lead the nation in, and are at the same time aware that its waiting for Him is in vain, and that the Messiah's or Christ's kingdom is not of this world, which means that the land of Canaan into which the Messiah will lead them is heaven.

[3] Such people give no thought to the idea that the Word has a spiritual sense within it and that in that sense Israel is not meant by Israel, Jacob by Jacob, or Judah by Judah, but that the things which they represent are meant by them. Nor do they give any thought to what the historical sections record regarding that nation - what it was like in the wilderness and what it was like after that in the land of Canaan, namely that it was at heart idolatrous - or to what the Prophets say about it and about its spiritual whoredom and its abominations. What that nation is like is described in the following words contained in the Song in Moses,

I will conceal My face from them; I will see what their future will be, for they are a perverse generation, sons in whom there is no faithfulness. I would have said, I will expel them to the remotest corners, I will make the memory of them cease from mankind, except that enemies might say, Our hand is high, and not Jehovah has done all this. For they are a nation from whom counsel has perished, nor is there intelligence in them. From the vine of Sodom comes their vine, and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, they have clusters of bitterness. The poison of snakes (draco) is their wine, and the cruel poison of asps. Is this not hidden away with Me, sealed up in My treasuries? Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; in time their foot will slip, for near is the day of their destruction, and the things to come upon them hasten on. Deuteronomy 32:20, 26-28, 32-35.

Jehovah gave Moses the words of this song, see Deuteronomy 31:19, 21. The Lord too spoke about what that nation was like, in John,

You are from your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth. John 8:44.

And many other places besides these show what that nation was like.

[4] The reason why, although they know these things, Christians believe that that nation will at length be converted to the Lord and at that time led into the land where they lived before is, as has been stated, that they have no knowledge of the internal sense of the Word. Another reason is their supposition that it makes no difference what kind of life a person leads, and that even evil which has become deeply rooted through repeated actions in no way prevents a person - through faith, even if it has existed for only one part of an hour - from being made spiritual, being regenerated, and so being accepted by the Lord. They also suppose that admission into heaven is solely a matter of mercy, and that this is shown towards one particular nation, thus not towards all in the whole world who receive the Lord's mercy. Those who think in that way do not know that it is altogether contrary to the Divine that some should be chosen and born to salvation and heaven, and others should not be chosen but born to damnation and hell. To think about the Divine in that kind of way would be shocking, for making such choices would show a complete lack of mercy, when in fact the Divine is Mercy itself. From all this it may now be recognized that the Israelite and Jewish nation was not and never will be the chosen nation; also that not a trace of the Church existed or could exist with that nation, only a representative of the Church; and that it was preserved right up to the present day because of the Old Testament Word, regarding which see 3479.

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

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Arcana Coelestia # 10396

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10396. 'And the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain' means the Israelite nation, when they did not discern in the Word anything from heaven. This is clear from the meaning of 'seeing', when it refers to the understanding of the Word, as discernment, dealt with in 2150, 3764, 3863, 4567, 4723, 5400; from the representation of 'Moses' as the Word, dealt with in the places referred to in 9372; from the meaning of 'delaying to come down', when this refers to discernment of Divine Truth obtained from the Word, as not flowing in, for Divine Truth which flows in and resides with a person is said to come down from heaven; and from the meaning of 'Mount Sinai' as heaven in respect of Divine Truth, dealt with in 9420. 'The people' is used here literally to mean the Israelite nation; for this chapter deals with that nation, with what it was like in its discernment of Divine Truth obtained from the Word, and in its discernment of the inner realities that were represented within the things which Jehovah commanded the children of Israel from Mount Sinai through Moses - the things contained in the previous chapters, Exodus 25-Exodus 31 inclusive. From all this it is clear that 'the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain' means the Israelite nation, when they did not discern in the Word anything from heaven, nor for this reason anything that was represented in the measures commanded from Mount Sinai, that is, the inner realities.

[2] The situation in all this is that the subject in the chapters immediately before has been the statutes, judgements, and laws which Jehovah commanded the children of Israel, among whom a Church was to be established. Each one of these was an external regulation representing something internal, as has been shown in the explanations of those chapters. But the character of the Israelite nation was such that they did not wish to know anything whatever about the inner realities that were represented, only about the outward forms that served to represent them. The reason why that nation was like this was that they were ruled completely by bodily and earthly kinds of love; and with those who are ruled by those kinds of love their interiors, which would otherwise lie open to heaven, are closed off. Everyone has an internal and an external; the internal exists for heaven's purposes, and the external for the world's purposes. When the external is dominant, worldly, bodily, and earthly interests reign; but when the internal is dominant, heavenly ones do so. The human being has been created in such a way however that the external may be subordinate to the internal, thus the world within him may be subordinate to heaven; for as has been stated, the external exists for the world's purposes, and the internal for heaven's. When therefore the external is dominant the internal is closed, because then a person turns himself away from heaven and the Lord towards the world and self; and the place he turns to is where his heart is, consequently where his love is and together with that love the whole of his life, since a person's life consists in his love.

[3] These things have been mentioned in order that people may know what the situation is with those who are ruled by bodily and earthly kinds of love, namely that such people's interiors are closed off; and those whose interiors are closed off do not acknowledge anything internal. Only those things which they see with their eyes or touch with their hands they say exist, and all else which they do not see with their eyes or touch with their hands they say do not exist. Consequently they have no belief at all in the existence of heaven, in life after death, or in the inner realities taught by the Church. This was what the Israelite nation was like; and the present chapter shows that they were such.

[4] Anyone who does not know that inner realities compose the Church with a person, and not outward things without them, cannot do other than suppose that this nation was chosen and also loved by Jehovah in preference to all others. But the truth of the matter is entirely different. They were accepted because they insisted on it, yet not in order that any Church might exist among them, only what was representative of a Church, to the end that the Word could be written, with such things constituting its lowest level. The reason why in the Word that nation is called Jehovah's people, the nation chosen and loved [by Him], is that in it Judah is used to mean the celestial Church, Israel the spiritual Church, and each son of Jacob some aspect of the Church. Furthermore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob serve to mean the Lord Himself, and so do Moses, Aaron, and David. But since the subject in the whole of this chapter is that nation, and the fact that no Church could be established among them, only what was representative of a Church, please see, before anything further is presented, what has been stated and shown previously regarding that nation,

No Church existed with that nation, only what was representative of a Church, 4281, 4288, 4311, 4500, 4899, 4912, 6304, 7048, 9320.

Thus they were not chosen, only accepted because they insisted on it, 4290, 4293, 7051, 7439.

They were entirely restricted to external things devoid of anything internal, 4293, 4311, 4459(end), 4834, 4844, 4847, 4865, 4868, 4874, 4903, 4913, 9320, 9373, 9380, 9381.

Their worship was merely external, 3147, 3479, 8871.

Nor did they wish to know about the inner things of worship and of the Word, 3479, 4429, 4433, 4680.

Therefore they were not allowed to know those things, 301, 302, 304, 2520, 3769.

If they had known them they would have rendered them profane, 3398, 3489, 4289.

Nevertheless through the outward things of worship among them, which were representative of inner realities, there was contact with heaven, and in what way, 4311, 4444, 6304, 8588, 8788, 8806.

When they were engaged in worship their interiors, which were foul, were closed, 3480, 9962.

This was possible among that nation, which is why they have been preserved even to the present day, 3479, 4281, 6588, 9377.

They worshipped Jehovah, but no more than His name, 3732(end), 4299, 6877.

At heart they were idolaters, 4208, 4281, 4820, 5998, 6877, 7401, 8301, 8882.

In general, they were the worst nation, 4314, 4316, 4317, 4444, 4503, 4750, 4751, 4815, 4820, 4832, 5057, 7248, 8819, 9320.

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