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Deuteronomy 32

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1 `Give ear, O heavens, and I speak; And thou dost hear, O earth, sayings of my mouth!

2 Drop as rain doth My doctrine; Flow as dew doth My sayings; As storms on the tender grass, And as showers on the herb,

3 For the Name of Jehovah I proclaim, Ascribe ye greatness to our God!

4 The Rock! -- perfect [is] His work, For all His ways [are] just; God of stedfastness, and without iniquity: Righteous and upright [is] He.

5 It hath done corruptly to Him; Their blemish is not His sons', A generation perverse and crooked!

6 To Jehovah do ye act thus, O people foolish and not wise? Is not He thy father -- thy possessor? He made thee, and doth establish thee.

7 Remember days of old -- Understand the years of many generations -- Ask thy father, and he doth tell thee; Thine elders, and they say to thee:

8 In the Most High causing nations to inherit, In His separating sons of Adam -- He setteth up the borders of the peoples By the number of the sons of Israel.

9 For Jehovah's portion [is] His people, Jacob [is] the line of His inheritance.

10 He findeth him in a land -- a desert, And in a void -- a howling wilderness, He turneth him round -- He causeth him to understand -- He keepeth him as the apple of His eye.

11 As an eagle waketh up its nest, Over its young ones fluttereth, Spreadeth its wings -- taketh them, Beareth them on its pinions; --

12 Jehovah alone doth lead him, And there is no strange god with him.

13 He maketh him ride on high places of earth, And he eateth increase of the fields, And He maketh him suck honey from a rock, And oil out of the flint of a rock;

14 Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, With fat of lambs, and rams, sons of Bashan, And he-goats, with fat of kidneys of wheat; And of the blood of the grape thou dost drink wine!

15 And Jeshurun waxeth fat, and doth kick: Thou hast been fat -- thou hast been thick, Thou hast been covered. And he leaveth God who made him, And dishonoureth the Rock of his salvation.

16 They make Him zealous with strangers, With abominations they make Him angry.

17 They sacrifice to demons -- no god! Gods they have not known -- New ones -- from the vicinity they came; Not feared them have your fathers!

18 The Rock that begat thee thou forgettest, And neglectest God who formeth thee.

19 And Jehovah seeth and despiseth -- For the provocation of His sons and His daughters.

20 And He saith: I hide My face from them, I see what [is] their latter end; For a froward generation [are] they, Sons in whom is no stedfastness.

21 They have made Me zealous by `no-god,' They made Me angry by their vanities; And I make them zealous by `no-people,' By a foolish nation I make them angry.

22 For a fire hath been kindled in Mine anger, And it burneth unto Sheol -- the lowest, And consumeth earth and its increase, And setteth on fire foundations of mountains.

23 I gather upon them evils, Mine arrows I consume upon them.

24 Exhausted by famine, And consumed by heat, and bitter destruction. And the teeth of beasts I send upon them, With poison of fearful things of the dust.

25 Without bereave doth the sword, And at the inner-chambers -- fear, Both youth and virgin, Suckling with man of grey hair.

26 I have said: I blow them away, I cause their remembrance to cease from man;

27 If not -- the anger of an enemy I fear, Lest their adversaries know -- Lest they say, Our hand is high, And Jehovah hath not wrought all this.

28 For a nation lost to counsels [are] they, And there is no understanding in them.

29 If they were wise -- They deal wisely [with] this; They attend to their latter end:

30 How doth one pursue a thousand, And two cause a myriad to flee! If not -- that their rock hath sold them, And Jehovah hath shut them up?

31 For not as our Rock [is] their Rock, (And our enemies [are] judges!)

32 For of the vine of Sodom their vine [is], And of the fields of Gomorrah; Their grapes [are] grapes of gall -- They have bitter clusters;

33 The poison of dragons [is] their wine And the fierce venom of asps.

34 Is it not laid up with Me? Sealed among My treasures?

35 Mine [are] vengeance and recompense, At the due time -- doth their foot slide; For near is a day of their calamity, And haste do things prepared for them.

36 For Jehovah doth judge His people, And for His servants doth repent Himself. For He seeth -- the going away of power, And none is restrained and left.

37 And He hath said, Where [are] their gods -- The rock in which they trusted;

38 Which the fat of their sacrifices do eat, They drink the wine of their libation! Let them arise and help you, Let it be for you a hiding-place!

39 See ye, now, that I -- I [am] He, And there is no god with Me: I put to death, and I keep alive; I have smitten, and I heal; And there is not from My hand a deliverer,

40 For I lift up unto the heavens My hand, And have said, I live -- to the age!

41 If I have sharpened the brightness of My sword, And My hand doth lay hold on judgment, I turn back vengeance to Mine adversaries, And to those hating Me -- I repay!

42 I make drunk Mine arrows with blood, And My sword devoureth flesh, From the blood of the pierced and captive, From the head of the freemen of the enemy.

43 Sing ye nations -- [with] his people, For the blood of His servants He avengeth, And vengeance He turneth back on His adversaries, And hath pardoned His land -- His people.'

44 And Moses cometh and speaketh all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea son of Nun;

45 and Moses finisheth to speak all these words unto all Israel,

46 and saith unto them, `Set your heart to all the words which I am testifying against you to-day, that ye command your sons to observe to do all the words of this law,

47 for it [is] not a vain thing for you, for it [is] your life, and by this thing ye prolong days on the ground whither ye are passing over the Jordan to possess it.'

48 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, in this self-same day, saying,

49 `Go up unto this mount Abarim, mount Nebo, which [is] in the land of Moab, which [is] on the front of Jericho, and see the land of Canaan which I am giving to the sons of Israel for a possession;

50 and die in the mount whither thou art going up, and be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother hath died in the mount Hor, and is gathered unto his people:

51 `Because ye trespassed against me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath-Kadesh, the wilderness of Zin -- because ye sanctified Me not in the midst of the sons of Israel;

52 but over-against thou seest the land, and thither thou dost not go in, unto the land which I am giving to the sons of Israel.'

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 543

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543. She bore a male Child. (12:5) This symbolizes the doctrine of the New Church.

A son in the Word symbolizes doctrinal truth, and also an understanding of and consequent thought about truth and goodness. A daughter, on the other hand, symbolizes the goodness taught by doctrine, and also a willing of and consequent affection for truth and goodness. A male child, moreover, symbolizes truth conceived in the spiritual self and born in the natural one.

The reason for this is that generations and births in the Word symbolize spiritual generations and births, all of which relate in general to goodness and truth (no. 535). For nothing else is begotten and born of the Lord as husband and of the church as wife.

Now because the woman who bore the child symbolizes the New Church (no. 533), it is apparent that the male child symbolizes that church's doctrine.

The doctrine meant here is The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (London, 1758), and also The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, and The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem in Accordance With the Ten Commandments (Amsterdam, 1763). For doctrine means all the truths of doctrine, since doctrine embraces them all. When I was writing these doctrines, followers of the dragon stood about me and with all their fury endeavored to devour them, that is, to extinguish them.

I am permitted to report this new information, because of a truth it happened as I have said. The followers of the dragon who stood about me came from all over the Protestant Reformed Christian world.

[2] Since these and no other are the offspring born of the spiritual marriage, and male offspring are truth and good in the intellect and consequent thought, while female offspring are truth and good in the will and consequent affection, therefore a son in the Word symbolizes truth. To confirm this we will cite some passages from which it can in some measure be seen:

Behold, sons are a heritage from Jehovah, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the sons of one's youth. (Psalms 127:3-5)

Make yourself bald and shave yourself, because of your delightful sons..., for they are gone from you. (Micah 1:16)

(I saw two olive trees beside the lampstand,) and he said, "These are the two sons of the olive tree, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth." (Zechariah 4:11, 14)

My tent is destroyed...; my sons have gone from me, and they are no more. (Jeremiah 10:20)

My sons are made desolate because the enemy prevailed. (Lamentations 1:16)

Your sons, (O Jerusalem,) have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets... (Isaiah 51:17-18, 20)

...fathers shall eat their sons in the midst of you, and sons shall eat their fathers..., and all of you who remain I will scatter to all the winds. (Ezekiel 5:10)

Son will be divided against father, and father against son... (Luke 12:53, cf. Matthew 10:21, Mark 13:12)

You have also taken your beautiful vessels of My gold... and made for yourself male images with which you played the harlot. (Ezekiel 16:17)

(Jesus said,) ...the... seeds are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of evil. (Matthew 13:38)

[3] That the Son of Man is the Divine truth in the Word, thus the Lord, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, nos. 19-28.

In the passages cited, sons mean people who possess doctrinal truths drawn from the Word, and abstractly, those truths themselves. So, too, elsewhere, as in Isaiah 13:17-18; 14:21-23; 43:6; 49:17, 22; 51:17-18; 60:9; Deuteronomy 32:8.

That daughters symbolize an affection for the church's truth, thus the church in relation to that affection, follows from so many passages in the Word that if I were to quote them, they would fill many pages. Nothing else is meant by daughter of Zion, daughter of Jerusalem, daughter of Judah, and daughter of Israel. See some passages cited in no. 612[1-4] regarding the daughter of Zion. Who cannot see that no actual daughter of Zion, of Jerusalem, of Judah or of Israel, so often mentioned in the Word, can be meant?

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.