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Deuteronomy 8

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1 `All the command which I am commanding thee to-day ye observe to do, so that ye live, and have multiplied, and gone in, and possessed the land which Jehovah hath sworn to your fathers;

2 and thou hast remembered all the way which Jehovah thy God hath caused thee to go these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble thee to try thee, to know that which [is] in thy heart, whether thou dost keep His commands or not.

3 `And He doth humble thee, and cause thee to hunger and doth cause thee to eat the manna (which thou hast not known, even thy fathers have not known), in order to cause thee to know that not by bread alone doth man live, but by every produce of the mouth of Jehovah man doth live.

4 `Thy raiment hath not worn out from off thee, and thy foot hath not swelled these forty years,

5 and thou hast known, with thy heart, that as a man chastiseth his son Jehovah thy God is chastising thee,

6 and thou hast kept the commands of Jehovah thy God, to walk in His ways, and to fear Him.

7 `For Jehovah thy God is bringing thee in unto a good land, a land of brooks of waters, of fountains, and of depths coming out in valley and in mountain:

8 a land of wheat, and barley, and vine, and fig, and pomegranate; a land of oil olive and honey;

9 a land in which without scarcity thou dost eat bread, thou dost not lack anything in it; a land whose stones [are] iron, and out of its mountains thou dost dig brass;

10 and thou hast eaten, and been satisfied, and hast blessed Jehovah thy God, on the good land which he hath given to thee.

11 `Take heed to thyself, lest thou forget Jehovah thy God so as not to keep His commands, and His judgments, and His statutes which I am commanding thee to-day;

12 lest thou eat, and hast been satisfied, and good houses dost build, and hast inhabited;

13 and thy herd and thy flock be multiplied, and silver and gold be multiplied to thee; and all that is thine be multiplied:

14 `And thy heart hath been high, and thou hast forgotten Jehovah thy God (who is bringing thee out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of servants;

15 who is causing thee to go in the great and the terrible wilderness -- burning serpent, and scorpion, and thirst -- where there is no water; who is bringing out to thee waters from the flinty rock;

16 who is causing thee to eat manna in the wilderness, which thy fathers have not known, in order to humble thee, and in order to try thee, to do thee good in thy latter end),

17 and thou hast said in thy heart, My power, and the might of my hand, hath made for me this wealth:

18 `And thou hast remembered Jehovah thy God, for He it [is] who is giving to thee power to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He hath sworn to thy fathers as [at] this day.

19 `And it hath been -- if thou really forget Jehovah thy God, and hast gone after other gods, and served them, and bowed thyself to them, I have testified against you to-day that ye do utterly perish;

20 as the nations whom Jehovah is destroying from your presence, so ye perish; because ye hearken not to the voice of Jehovah your God.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 775

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775. "Every vessel of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these because they do not have any knowledge of the goods and truths in ecclesiastical affairs to which such things correspond.

This statement is similar to the ones explained in nos. 772, 773, and 774 above. The difference is that the valuables here are various forms of knowledge, which are the lowest ones in a person's natural mind. And because they differ in character owing to the essence that lies within them, they are called vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble. For vessels symbolize forms of knowledge, here forms of knowledge in ecclesiastical affairs. Because various forms of knowledge are the containing vessels of goodness and truth, they are like vessels containing oil or wine.

Forms of knowledge are also found in great variety, and their recipient vessel is the memory. They are of great variety because they contain the interior elements of a person. They are also introduced into the memory either by intellectual deliberation or by hearing or reading them, according to the varying perception then of the rational mind. All of these things are present in forms of knowledge, as is apparent when they are reproduced, which is the case when a person speaks or thinks.

[2] But we will briefly say what vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron and marble symbolize. A vessel of precious wood symbolizes something known as the result of rational goodness and truth. A vessel of bronze symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness. A vessel of iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural truth. And a vessel of marble symbolizes something known as the result of an appearance of goodness and truth.

That wood symbolizes goodness may be seen just above in no. 774. That precious wood here symbolizes both rational goodness and rational truth is due to the fact that wood symbolizes goodness, and preciousness is predicated of truth. For one variety of goodness is symbolized by the wood of the olive tree, another by the wood of the cedar, of the fig tree, of the fir tree, of the poplar and of the oak.

A vessel of bronze and iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness and truth, because all metals, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead, in the Word symbolize goods and truths. They symbolize because they correspond, and because they correspond they are also found in heaven. For everything in heaven is a correspondent form.

[3] However, this is not the place to confirm from the Word what each kind of metal symbolizes owing to its correspondence. We will cite only some passages to confirm that bronze symbolizes natural goodness, and iron, therefore, natural truth, as can be seen from the following: That the feet of the Son of Man looked like bronze, as though fired in a furnace (Revelation 1:15). That Daniel saw a man whose feet were like the gleam of burnished bronze (Daniel 10:5-6).

That the feet of cherubim were seen sparking as with the gleam of burnished bronze (Ezekiel 1:7). (Feet symbolize something natural, as may be seen in nos. 49, 468, 470, 510.) That an angel appears whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze (Ezekiel 40:3). And that the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw was as to its head golden, as to its breast and arms silver, as to its belly and sides bronze, and as to its legs iron (Daniel 2:32-33). The statue represented the successive states of the church which the ancients called the golden age, silver age, bronze age, and iron age.

Since bronze symbolizes something natural, and the Israelite people were purely natural, therefore the Lord's natural humanity was represented by the bronze serpent, which people bitten by serpents had only to look at to be cured (Numbers 21:6, 8-9).

That bronze symbolizes natural goodness may also be seen in Isaiah 60:17, Jeremiah 15:20-21, Ezekiel 27:13, Deuteronomy 8:7, 9, 33:24-25

  
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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.