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Ezekiel 39

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1 And thou, son of man, prophesy concerning Gog, and thou hast said: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Lo, I [am] against thee, O Gog, Prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal,

2 And have turned thee back, and enticed thee, And caused thee to come up from the sides of the north, And brought thee in against mountains of Israel,

3 And have smitten thy bow out of thy left hand, Yea, thine arrows out of thy right I cause to fall.

4 On mountains of Israel thou fallest, Thou, and all thy bands, and the peoples who [are] with thee, To ravenous fowl -- a bird of every wing, And [to] a beast of the field, I have given thee for food.

5 On the face of the field thou fallest, for I have spoken, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

6 And I have sent a fire against Magog, And against the confident inhabitants of the isles, And they have known that I [am] Jehovah.

7 And My holy name I make known in the midst of My people Israel, And I pollute not My holy name any more, And known have the nations that I, Jehovah, the holy One, [am] in Israel.

8 Lo, it hath come, and it hath been done, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, It [is] the day of which I spake.

9 And gone out have the inhabitants of cities of Israel, And they have burned and kindled [a fire], With armour, and shield, and buckler, With bow, and with arrows, And with hand-staves, and with javelins, And they have caused a fire to burn with them seven years,

10 And they do not take wood out of the field, Nor do they hew out of the forests, For with armour they cause the fire to burn, And they have spoiled their spoilers, And they have plundered their plunderers, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

11 And it hath come to pass, in that day, I give to Gog a place there -- a grave in Israel, the valley of those passing by, east of the sea, and it is stopping those passing by, and they have buried there Gog, and all his multitude, and have cried, O valley of the multitude of Gog!

12 And the house of Israel have buried them -- in order to cleanse the land -- seven months.

13 Yea, all the people of the land have buried them, and it hath been to them for a name -- the day of My being honoured -- an affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

14 And men for continual employment they separate, passing on through the land, burying with those passing by those who are left on the face of the earth, to cleanse it: at the end of seven months they search.

15 And those passing by have passed through the land, and seen a bone of man, and one hath constructed near it a sign till those burying have buried it in the valley of the multitude of Gog.

16 And also the name of the city [is] The multitude; and they have cleansed the land.

17 And thou, son of man, thus said the Lord Jehovah: Say to the bird -- every wing, and to every beast of the field: Be assembled and come in, Be gathered from round about, For My sacrifice that I am sacrificing for you, A great sacrifice on mountains of Israel, And ye have eaten flesh, and drunk blood.

18 Flesh of the mighty ye do eat, And blood of princes of the earth ye drink, Of rams, of lambs, and of he-goats, Of calves, fatlings of Bashan -- all of them.

19 And ye have eaten fat to satiety, And ye have drunk blood -- to drunkenness, Of My sacrifice that I sacrificed for you.

20 And ye have been satisfied at My table with horse and rider, Mighty man, and every man of war, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

21 And I have given My honour among nations, And seen have all the nations My Judgment that I have done, And My hand that I have laid on them.

22 And known have the house of Israel that I [am] Jehovah their God, From that day and henceforth.

23 And known have the nations that for their iniquity, Removed have the house of Israel, Because they have trespassed against Me, And I do hide My face from them, And give them into the hand of their adversaries, And they fall by sword -- all of them.

24 According to their uncleanness, And according to their transgressions, I have done with them, And I do hide My face from them.

25 Therefore, thus said the Lord Jehovah: Now do I bring back the captivity of Jacob, And I have pitied all the house of Israel, And have been zealous for My holy name.

26 And they have forgotten their shame, And all their trespass that they trespassed against Me, In their dwelling on their land confidently and none troubling.

27 In My bringing them back from the peoples, I have assembled them from the lands of their enemies, And I have been sanctified in them before the eyes of the many nations,

28 And they have known that I [am] Jehovah their God, In My removing them unto the nations, And I have gathered them unto their land, And I leave none of them any more there.

29 And I hide not any more My face from them, In that I have poured out My spirit on the house of Israel, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah!'

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 862

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862. We have said that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people attempted to destroy everything connected with the New Church, both its truths and goods and its fundamental doctrine regarding the Lord and life, as stated in the preceding number. This is the symbolic meaning because the camp of the saints symbolizes all the truths and goods of the church which is the New Jerusalem.

That a camp in the spiritual sense symbolizes everything connected with the church with respect to its truths and goods can be seen from the following passages:

The sun and moon grew dark, and the stars diminished their brightness. Jehovah uttered His voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for numberless are those who obey His Word. (Joel 2:10-11)

I will encamp for My house some of the army... (Zechariah 9:8)

...God has scattered the bones of them who encamp against you..., because God has rejected them. (Psalms 53:5)

The angel of Jehovah encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. (Psalms 34:7)

(An angel of God met Jacob, and said to Jacob,) "This is God's camp." Therefore he called the name of that place Mahanaim (Two Camps). (Genesis 32:1-2)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 29:3, Ezekiel 1:24, Psalms 27:3.

That an army or host in the Word symbolizes the church's truths and goods, and also its falsities and evils, may be seen in nos. 447, 826, 833; and so, too, does a camp.

[2] Since the children of Israel and their twelve tribes symbolize the church in respect to all its truths and goods (nos. 349, 350), they were therefore called the armies or hosts of Jehovah (Exodus 7:4; 12:41, 51), and the places where they stopped and assembled were called camps, as in Leviticus 4:12; 8:17; 13:46; 14:8; 16:26, 28; 24:14, 23; Numbers 1; 2; 3; 4:5 ff., 5:2-4; 9:17-23; 10:1-10, 11-28; 11:31-32; 12:14-15; 21:10-15; 33:1-49; Deuteronomy 23:9-14; Amos 4:10.

It is apparent from this now that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people tried to destroy all the truths and goods of the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, and also its doctrine regarding the Lord and life.

The same symbolism is found in these verses in Luke:

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near... (At length) Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:20, 24)

This is said in reference to the end of the age, which is the final period of the church. Jerusalem here also symbolizes the church.

That Gog and Magog, that is, people who engage in external worship divorced from any internal worship, will then invade the church and try to destroy it, is something we are told also in Ezekiel 38:8-9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 39:2, and that the New Church will then be established by the Lord, Ezekiel 39:17-29.

  
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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.

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Apocalypse Revealed # 349

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349. Sealed out of every tribe of Israel. This symbolizes the heaven and Lord's church formed from those people.

A tribe symbolizes religion as regards goodness of life, and every tribe symbolizes the church in respect to every good of love and every truth springing from that good, which produces goodness of life. For there are two elements which form the church: the goodness of love and doctrinal truth. The marriage of these two constitutes the church. The twelve tribes of Israel represented and so symbolized the church with respect to that marriage, and each tribe represented and so symbolized some universal truth accompanying goodness or some goodness accompanying truth present in that marriage.

But what each tribe symbolized has not been revealed previously to anyone, nor could it have been revealed, lest an ill-connected exposition profane the holiness that lies within these things when joined together, since their symbolism depends on their conjunction.

[2] They have one symbolism in the order in which they are listed according to their births (Genesis 29, 30, 35:18). The order there is: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin.

They have another symbolism in the order in which they are listed when they went into Egypt, namely, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Gad, Asher, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali (Genesis 46:8-25).

Still another symbolism in the order in which they were blessed by their father Israel, namely, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, Benjamin (Genesis 49).

Still another symbolism in the order in which they were blessed by Moses, namely, Reuben, Judah, Levi, Benjamin, Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh, Zebulun, Gad, Dan, Naphtali, Asher (Deuteronomy 33) - Ephraim and Manasseh being listed there, and not Simeon or Issachar.

[3] Still another symbolism in the order in which they encamped and set out, namely, the tribes of Judah, Issachar and Zebulun on the east side, the tribes of Reuben, Simeon and Gad on the south side, the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin on the west side, and the tribes of Dan, Asher and Naphtali on the north side, with the tribe of Levi in the middle (Numbers 2:1-34).

And still another symbolism in the order in which they are listed elsewhere, as in Genesis 35:23-26, Numbers 1:5-16; 7:1-89; 13:4-15; 26:5-57; 34:17-28, Deuteronomy 27:12-13, Joshua 15; 16; 17; 18; 19, Ezekiel 48:1-35.

Consequently, when Balaam saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes, he said, "How good are your tents, O Jacob, and your tabernacles, O Israel" (Numbers 24:1-4ff.).

[4] On the breastpiece of judgment, namely, the Urim and Thummim, containing twelve precious stones according to the names of the children of Israel (Exodus 28:15-21), the symbolism of the tribes in their arrangement depended on the inquiry to which they provided a response.

But what they symbolized in the order in which they are mentioned here in the book of Revelation, which is still another order, will be told in what follows.

Tribes symbolize religion, and the twelve tribes the church and everything pertaining to it, because "tribe" and "scepter" are, in Hebrew, the same word, 1 and a scepter means a kingdom, and the Lord's kingdom is heaven and the church.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. Hebrew מַטֶּה or שֵׁבֶט, and also מַשְׁעֵנָה.

  
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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.