Die Bibel

 

Genesis 15

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1 After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Have no fear, Abram: I will keep you safe, and great will be your reward.

2 And Abram said, What will you give me? for I have no child and this Eliezer of Damascus will have all my wealth after me.

3 And Abram said, You have given me no child, and a servant in my house will get the heritage.

4 Then said the Lord, This man will not get the heritage, but a son of your body will have your property after you.

5 And he took him out into the open air, and said to him, Let your eyes be lifted to heaven, and see if the stars may be numbered; even so will your seed be.

6 And he had faith in the Lord, and it was put to his account as righteousness.

7 And he said to him, I am the Lord, who took you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land for your heritage.

8 And he said, O Lord God, how may I be certain that it will be mine?

9 And he said, Take a young cow of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a sheep of three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.

10 All these he took, cutting them in two and putting one half opposite the other, but not cutting the birds in two.

11 And evil birds came down on the bodies, but Abram sent them away.

12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep came on Abram, and a dark cloud of fear.

13 And he said to Abram, Truly, your seed will be living in a land which is not theirs, as servants to a people who will be cruel to them for four hundred years;

14 But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth.

15 As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place.

16 And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full.

17 Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies.

18 In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

19 The Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,

20 And the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,

21 And the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.

   

Aus Swedenborgs Werken

 

True Christianity #755

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755. The fact that the "close of the age" means when the church comes to an end can be seen from passages in the Word that contain phrases like this. For example,

I have heard from Jehovah about the end and the cutting down that will fall upon the entire land. (Isaiah 28:22)

The end has been established, and justice has been submerged, because the Lord Jehovih Sabaoth is bringing the end and the cutting down upon the whole land. (Isaiah 10:22-23)

The whole land will be consumed in the fire of Jehovah's passion, because he will quickly bring an end to all those who dwell in the land. (Zephaniah 1:18)

In these passages the land means the church, because it refers to the land of Canaan, where the church was. (For further confirmation, from a great abundance of scriptural passages, that the land means the church, see Revelation Unveiled 285, 902.)

In the end desolation [will fly in] on a bird of abominations; even to the close and the cutting down, it will drip steadily upon the devastation. (Daniel 9:27)

For evidence that the material just quoted from Daniel is actually about the end of the Christian church, which is happening now, see Matthew 24:15.

There will be devastation in all the land, but I will not bring on the end. (Jeremiah 4:27)

The wickedness of the Amorites has not yet come to a close. (Genesis 15:16)

Jehovah said, "I will go down and see whether they are making an end, as the cry that has come to me indicates. " (Genesis 18:21, on the subject of Sodom)

[2] In the following passages, the Lord himself uses the phrase "the close of the age" to mean the time when the Christian church of today is at an end:

The disciples asked Jesus, "What will a sign of your Coming and of the close of the age be?" (Matthew 24:3)

At the time of harvest, I will say to the harvesters, "First gather the weeds to be burned; then gather the wheat into the barn. So it will be at the close of the age. " (Matthew 13:[30,] 40)

At the close of the age, angels will go forth and separate the evil from among the just. (Matthew 13:49)

Jesus said to his disciples, "Behold, I am with you even until the close of the age. " (Matthew 28:20)

It is important to realize that devastation, desolation, and the cutting down have much the same meaning as the close of the age. Desolation specifically means the end of truth; devastation means the end of goodness; and the cutting down means the complete end of both. The fullness of time, when the Lord came into the world [Galatians 4:4] and when he will come [Ephesians 1:10], has the same meaning as the end in this sense.

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