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Daniel 11

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1 And from the first year of Darius the Mede I stood up that he might be strengthened and confirmed.

2 And now I will shew thee the truth. Behold there shall stand yet three kings in Persia, and the fourth shall be enriched exceedingly above them all: and when he shall be grown mighty by his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece.

3 But there shall rise up a strong king, and shall rule with great power: and he shall do what he pleaseth.

4 And when he shall come to his height, his kingdom shall be broken, and it shall be divided towards the four winds of the heaven: but not to his posterity, nor according to his power with which he ruled. For his kingdom shall be rent in pieces, even for strangers, beside these.

5 And the king of the south shall be strengthened, and one of his princes shall prevail over him, and he shall rule with great power: for his dominion shall be great.

6 And after the end of years they shall be in league together: and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to make friendship, but she shall not obtain the strength of the arm, neither shall her seed stand: and she shall be given up, and her young men that brought her, and they that strengthened her in these times.

7 And a plant of the bud of her roots, shall stand up: and he shall come with an army, and shall enter into the province of the king of the north: and he shall abuse them, and shall prevail.

8 And he shall also carry away captive into Egypt their gods, and their graven things, and their precious vessels of gold and silver: he shall prevail against the king of the north.

9 And the king of the south shall enter into the kingdom, and shall return to his own land.

10 And his sons shall be provoked, and they shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and he shall come with haste like a flood: and he shall return and be stirred up, and he shall join battle with his forces.

11 And the king of the south being provoked shall go forth, and shall fight against the king of the north, and shall prepare an exceeding great multitude, and a multitude shall be given into his hand.

12 And he shall take a multitude, and his heart shall be lifted up, and he shall cast down many thousands: but he shall not prevail.

13 For the king of the north shall return and shall prepare a multitude much greater than before: and in the end of times and years, be shall come in haste with a great army, and much riches.

14 And in those times many shall rise up against the king of the south, and the children of prevaricators of thy people shall lift up themselves to fulfil the vision, and they shall fall.

15 And the king of the north shall come, and shall cast up a mount, and shall take the best fenced cities: and the arms of the south shall not withstand, and his chosen ones shall rise up to resist, and they shall not have strength.

16 And he shall come upon him and do according to his pleasure, and there shall be none to stand against his face: and he shall stand in the glorious land, and it shall be consumed by his hand.

17 And he shall set his face to come to possess all his kingdom, and he shall make upright conditions with him: and he shall give him a daughter of women, to overthrow it: and she shall not stand, neither shall she be for him.

18 And he shall turn his face to the islands, and shall take many: and he shall cause the prince of his reproach to cease, and his reproach shall be turned upon him.

19 And he shall turn his face to the empire of his own land, and he shall stumble, and fall, and shall not be found.

20 And there shall stand up in his place, one most vile, and unworthy of kingly honour: and in a few days he shall be destroyed, not in rage nor in battle.

21 And there shall stand up in his place one despised, and the kingly honour shall not be given him: and he shall come privately, and shall obtain the kingdom by fraud.

22 And the arms of the fighter shall be overcome before his face, and shall be broken; yea also the prince of the covenant.

23 And after friendships, he will deal deceitfully with him: and he shall go up, and shall overcome with a small people.

24 And he shall enter into rich and plentiful cities: and he shall do that which his fathers never did, nor his fathers' fathers: he shall scatter their spoils, and their prey, and their riches, and shall forecast devices against the best fenced places: and this until a time.

25 And his strength and his heart shall be stirred up against the king of the south with a great army: and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with many and very strong succours: and they shall not stand, for they shall form designs against him.

26 And they that eat bread with him, shall destroy him, and his army shall be overthrown: and many shall fall down slain.

27 And the heart of the two kings shall be to do evil, and they shall speak lies at one table, and they shall not prosper: because as yet the end is unto another time.

28 And he shall return into his land with much riches: and his heart shall be against the holy covenant, and he shall succeed and shall return into his own land.

29 At the time appointed he shall return, and he shall come to the south, but the latter time shall not be like the former.

30 And the galleys and the Romans shall come upon him, and he shall be struck, and shall return, and shall have indignation against the covenant of the sanctuary, and he shall succeed: and he shall return and shall devise against them that have forsaken the covenant of the sanctuary.

31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall defile the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the continual sacrifice, and they shall place there the abomination unto desolation.

32 And such as deal wickedly against the covenant shall deceitfully dissemble: but the people that know their God shall prevail and succeed.

33 And they that are learned among the people shall teach many: and they shall fall by the sword, and by fire, and by captivity, and by spoil for many days.

34 And when they shall have fallen they shall be relieved with a small help: and many shall be joined to them deceitfully.

35 And some of the learned shall fall, that they may be tried, and may be chosen, and made white even to the appointed time, because yet there shall be another time.

36 And the king shall do according to his will, and he shall be lifted up, and shall magnify himself against every god: and he shall speak great things against the God of gods, and shall prosper, till the wrath be accomplished. For the determination is made.

37 And he shall make no account of the God of his fathers: and he shall follow the lust of women, and he shall not regard any gods: for he shall rise up against all things.

38 But he shall worship the god Maozim in his place: and a god whom his fathers knew not, he shall worship with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and things of great price.

39 And he shall do this to fortify Maozim with a strange god, whom he hath acknowledged, and he shall increase glory and shall give them power over many, and shall divide the land gratis.

40 And at the time prefixed the king of the south shall fight against him, and the king of the north shall come against him like a tempest, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with a great navy, and he shall enter into the countries, and shall destroy, and pass through.

41 And he shall enter into the glorious land, and many shall fall: and these only shall be saved out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the principality of the children of Ammon.

42 And he shall lay his hand upon the lands: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.

43 And he shall have power over the treasures of gold, and of silver, and all the precious things of Egypt: and he shall pass through Libya, and Ethiopia.

44 And tidings out of the east, and out of the north shall trouble him: and he shall come with a great multitude to destroy and slay many.

45 And he shall fix his tabernacle Apadno between the seas, upon a glorious and holy mountain: and he shall come even to the top thereof, and none shall help him.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #1327

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1327. 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth' means the state of this Ancient Church, that internal worship started to perish. This is clear from the fact that the phrase used is 'the lip of the whole earth' and not, as previously in verse 7, the lip of those who started to build a city and a tower. 'The face of the whole earth' means the state of the Church since 'the earth' is the Church, as shown already in 662, 1066. The story of the Churches after the Flood is as follows: There were three Churches which receive specific mention in the Word - the first Ancient Church which took its name from Noah, the second Ancient Church which took its name from Eber, and the third Ancient Church which took its name from Jacob, and subsequently from Judah and Israel.

[2] As regards the first Ancient Church, that called Noah, this was the parent so to speak of those that followed, and as is usually the case with Churches in their earliest phases, it was more untarnished and innocent, as is also clear from verse 1 of this chapter which says that it had one lip, that is, one doctrine. That is to say, everyone regarded charity as the essential. But in the course of time, as usually happens to Churches, that Church also started to decline, chiefly because many people started to divert worship to themselves so as to set themselves above others, as is clear from verse 4 above - 'they said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, and its head in heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves'. In the Church such people were inevitably like some fermenting agent, or like firebrands that start a fire. When the danger of profaning what is holy was consequently near at hand, referred to in 571, 582, the state of this Church was, in the Lord's Providence, altered. That is to say, its internal worship perished but its external worship remained, which here is meant by the statement that 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth'. From this it is also clear that the kind of worship called Babel was not prevalent in the first Ancient Church but in those that followed when people started to be worshipped in place of gods, especially after they had died. This was the origin of so many pagan deities.

[3] The reason internal worship was allowed to perish and external remain was to prevent what is holy being profaned. The profanation of what is holy carries eternal condemnation with it. Nobody is able to profane what is holy unless he possesses cognitions of faith and also acknowledges them. Anyone who does not possess them cannot acknowledge them, still less profane them. It is internal things which may be profaned, for it is in internal things, not external, that holiness resides. The situation is similar with someone who does evil but does not have evil in mind. The evil he does cannot be attributed to him any more than to someone who does not deliberately intend evil, or to anyone devoid of rationality. Thus anyone who does not believe in the existence of a life after death, but who nevertheless has external worship, cannot profane the things that belong to eternal life because he does not believe that they exist. The situation is different with those who do know and acknowledge them.

[4] This too is why a person is allowed rather to live engrossed in lusts and pleasures, and so to isolate himself from internal things, than to enter into a knowledge and acknowledgement of internal things and so profane them. The Jews of today therefore are allowed to immerse themselves in avarice so that in this way they may be removed from an acknowledgement of internal things, for they are the kind of people who, if they acknowledged them, would inevitably profane them. Nothing does more to isolate a person from internal things than avarice, for this is the lowest of all earthly desires. The same applies to many inside the Church, and to gentiles outside, though gentiles, least of all people, are able to profane anything. This then is the reason for the statement here that 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth', and the reason why these words mean that the state of the Church was altered, that is to say, its worship became external, having no internal worship within it.

[5] The same situation was represented and meant by the Babylonish captivity into which the Israelites, and later on the Jews, were carried away. This is spoken of in Jeremiah as follows,

And there will be a nation and a kingdom that will not serve the king of Babel, and who will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babel. With the sword and famine and pestilence I will visit this people, until I have consumed it by his hand. Jeremiah 27:8 and following verses.

'Serving the king of Babel and putting its neck in his yoke' is being utterly deprived of the knowledge and acknowledgement of the good and the truth of faith, and so of internal worship.

[6] The point is clearer still in the same prophet,

Thus said Jehovah to all the people in this city, your brethren who did not go out with you into captivity, thus said Jehovah Zebaoth, Behold, I am sending on them the sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs. Jeremiah 29:16-17.

'Remaining in the city and not going out to the king of Babel' represented and meant people who possessed the cognitions of internal things, that is, of the truths of faith, and who profaned them - people on whom, it is said, He was sending 'the sword, famine, and pestilence', which are forms of punishment for profanation, and whom He was making 'like rotten figs'.

[7] That 'Babel' means people who deprive others of all knowledge and acknowledgement of truth was also represented and meant by the following words in the same prophet,

I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babel, and he will carry them off to Babel, and will smite them with the sword. And I will give over all the wealth of this city, and all its labour, and all its precious things; and I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, and they will plunder them and seize them. Jeremiah 20:4-5.

Here 'all its wealth, all its lab our, all its precious things, all the treasures of the kings of Judah' means in the internal sense cognitions of faith.

[8] In the same prophet,

With the families of the north I will bring the king of Babel against this land and against its inhabitants, and against all those nations round about, and I will utterly destroy them and make them into a ruin, a hissing, and everlasting wastes. And this whole land will be a waste. Jeremiah 25:9, 11.

Here 'Babel' is used to describe the vastation of the interior things of faith, that is, of internal worship. Indeed, as shown already, anyone whose worship is worship of self possesses no truth of faith. He destroys and lays waste, and leads off into captivity, everything that is true. This is why Babel is also called 'a destroying mountain' in Jeremiah 51:25.

For more concerning Babel, see what has been stated already in 1182.

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

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