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Ezekiel 4

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1 And thou, son of man, take thee a brick, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it a city, -- Jerusalem:

2 and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast a mound against it, and set camps against it, and place battering-rams against it round about.

3 And take thou unto thee an iron plate, and put it [for] a wall of iron between thee and the city; and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it: this shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

4 And thou, lie upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: the number of the days that thou liest upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity.

5 And I have appointed thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

6 And when thou hast accomplished them, thou shalt lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

7 And thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.

8 And behold, I lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thyself from one side to the other, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.

9 And thou, take unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, [according to] the number of the days that thou liest upon thy side: three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.

11 And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.

12 And thou shalt eat it [as] barley-cake, and thou shalt bake it in their sight with dung that cometh out of man.

13 And Jehovah said, So shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations whither I will drive them.

14 Then said I, Ah, Lord Jehovah! behold, my soul hath not been defiled, and from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or of that which is torn; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

15 And he said unto me, See, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.

16 And he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread by weight, and with anxiety; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:

17 because bread and water shall fail them, and they shall be astonied one with another, and waste away in their iniquity.

   

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #290

Studere hoc loco

  
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290. It was called 'the mother of all living' from its faith in the Lord, who is Life itself. This too becomes clear from what has been shown already. There cannot possibly be more than one Life from which everyone's life derives, nor can life which really is life possibly exist unless it comes by way of faith in the Lord, who is Life. Neither can faith exist which has life within it unless it comes from Him, and so has Him within it. This is why in the Word the Lord is called the only Living, and the LIVING JEHOVAH, in Jeremiah 5:2; 12:16; 16:14-15; 23:7; Ezekiel 5:11; the One living forever, in Daniel 4:34; Revelation 4:10; 5:14; 10:6; in David, the fountain of life, Psalms 36:9; in Jeremiah, the fount of living waters, 17:13. Heaven which derives its life from Him is called 'the land of the living' in Isaiah 38:11; 53:8; Ezekiel 26:20; 32:23-27, 32; Psalms 27:13; 52:5; 142:5. And those who have faith in the Lord are called 'the living', as in David,

Who has kept our soul among the living. Psalms 66:9.

It is also said that those who have faith appear in the Book of Lives, Psalms 69:28, and in the Book of Life, Revelation 13:8; 17:8; 20:15. This also is why it is said of those who receive faith in Him that they are made alive, Hosea 6:2; Psalms 85:6. Conversely those who have no faith were in consequence called 'the dead', as also in Isaiah,

The dead will not live, the Rephaim will not rise. To that end You have visited them and wiped them out. Isaiah 26:14.

This stands for people who are puffed up with self-love. 'Rising up means entering into life. They are also called 'the slain' 1 in Ezekiel 32:23-26, 28-31; and hell is called 'death' in Isaiah 25:8; 28:15. The Lord too refers to them as 'the dead' in Matthew 4:16; John 5:24; 8:21, 24, 51-52.

V:

1. literally, the pierced

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