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Ezekiel 37

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1 The hand of Jehovah was upon me, and brought· me ·out in the spirit of Jehovah, and rested me in the midst of the vale and it was full of bones,

2 and caused me to pass by them all around; and, behold, there were very many on the face of the vale; and behold, they were very dry.

3 And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I said, O Lord Jehovih*, Thou knowest.

4 And He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of Jehovah.

5 Thus says the Lord Jehovih unto these bones; Behold, I will cause spirit to come into you, and you shall live;

6 and I will put sinews on you, and will bring·​·up flesh upon you, and cover over you with skin, and put spirit in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am Jehovah.

7 And I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a voice, and behold a quaking, and the bones came·​·near, a bone to its bone.

8 And I saw, and behold, sinews and flesh came·​·up on them, and skin covered over them above; but there was no spirit in them.

9 And He said unto me, Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus says the Lord Jehovih: Come from the four winds, O spirit*, and breathe into these that were killed, and they will live.

10 And I prophesied as He commanded me, and the spirit came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a very, very great host.

11 And He said to me, Son of man, these bones are all the house of Israel; behold, they say, Our bones are dried·​·up, and our hope is·​·lost; for ourselves we are severed.

12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus says the Lord Jehovih: Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come·​·up out·​·of your graves, and bring you onto the ground of Israel.

13 And you shall know that I am Jehovah, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought· you ·up out·​·of your graves,

14 and shall put My spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you on your own ground; and you shall know that I, Jehovah, have spoken it, and done it, says Jehovah.

15 And the word of Jehovah was unto me, saying,

16 And thou, son of man, take for thyself one piece of wood, and write on it, For Judah, and for the sons of Israel his friends; then take one piece of wood, and write on it, For Joseph, the piece of wood of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his friends:

17 and bring· them ·near, one to the other* one to thee, into one piece of wood, and they shall be one in thy hand.

18 And when the sons of thy people shall say unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not tell us what these mean to thee?

19 speak to them, Thus says the Lord Jehovih: Behold, I will take the wood of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his friends, and will put them upon him, with the wood of Judah, and make them one piece of wood, and they shall be one in My hand.

20 And the pieces of wood upon which thou writest shall be in thy hand before their eyes.

21 And speak to them, Thus says the Lord Jehovih: Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations, whither they be gone, and will bring· them ·together all around, and bring them onto their own ground;

22 and I will make them into one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be for a king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be halved any·​·more into two kingdoms any·​·more.

23 Neither shall they make· themselves ·unclean any·​·more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions, but I will save them out·​·of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be to Me for a people, and I will be to them for a God.

24 And My servant David shall be king over them, and there shall be one shepherd for them all; and they shall walk in My judgments, and keep My statutes, and do them.

25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob My servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell in it, even they, and their sons, and their sons’ sons to eternity; and My servant David shall be chief to them to eternity.

26 And I will cut a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an eternal covenant with them; and I will give them and multiply them, and will put My sanctuary in their midst to eternity.

27 And My habitation shall be over them; and I will be to them for a God and they shall be to Me for a people.

28 And the nations shall know that I, Jehovah, shall sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst to eternity.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Apocalypse Revealed #775

Studere hoc loco

  
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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.

Bibliorum

 

Ezekiel 27:6

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6 Of the oaks of Bashan have they made your oars; they have made your benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood, from the islands of Kittim.