Bibliorum

 

Daniel 2:9

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9 But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof.

Commentarius

 

Daniel Series, Part 3 of 8 - Descent into Selfishness

By Todd Beiswenger


Ut pergas pasco dum audis, audi in fenestra nova.

In this story, we are told of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a large statue that represents kingdoms to come. While some have speculated as to which historical kingdoms this dream refers to, it can also refer to how our thoughts can devolve into selfishness. God saves us with His truth - the uncut stone - that smashes this statue.

(Notae: Arcana Coelestia 6203; Daniel 2:24-49)

from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #9914

Studere hoc loco

  
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9914. 'And its hole shall have a border round about' means that it is bounded and enclosed on every side. This is clear from the meaning of 'a border', or edging, around the hole or opening on the upper part of the robe, as being bounded and enclosed on every side; for that border or edging which went all round served to bound and enclose. The words here and those following immediately after describe the course which the inflow of celestial good into spiritual good takes. What is involved in this inflow is similar to the course taken by the forces flowing from a person's head through the neck into the body, as is clear from what has been stated regarding correspondence in the paragraph immediately above.

[2] The nature of this influx must also be stated briefly. All the chief things that belong to the head, that is to say, to the cerebrum and cerebellum, are assembled into bundles of fibres and tiny nerves there, and so assembled pass down through the neck into the body. Within the body they spread out in every direction and move its parts altogether as the will, which begins in the brain, desires. Similar to all this is the flow of powers and forces down from the celestial kingdom, which is the head in the Grand Man or heaven, into the spiritual kingdom, which is so to speak the body there. This inflowing is also what is meant and described by 'the robe's hole for the head in the middle', and the limits of it by 'a border round about'. This then is why a boundary and enclosure on every side is meant by 'the border' which that hole possessed. The actual boundary is described next.

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