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Daniel 8

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1 In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me, Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.

2 And I saw in the vision; now it was so, that when I saw, I was in Shushan the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in the vision, and I was by the river Ulai.

3 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.

4 I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; and no beasts could stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and magnified himself.

5 And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west over the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.

6 And he came to the ram that had the two horns, which I saw standing before the river, and ran upon him in the fury of his power.

7 And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with anger against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him; but he cast him down to the ground, and trampled upon him; and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.

8 And the he-goat magnified himself exceedingly: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and instead of it there came up four notable [horns] toward the four winds of heaven.

9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the glorious [land].

10 And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and some of the host and of the stars it cast down to the ground, and trampled upon them.

11 Yea, it magnified itself, even to the prince of the host; and it took away from him the continual [burnt-offering], and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

12 And the host was given over [to it] together with the continual [burnt-offering] through transgression; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it did [its pleasure] and prospered.

13 Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said unto that certain one who spake, How long shall be the vision [concerning] the continual [burnt-offering], and the transgression that maketh desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?

14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred evenings [and] mornings; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

15 And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, that I sought to understand it; and, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man.

16 And I heard a man's voice between [the banks of] the Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.

17 So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was affrighted, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man; for the vision belongeth to the time of the end.

18 Now as he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face toward the ground; but he touched me, and set me upright.

19 And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the latter time of the indignation; for it belongeth to the appointed time of the end.

20 The ram which thou sawest, that had the two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia.

21 And the rough he-goat is the king of Greece: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

22 And as for that which was broken, in the place whereof four stood up, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not with his power.

23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.

24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and do [his pleasure]; and he shall destroy the mighty ones and the holy people.

25 And through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and in [their] security shall he destroy many: he shall also stand up against the prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.

26 And the vision of the evenings and mornings which hath been told is true: but shut thou up the vision; for it belongeth to many days [to come].

27 And I, Daniel, fainted, and was sick certain days; then I rose up, and did the king's business: and I wondered at the vision, but none understood it.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #10135

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10135. 'And you shall offer the other lamb between the evenings' means a similar removal of evils in a state of light and love in the external man. This is clear from the meaning of 'offering a lamb', or sacrificing it, as being removed from evils by means of the good of innocence from the Lord, as immediately above in 10134; and from the meaning of 'between the evenings' as in a state of light and love in the external man. In the Word 'evening' means a state involving interior things when the truths of faith are set in obscurity, and forms of the good of love are in some coldness; for angels experience different states of love and light, just as in the world different times of day - morning, midday, evening, night or twilight prior to morning, and morning again - give way to one another. When the angels experience a state of love, to them it is morning, and the Lord appears before them as the rising Sun. When they experience a state of light, to them it is midday. When however they experience a state of light set in obscurity, to them it is evening; and when after this they experience a state of love set in obscurity or some coldness, for them it is night, or rather the twilight before morning.

[2] Such states experienced by the angels follow unceasingly one after another, and serve unceasingly to make them more perfect. But those changes are not due to the Sun there, to its rising and setting, but to the state of the interiors within the angels themselves; for as with people in the world they have a desire at one time to turn towards their internal interests, at another towards their external ones. When they turn towards internal interests they experience a state of love and consequently of light in clearness, and when they turn towards external interests they experience a state of love and consequently of light set in obscurity; for what is external is such, compared with what is internal. This is the origin of the changes of state experienced by angels. The reason why they have such states and such changes is that the Sun of heaven, which in that world is the Lord, is the Divine Love itself. Therefore the heat radiating from it is the good of love, and the light from it is the truth of faith. For everything radiating from that Sun has life, unlike the things radiating from the sun in the world, which are dead.

[3] From this it becomes clear what heavenly heat is and what heavenly light is, also why it is that 'heat', 'flame', and 'fire' in the Word mean the good of love, 'light' and its 'brightness' the truth of faith, and 'the sun' the Lord Himself in respect of Divine Love.

The Lord in heaven is the Sun, see 3636, 3643, 4321(end), 5097, 7078, 7083, 7171, 7173, 8812.

The heat from it is the good of love, 3338, 3339, 3636, 3693, 4018, 5215, 6032, 6314.

The light from that Sun is Divine Truth, the source of faith, intelligence, and wisdom, see the places referred to in 9548, 9684.

From all this it now becomes clear what 'morning' and what 'evening' mean.

[4] But it should be recognized that in the present verse 'the morning' implies midday as well, and evening early morning twilight as well; for when the words 'morning and evening' are used in the Word an entire day is meant, so that 'morning' includes midday, and 'evening' night or twilight. This explains why 'the morning' in the present verse means a state of love and also of light in clearness, that is, in the internal man, and 'the evening' a state of light, as well as of love in obscurity, that is, in the external man.

[5] The fact that 'between the evenings' is not used to mean the period of time between the evening of one day and the evening of the next day, but the time between evening and morning, thus all of the night or twilight, is evident from the consideration that the continual burnt offering of a lamb was presented not only in the evening but also in the morning. From this it becomes clear that something similar is meant elsewhere by 'between the evenings', for example, where it says that the Passover should be kept between the evenings, Exodus 12:6; Numbers 9:5, 11, which is explained in yet another place by the following words,

You shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening when the sun goes down, at the fixed time of the departure from Egypt. After that you shall cook and eat it in the place which Jehovah your God will have chosen; and in the morning you shall turn 1 and go into your tents. Deuteronomy 16:6-7.

[6] The fact that 'evening' in general means a state of light shining in obscurity is clear in Jeremiah,

Arise, and let us go up into the south. Woe to us, for the day goes away, for the shadows of evening are set at an angle! Arise, and let us go up at night, and let us destroy the palaces. Jeremiah 6:4-5.

Here 'evening' and 'night' mean the last times of the Church, when all matters of faith and love have been destroyed. In Zechariah,

There will be one day, which is known to Jehovah, when around evening time there will be light. On that day living waters will go out from Jerusalem. And Jehovah will be King over all the earth. Zechariah 14:7-9.

This refers to the Lord's Coming. The end of the Church is meant by 'evening time'; 'light' is the Lord's Divine Truth. A similar example occurs in Daniel,

The holy one said to me, Up to the evening, [when it is becoming] the morning, two thousand three hundred times. Daniel 8:13-14.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #8812

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8812. 'When it came to be morning' means a state when they were governed by good. This is clear from the meaning of 'morning' as a state of the good of love, dealt with in 8426. From these details - that Jehovah, that is, the Lord, came down onto Mount Sinai on the third day, and also in the morning of that day - it is plainly evident that this event was representative of some Divine reality in heaven which no one can come to know about except from the correspondence of such things as arise in the natural world with realities in the spiritual world, and therefore from the spiritual meaning of those things. This is so here so far as the meaning of 'morning' and 'the third day' are concerned. 'The third day' means the end of a former state, and it does so because 'three' means what is complete from start to finish, 8790; and 'morning' means a state of the good of love, because the sun - the sun in the next life which gives light to angels and the whole of heaven - is the Lord. The fire there is His Divine Love, which gives vital heat to all that lives, and the light there is Divine Truth which enlightens all who receive it. The sun there is altogether different from the sun in the world, whose fire is fire and not love, and whose radiating light is light and not truth.

[2] All this goes to show what kind of effects the fire and also the light coming from the sun in the world produce, and what kind of effects the fire and light coming from the sun of heaven produce. The sun in the world provides heat and light without life, whereas the sun in heaven provides heat and light together with life. The latter, being provided by the sun of heaven, are therefore called spiritual, because they hold life within them, whereas the former, which are provided by the sun of the world, are called natural and do not hold life within them. The life in living things that is recognized in their heat and indicated by it does not come from the heat of the sun in the world but from the heat of the sun in heaven. When the latter heat enters heat in the world it produces that effect; the body feels it as elemental heat, but this has vital heat in it, which has its origin in the love that is heat from the sun of heaven. The truth that vital heat springs from a source other than the sun in the world, and that it owes its origin to love and exists according to the amount and the character of that love within it, anyone is able to know provided that he is prepared to think about it properly. Anyone can know except those who do not acknowledge anything internal in the human being and attribute everything to natural forces.

[3] Since therefore heat from the sun in heaven, which is the Lord, is the good of love, and the light from it is the truth of faith, one may see what is meant by 'morning', and what by 'midday', 'evening', and 'night' in the next life. They are states of good and truth or love and faith, 'morning' being a state of the good of love, 'midday' a state of the truth of faith, 'evening and night' a deprivation of them, which is ignorance and blindness in insights that belong to faith, and also slowness and coldness in feelings that belong to heavenly love.

[4] Furthermore the situation with the sun of heaven is as it is with the sun in the world, in that it is motionless and does not bring about those states by any wheeling round of its own. Rather the things around it bring them about, just as a planet travelling round the sun and at the same time rotating on its axis produces changes. The appearance therefore is that those changes are attributable to the sun, but in reality they are not attributable to the sun, only to the planet going round it. So also in heaven. Changes of state there, to which morning, midday, evening, and night correspond, are not attributable to the sun there, for that sun is always radiating heat and light, that is, the good of love and the truth of faith. Instead those changes are attributable to the recipients, that is to say, to the angels and spirits, who move through a regular cycle of such changes as their life progresses. At one point it is morning, that is, they are filled with the good of love; at another it is midday, that is, they are enlightened with the truth of faith; and at yet another it is evening and night, that is, these gifts become vague and dull with them.

[5] The reason why the situation in the world is as it is in heaven, except for the difference that in the world the regular cycle consists of states belonging to the times of day, while in heaven it consists of states of life, is that all things in the world have been created in the image of those in heaven. For natural things arise from spiritual ones as effects from their causes. Consequently there is a correspondence of all things in the world with those in heaven, and therefore the whole natural order is nothing other than a theatre representative of the Lord's kingdom, 3483, 4939, 8211.

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