The Bible

 

Ezekiel 47

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1 And he brought me back unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward; (for the forefront of the house was toward the east;) and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar.

2 Then he brought me out by the way of the gate northward, and led me round by the way without unto the outer gate, by the way of [the gate] that looketh toward the east; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side.

3 When the man went forth eastward with the line in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits, and he caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the ankles.

4 Again he measured a thousand, and caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and caused me to pass through [the waters], waters that were to the loins.

5 Afterward he measured a thousand; [and it was] a river that I could not pass through; for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed through.

6 And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen [this]? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the bank of the river.

7 Now when I had returned, behold, upon the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other.

8 Then said he unto me, These waters issue forth toward the eastern region, and shall go down into the Arabah; and they shall go toward the sea; into the sea [shall the waters go] which were made to issue forth; and the waters shall be healed.

9 And it shall come to pass, that every living creature which swarmeth, in every place whither the rivers come, shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish; for these waters are come thither, and [the waters of the sea] shall be healed, and everything shall live whithersoever the river cometh.

10 And it shall come to pass, that fishers shall stand by it: from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim shall be a place for the spreading of nets; their fish shall be after their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.

11 But the miry places thereof, and the marshes thereof, shall not be healed; they shall be given up to salt.

12 And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow every tree for food, whose leaf shall not whither, neither shall the fruit thereof fail: it shall bring forth new fruit every month, because the waters thereof issue out of the sanctuary; and the fruit thereof shall be for food, and the leaf thereof for healing.

13 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: This shall be the border, whereby ye shall divide the land for inheritance according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph [shall have two] portions.

14 And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another; for I sware to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.

15 And this shall be the border of the land: On the north side, from the great sea, by the way of Hethlon, unto the entrance of Zedad;

16 Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazer-hatticon, which is by the border of Hauran.

17 And the border from the sea, shall be Hazar-enon at the border of Damascus; and on the north northward is the border of Hamath. This is the north side.

18 And the east side, between Hauran and Damascus and Gilead, and the land of Israel, shall be the Jordan; from the [north] border unto the east sea shall ye measure. This is the east side.

19 And the south side southward shall be from Tamar as far as the waters of Meriboth-kadesh, to the brook [of Egypt], unto the great sea. This is the south side southward.

20 And the west side shall be the great sea, from the [south] border as far as over against the entrance of Hamath. This is the west side.

21 So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel.

22 And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you and to the strangers that sojourn among you, who shall beget children among you; and they shall be unto you as the home-born among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.

23 And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord Jehovah.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #904

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904. 21:15 And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. This symbolically means that to people who possess the goodness of love, the Lord grants a faculty for understanding and knowing the nature of the Lord's New Church as regards its doctrine and its introductory truths, and as regards the Word from which they are drawn.

He who spoke with me symbolizes the Lord speaking from heaven, because it was an angel speaking, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls mentioned in verse 9, who means the Lord speaking from heaven (no. 895). A reed symbolizes a power or ability springing from the goodness of love - a reed symbolizing power or ability (no. 485), and gold the goodness of love (nos. 211, 726). To measure means, symbolically, to learn the character of a thing, thus to understand and know it (no. 486). The city, the holy Jerusalem, symbolizes the church in respect to its doctrine (nos. 879, 880). Its gates symbolize concepts of truth and goodness from the Word's literal sense, which are truths and goods owing to the spiritual life in them (no. 899). And the wall symbolizes the Word in its literal sense from which the doctrine and concepts come (no. 898).

It is apparent from this that "he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall," symbolically means that to people who possess the goodness of love, the Lord grants a faculty for understanding and knowing the nature of the Lord's New Church as regards its doctrine and its introductory truths, and as regards the Word from which they are drawn.

[2] These symbolic meanings cannot be seen at all in the literal sense, for one sees in it only that an angel speaking with John had a gold reed with which to measure the city and its gates and wall. But even so, that these words contain another meaning, a spiritual meaning, is clearly apparent from the fact that the city Jerusalem does not mean a real city, but the church. Consequently everything said about Jerusalem as a city symbolizes such things as have to do with the church, and everything having to do with the church is, in itself, spiritual.

Such a spiritual meaning is present also in what is said in chapter 11 above, where we are told the following:

I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood by, saying, "Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there." (Revelation 11:1)

A similar spiritual meaning is present, too, in everything that the angel measured with a reed in Ezekiel 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48. Also in these verses in Zechariah:

I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. So I said, "Where are you going?" And he said to me, "To measure Jerusalem, to see what its width is and what its length." (Zechariah 2:1-2)

Indeed, such a spiritual meaning is present in everything connected with the Tabernacle and in everything connected with the Temple in Jerusalem, whose measurements we are told, and also in the measurements themselves. And yet nothing of this can be seen in the literal sense.

  
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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.

The Bible

 

Ezekiel 42

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1 Then he brought me forth into the outer court, the way toward the north: and he brought me into the room that was over against the separate place, and which was over against the building toward the north.

2 Before the length of one hundred cubits was the north door, and the breadth was fifty cubits.

3 Over against the twenty [cubits] which belonged to the inner court, and Over against the pavement which belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in the third story.

4 Before the rooms was a walk of ten cubits' breadth inward, a way of one cubit; and their doors were toward the north.

5 Now the upper rooms were shorter; for the galleries took away from these, more than from the lower and the middle, in the building.

6 For they were in three stories, and they didn't have pillars as the pillars of the courts: therefore [the uppermost] was straitened more than the lowest and the middle from the ground.

7 The wall that was outside by the side of the rooms, toward the outer court before the rooms, its length was fifty cubits.

8 For the length of the rooms that were in the outer court was fifty cubits: and behold, before the temple were one hundred cubits.

9 From under these rooms was the entry on the east side, as one goes into them from the outer court.

10 In the thickness of the wall of the court toward the east, before the separate place, and before the building, there were rooms.

11 The way before them was like the appearance of [the way of] the rooms which were toward the north; according to their length so was their breadth: and all their exits were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.

12 According to the doors of the rooms that were toward the south was a door at the head of the way, even the way directly before the wall toward the east, as one enters into them.

13 Then he said to me, The north rooms and the south rooms, which are before the separate place, they are the holy rooms, where the priests who are near to Yahweh shall eat the most holy things: there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meal offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy.

14 When the priests enter in, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the outer court, but there they shall lay their garments in which they minister; for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and shall approach to that which pertains to the people.

15 Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it all around.

16 He measured on the east side with the measuring reed five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed all around.

17 He measured on the north side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed all around.

18 He measured on the south side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

19 He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

20 He measured it on the four sides: it had a wall around it, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common.