The Bible

 

Daniel 9

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1 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldaeans;

2 In the first year of his rule, I, Daniel, saw clearly from the books the number of years given by the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, in which the making waste of Jerusalem was to be complete, that is, seventy years.

3 And turning my face to the Lord God, I gave myself up to prayer, requesting his grace, going without food, in haircloth and dust.

4 And I made prayer to the Lord my God, putting our sins before him, and said, O Lord, the great God, greatly to be feared. keeping your agreement and mercy with those who have love for you and do your orders;

5 We are sinners, acting wrongly and doing evil; we have gone against you, turning away from your orders and from your laws:

6 We have not given ear to your servants the prophets, who said words in your name to our kings and our rulers and our fathers and all the people of the land.

7 O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you.

8 O Lord, shame is on us, on our kings and our rulers and our fathers, because of our sin against you.

9 With the Lord our God are mercies and forgiveness, for we have gone against him;

10 And have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God to go in the way of his laws which he put before us by the mouth of his servants the prophets.

11 And all Israel have been sinners against your law, turning away so as not to give ear to your voice: and the curse has been let loose on us, and the oath recorded in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have done evil against him.

12 And he has given effect to his words which he said against us and against those who were our judges, by sending a great evil on us: for under all heaven there has not been done what has been done to Jerusalem.

13 As it was recorded in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: but we have made no prayer for grace from the Lord our God that we might be turned from our evil doings and come to true wisdom.

14 So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice.

15 And now, O Lord our God, who took your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made a great name for yourself even to this day; we are sinners, we have done evil.

16 O Lord, because of your righteousness, let your wrath and your passion be turned away from your town Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because, through our sins and the evil-doing of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a cause of shame to all who are round about us.

17 And now, give ear, O our God, to the prayer of your servant and to his request for grace, and let your face be shining on your holy place which is made waste, because of your servants, O Lord.

18 O my God, let your ear be turned and give hearing; let your eyes be open and see how we have been made waste and the town which is named by your name: for we are not offering our prayers before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercies.

19 O Lord, give ear; O Lord, have forgiveness; O Lord, take note and do; let there be no more waiting; for the honour of your name, O my God, because your town and your people are named by your name.

20 And while I was still saying these words in prayer, and putting my sins and the sins of my people Israel before the Lord, and requesting grace from the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God;

21 Even while I was still in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first when my weariness was great, put his hand on me about the time of the evening offering.

22 And teaching me and talking to me he said, O Daniel, I have come now to give you wisdom.

23 At the first word of your prayer a word went out, and I have come to give you knowledge; for you are a man dearly loved: so give thought to the word and let the vision be clear to you.

24 Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.

25 Have then the certain knowledge that from the going out of the word for the building again of Jerusalem till the coming of a prince, on whom the holy oil has been put, will be seven weeks: in sixty-two weeks its building will be complete, with square and earthwork.

26 And at the end of the times, even after the sixty-two weeks, one on whom the holy oil has been put will be cut off and have no ...; and the town and the holy place will be made waste together with a prince; and the end will come with an overflowing of waters, and even to the end there will be war; the making waste which has been fixed.

27 And a strong order will be sent out against the great number for one week; and so for half of the week the offering and the meal offering will come to an end; and in its place will be an unclean thing causing fear; till the destruction which has been fixed is let loose on him who has made waste.

   

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True Christianity #782

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782. The New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven (Revelation 21) means the new church. For one thing, Jerusalem was the largest city in the land of Canaan. The Temple was there. The altar was there. The sacrifices were performed there. It was a center for divine worship. Three times a year every male in the entire country was commanded to come worship there.

Another reason is that the Lord was in Jerusalem and taught in its Temple; it was there that he glorified his human manifestation. For these reasons Jerusalem means the church.

The fact that Jerusalem means the church is abundantly clear in what the prophets of the Old Testament say about the new church that the Lord is going to establish, which they refer to as Jerusalem.

[2] I will present only passages in which the fact that Jerusalem means the church is easy to see for anyone who has the ability to reason inwardly. We will limit ourselves, then, to just the following.

Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth, and the earlier heaven and earth will not be remembered. Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a rejoicing and its people a joy, so that I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take joy in my people. Then the wolf and the lamb will feed together; they will not do evil anywhere on my holy mountain. (Isaiah 65:17-19, 25)

For Zion's sake I will not be quiet, for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until its justice goes forth as brightness, and its salvation is like a burning lamp. Then the nations will see your justice and every monarch will see your glory. You will be called by a new name that the mouth of Jehovah will announce. You will also be a beautiful crown and a royal miter in the hand of your God. Jehovah will be pleased with you, and your land will be married. Behold, your salvation is coming, and his reward is with him. They will call them "a holy people" and "those redeemed by Jehovah. " You will be called a sought-after city, and not a deserted city. (Isaiah 62:1-4, 11-12)

[3] Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion. Put on your beautiful clothes, O Jerusalem, holy city. The uncircumcised and the unclean will not come to you any more. Shake yourself from the dust; arise. Sit down, O Jerusalem. The people will recognize my name in that day; I am the one who is saying, "Behold, it is I. " Jehovah has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem. (Isaiah 52:1-2, 6, 9)

Shout, O daughter of Zion. Be joyful with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The king of Israel is in your midst. Do not fear evil any more. He will be glad and joyful about you. He will rest in your love. He will rejoice over you with shouting. I will give you a name and praise among all the peoples of the earth. (Zephaniah 3:14-17, 20)

Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer, speaking to Jerusalem: "You shall be inhabited. " (Isaiah 44:24, 26)

Thus said Jehovah, "I will turn back to Zion and I will live in the center of Jerusalem. Therefore Jerusalem will be called the city of truth, and the mountain of Jehovah Sabaoth will be called a holy mountain. " (Zechariah 8:3, 20-23)

Then you will know that I am Jehovah your God, living on Zion, the holy mountain, and Jerusalem will be holy. And on that day it will happen that the mountains will drip with new wine and the hills will flow with milk. And Jerusalem shall remain from generation to generation. (Joel 3:17-21)

[4] On that day the branch of Jehovah will be beautiful and glorious. And it will happen that the people left behind in Zion and remaining in Jerusalem will be called holy - everyone who is written down as alive in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 4:2-3)

At the end of days the mountain of Jehovah's house will be established on the top of the mountains. Teaching will go forth from Zion and the Word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. (Micah 4:1-2, 8)

At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of Jehovah, and all the nations will be gathered together to the name of Jehovah, to Jerusalem. No longer will they go toward the obstinacy of their evil heart. (Jeremiah 3:17)

Look toward Zion, the city of our appointed feasts. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful dwelling place, a tabernacle that will not be taken down. Its stakes will never be removed and its ropes will not be broken. (Isaiah 33:20)

Not to mention other passages, such as Isaiah 24:23; 37:32; 66:10-14; Zechariah 12:3, 6-10; 14:8, 11-12, 21; Malachi 3:4; Psalms 122:1-7; 137:5-6.

[5] Jerusalem in the passages just quoted does not mean the Jerusalem where Jews once lived, but the church of the Lord to come. This is clear from every detail of the description in the passages: for example, the point that Jehovah God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth, including a Jerusalem; that this Jerusalem is going to be a beautiful crown and a royal miter; that it is going to be called "holy," "the city of truth," "the throne of Jehovah," "a peaceful dwelling place," "a tabernacle that will not be taken down"; that the wolf and the lamb will feed together there; and we are told that the mountains there will drip with new wine, the hills will flow with milk, and it will remain from generation to generation. This is also clear from what we are told of the people there, that they are holy, they have all been written down as alive, and they are to be called "those redeemed by Jehovah. "

What is more, all these passages indicate that only at the time of the Lord's Coming, especially his Second Coming, [but not before,] will "Jerusalem" be the way these passages describe it. Before that, Jerusalem is not married; that is, it has not yet become the bride and wife of the Lamb, which is how the New Jerusalem is described in the Book of Revelation.

[6] In Daniel, Jerusalem means the church of today, the former [Christian] church. The beginning of this church is described in the following words.

Know and understand that from the going forth of the Word even to the restoration and building of Jerusalem, to the time of the Messiah's rule, is seven weeks. After sixty-two weeks the street and the moat will be rebuilt and restored, but in troublesome times. (Daniel 9:25)

The end of the church of today is described in the following words from the same chapter:

In the end desolation [will fly in] on a bird of abominations; even to the close and the cutting down, it will drip steadily upon the devastation. (Daniel 9:27)

The final stages of the church of today are also what the following words of the Lord in Matthew are referring to:

When you see that the abomination of desolation foretold by the prophet Daniel is standing in the holy place, let those who read note it well. (Matthew 24:15)

Evidence that Jerusalem in the passages above does not mean the Jerusalem where Jews once lived is found in the passages in the Word in which we are told that Jerusalem has already been completely destroyed or is going to be in the future. See Jeremiah 5:1; 6:6-7; 7:17-18, and following; Jeremiah 8:5-7, and following; , and following; Jeremiah 13:9-10, 14; 14:16; Lamentations 1:8-9, 17; Ezekiel 4:1 to the end; Ezekiel 5:9 to the end; Ezekiel 12:18-19; 15:6-8; 16:1-63; ; Matthew 23:37-38; Luke 19:41-44; 21:20-22; 23:28-30; besides many other passages. See also the passages where Jerusalem is referred to as Sodom (Isaiah 3:9; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:46, 48; and elsewhere).

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