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Ezekiel 31

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1 Now in the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

2 Son of man, say to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to his people; Whom are you like in your great power?

3 See, a pine-tree with beautiful branches and thick growth, giving shade and very tall; and its top was among the clouds.

4 It got strength from the waters and the deep made it tall: its streams went round about its planted land and it sent out its waterways to all the trees of the field.

5 In this way it became taller than all the trees of the field; and its branches were increased and its arms became long because of the great waters.

6 In its branches all the birds of heaven came to rest, and under its arms all the beasts of the field gave birth to their young, and great nations were living in its shade.

7 So it was beautiful, being so tall and its branches so long, for its root was by great waters.

8 No cedars were equal to it in the garden of God; the fir-trees were not like its branches, and plane-trees were as nothing in comparison with its arms; no tree in the garden of God was so beautiful.

9 I made it beautiful with its mass of branches: so that all the trees in the garden of God were full of envy of it.

10 For this cause the Lord has said: Because he is tall, and has put his top among the clouds, and his heart is full of pride because he is so high,

11 I have given him up into the hands of a strong one of the nations; he will certainly give him the reward of his sin, driving him out.

12 And men from strange lands, who are to be feared among the nations, after cutting him off, have let him be: on the mountains and in all the valleys his branches have come down; his arms are broken by all the waterways of the land; all the peoples of the earth have gone from his shade, and have let him be.

13 All the birds of heaven have come to rest on his broken stem where it is stretched on the earth, and all the beasts of the field will be on his branches:

14 In order that no trees by the waters may be lifted up in their growth, putting their tops among the clouds; and that no trees which are watered may take their place on high: for they are all given up to death, to the lowest parts of the earth among the children of men, with those who go down to the underworld.

15 This is what the Lord has said: The day when he goes down to the underworld, I will make the deep full of grief for him; I will keep back her streams and the great waters will be stopped: I will make Lebanon dark for him, and all the trees of the field will be feeble because of him.

16 I will send shaking on the nations at the sound of his fall, when I send him down to the underworld with those who go down into the deep: and on earth they will be comforting themselves, all the trees of Eden, the best of Lebanon, even all the watered ones.

17 And they will go down with him to the underworld, to those who have been put to the sword; even those who were his helpers, living under his shade among the nations

18 Whom then are you like? for you will be sent down with the trees of Eden into the lowest parts of the earth: there you will be stretched out among those without circumcision, with those who were put to the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his people, says the Lord.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christianity #82

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82. 1. Jehovah God came down and took on a human manifestation in order to redeem people and save them. The belief among Christian churches nowadays is that God, the Creator of the universe, procreated a Son from eternity. That Son came down and took on a human manifestation in order to redeem people and save them. This belief is wrong, however. It spontaneously falls apart as long as our thinking focuses on the fact that there is one God. To sound reason it is worse than nonsense to think that the one God procreated some Son from eternity and that God the Father together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, each of whom is individually God, together make one God. This fiction completely vanishes like a shooting star in the air when the Word is quoted to show (a) that Jehovah God himself came down and became human and (b) that Jehovah God also became the Redeemer.

[2] As for the first point, the following passages show that Jehovah God himself came down and became human:

Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a Son, who will be called God with us. (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23)

A Child is born to us; a Son is given to us. Authority will rest on his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, God, Hero, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

It will be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God. We have waited for him to free us. This is Jehovah whom we have waited for. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. " (Isaiah 25:9)

The voice of one crying in the desert, "Prepare a way for Jehovah; make a level pathway in the solitude for our God. And all flesh will see it together. " (Isaiah 40:3, 5)

Behold, the Lord Jehovih is coming with strength, and his arm will rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him; like a shepherd he will feed his flock. (Isaiah 40:10-11)

Jehovah said, "Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Zion. Behold, I am coming to live in your midst. " Then many peoples will cling to Jehovah in that day. (Zechariah 2:10-11)

I, Jehovah, have called you in justice; I will give you as a covenant to the people. I am Jehovah. This is my name. I will not give my glory to another. (Isaiah 42:6, 8)

Behold, the days are coming when I will raise up for David a righteous offshoot who will reign as king and execute judgment and justice on the earth. And this is his name: Jehovah our Justice. (; 33:15-16)

Then there are the passages where the coming of the Lord is called "the day of Jehovah," such as Isaiah 13:6, 9, 13, 22; Ezekiel 31:15; Joel 1:15; 2:1-2, 11, 29, 31; 3:1, 14, 18; Amos 5:13, 18, 20; Zephaniah 1:7-18; Zechariah 14:1, 4-21; and elsewhere.

[3] That Jehovah himself was the one who came down and took on a human manifestation is clearly established in Luke, when it says, "Mary said to the angel, 'How will this take place, since I have not had intercourse? The angel replied to her, The Holy Spirit will descend upon you, and the power of the Highest will cover you; therefore the Holy One that is born from you will be called the Son of God'" (Luke 1:34-35). In Matthew it says that in a dream an angel told Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary, that the child that had been conceived in her was from the Holy Spirit. And Joseph did not have intercourse with her until she gave birth to a Son and called his name Jesus (Matthew 1:20, 25). The "Holy Spirit" means the divine power that radiates from Jehovah God, as we will see in the third chapter of this work [138-188].

Everyone knows that an offspring's soul and life come from its father, and the body comes from that soul. To state it very openly, then, the Lord's soul and life came from Jehovah God; and because divinity cannot be divided, the Lord's soul and life was the Father's divinity itself. This is why the Lord frequently called Jehovah God his Father, and Jehovah God called the Lord his Son. What would be more absurd to hear therefore than the idea that the soul of our Lord came from Mary his mother? Yet this is the very thing that both Roman Catholics and Protestants are dreaming today, and they have not been awakened by the Word yet.

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