The Bible

 

Ezekiel 37

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1 The hand of the Lord had been on me, and he took me out in the spirit of the Lord and put me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones;

2 And he made me go past them round about: and I saw that there was a very great number of them on the face of the wide valley, and they were very dry.

3 And he said to me, Son of man, is it possible for these bones to come to life? And I made answer, and said, It is for you to say, O Lord.

4 And again he said to me, Be a prophet to these bones, and say to them, O you dry bones, give ear to the word of the Lord.

5 This is what the Lord has said to these bones: See, I will make breath come into you so that you may come to life;

6 And I will put muscles on you and make flesh come on you, and put skin over you, and breath into you, so that you may have life; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

7 So I gave the word as I was ordered: and at my words there was a shaking of the earth, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

8 And looking I saw that there were muscles on them and flesh came up, and they were covered with skin: but there was no breath in them.

9 And he said to me, Be a prophet to the wind, be a prophet, son of man, and say to the wind, The Lord has said: Come from the four winds, O wind, breathing on these dead so that they may Come to life.

10 And I gave the word at his orders, and breath came into them, and they came to life and got up on their feet, a very great army.

11 Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are all the children of Israel: and see, they are saying, Our bones have become dry our hope is gone, we are cut off completely.

12 For this cause be a prophet to them, and say, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am opening the resting-places of your dead, and I will make you come up out of your resting-places, O my people; and I will take you into the land of Israel.

13 And you will be certain that I am the Lord by my opening the resting-places of your dead and making you come up out of your resting-places, O my people.

14 And I will put my spirit in you, so that you may come to life, and I will give you a rest in your land: and you will be certain that I the Lord have said it and have done it, says the Lord.

15 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

16 And you, son of man, take one stick, writing on it, For Judah and for the children of Israel who are in his company: then take another stick, writing on it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel who are in his company:

17 Then, joining them one to another, make them one stick, so that they may be one in your hand.

18 And when the children of your people say to you, Will you not make clear to us what these things have to do with us?

19 Then say to them, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am taking the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel who are in his company; and I will put it on the stick of Judah and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand.

20 And the sticks with your writing on them will be in your hand before their eyes.

21 And say to them, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am taking the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and will get them together on every side, and take them into their land:

22 And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king over them all: and they will no longer be two nations, and will no longer be parted into two kingdoms:

23 And they will no longer make themselves unclean with their images or with their hated things or with any of their sins: but I will give them salvation from all their turning away in which they have done evil, and will make them clean; and they will be to me a people, and I will be to them a God.

24 And my servant David will be king over them; and they will all have one keeper: and they will be guided by my orders and will keep my rules and do them.

25 And they will be living in the land which I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers were living; and they will go on living there, they and their children and their children's children, for ever: and David, my servant, will be their ruler for ever.

26 And I will make an agreement of peace with them: it will be an eternal agreement with them: and I will have mercy on them and make their numbers great, and will put my holy place among them for ever.

27 And my House will be over them; and I will be to them a God, and they will be to me a people.

28 And the nations will be certain that I who make Israel holy am the Lord, when my holy place is among them for ever.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #383

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383. Since our discernment corresponds to our lungs, and our thinking therefore to their breathing, "soul" and "spirit" in the Word mean discernment, as in "you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul" (Matthew 22:35 [22:37]), or "God will give a new heart and a new spirit" (Ezekiel 36:26; Psalms 51:12-13 [51:10]). I have already explained [378-381] that the heart means the love of our volition, so soul and spirit mean the wisdom of our discernment.

You may see in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord 50-51 that the spirit of God, also called the Holy Spirit, means divine wisdom and therefore divine truth, the means of our enlightenment.

This is why "the Lord breathed on the disciples and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22). This is also why it says, "Jehovah God breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils, and he became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7), and why God said to the prophet, "Prophesy over the spirit and say to the wind, 'Come, spirit, from the four winds and breathe upon these who have been slain, so that they may live'" (Ezekiel 37:9). There are similar statements elsewhere as well. It is why the Lord is called the spirit of the nostrils and also the breath of life.

Since our breathing comes through our nostrils, they are used to mean perception. An intelligent person is referred to as "keen-scented," and a dense person as "dull-scented." This is also why in Hebrew and in some other languages, "spirit" and "wind" are expressed by the same word. In fact, the word "spirit" is derived from [a root that means] breathing; so when people die we speak of their "breathing their last." This is also why people believe that a spirit is a wind or something airy, like the breath that issues from our lungs, and believe the same of the soul as well.

We can tell from this that "loving God with the whole heart and with the whole soul" means with all our love and all our discernment, and that "giving a new heart and a new spirit" means a new volition and a new discernment.

It is because the spirit means discernment that it says of Bezaleel that "he was filled with the spirit of wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge" (Exodus 31:3) and of Joshua that "he was filled with the spirit of wisdom" (Deuteronomy 34:9), and that Nebuchadnezzar said of Daniel that "a superlative spirit, one of knowledge and intelligence and wisdom was in him" (Daniel 6:5 [5:11-12, 14]), and why it says in Isaiah that "those who are wandering in spirit will know intelligence" (Isaiah 29:24). Similar statements may be found in many other places.

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