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Ezekiel 39

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1 And you, son of man, be a prophet against Gog, and say, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, O Gog, ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

2 And turning you round, I will be your guide, and make you come up from the inmost parts of the north; I will make you come on to the mountains of Israel:

3 And with a blow I will send your bow out of your left hand and your arrows falling from your right hand.

4 On the mountains of Israel you will come down, you and all your forces and the peoples who are with you: I will give you to cruel birds of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be their food.

5 You will come down in the open field: for I have said it, says the Lord.

6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and on those who are living in the sea-lands without fear: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

7 And I will make clear my holy name among my people Israel; I will no longer let my holy name be made unclean: and the nations will be certain that I am the Lord, the holy One in Israel.

8 See, it is coming and it will be done, says the Lord; this is the day of which I have given word.

9 And those who are living in the towns of Israel will go out and make fires of the instruments of war, burning the body-covers and the breastplates, the bows and the arrows and the sticks and the spears, and for seven years they will make fires of them:

10 And they will take no wood out of the field or have any cut down in the woods; for they will make their fires of the instruments of war: and they will take by force the property of those who took their property, and go off with the goods of those who took their goods, says the Lord.

11 And it will come about in those days, that I will give to Gog a last resting-place there in Israel, in the valley of Abarim on the east of the sea: and those who go through will be stopped: and there Gog and all his people will be put to rest, and the place will be named, The valley of Hamon-gog.

12 And the children of Israel will be seven months putting them in the earth, so as to make the land clean.

13 And all the people of the land will put them in the earth; and it will be to their honour in the day when I let my glory be seen, says the Lord.

14 And they will put on one side men to do no other work but to go through the land and put in the earth the rest of those who are still on the face of the land, to make it clean: after seven months are ended they are to make a search.

15 And while they go through the land, if anyone sees a man's bone, he is to put up a sign by the place till those who are doing the work have put it in the earth in the valley of Hamon-gog.

16 And there they will put all the army of Gog in the earth. So they will make the land clean.

17 And you, son of man, this is what the Lord has said: Say to the birds of every sort and to all the beasts of the field, Get together and come; come together on every side to the offering which I am putting to death for you, a great offering on the mountains of Israel, so that you may have flesh for your food and blood for your drink.

18 The flesh of the men of war will be your food, and your drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of sheep and lambs, of he-goats, of oxen, all of them fat beasts of Bashan.

19 You will go on feasting on the fat till you are full, and drinking the blood till you are overcome with it, of my offering which I have put to death for you.

20 At my table you will have food in full measure, horses and war-carriages, great men and all the men of war, says the Lord.

21 And I will put my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see my punishments which I have put into effect, and my hand which I have put on them.

22 So the children of Israel will be certain that I am the Lord their God, from that day and for the future.

23 And it will be clear to the nations that the children of Israel were taken away prisoners for their evil-doing; because they did wrong against me, and my face was covered from them: so I gave them up into the hands of their attackers, and they all came to their end by the sword.

24 In the measure of their unclean ways and their sins, so I did to them; and I kept my face covered from them.

25 For this cause the Lord has said, Now I will let the fate of Jacob be changed, and I will have mercy on all the children of Israel, and will take care of the honour of my holy name.

26 And they will be conscious of their shame and of all the wrong which they have done against me, when they are living in their land with no sense of danger and with no one to be a cause of fear to them;

27 When I have taken them back from among the peoples and got them together out of the lands of their haters, and have made myself holy in them before the eyes of a great number of nations.

28 And they will be certain that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them away as prisoners among the nations, and have taken them together back to their land; and I have not let one of them be there any longer.

29 And my face will no longer be covered from them: for I have sent the out-flowing of my spirit on the children of Israel, says the Lord.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1151

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1151. 'Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras' were just so many nations with whom such worship existed, and who in the internal sense mean just so many differing types of doctrine which were one and the same as the forms of ritual which they observed devoutly. This is quite clear from the Word where these nations are mentioned in various places, for those nations everywhere mean external worship, sometimes external worship corresponding to internal, sometimes the contrary The reason the latter is sometimes meant is that all Churches everywhere altered in the course of time, and altered indeed into something contrary. The fact that the nations named here mean nothing other than external worship, and therefore their doctrinal teachings, which were forms of ritual, becomes clear, as has been stated, from other parts of the Word, chiefly in the Prophets.

[2] Magog, Meshech, Tubal, and Gomer are referred to in Ezekiel as follows,

Son of man, set your face 1 towards Gog, the land of Magog, the prince, the head of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince, the head of Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you back, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, with shield and buckler, all of them wielding swords: Persia, Cush, and Put with them; Gomer and all on his flanks; Bethtogarmah, the uttermost parts of the north, and all on his Ranks. In the latter years you will come upon the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, upon the mountains of Israel, which have been made a waste. Ezekiel 38:2-6, 8.

The subject in the whole of this chapter is a Church that became corrupted and which at length focused the whole of worship in external things or religious observances once charity, meant by 'the mountains of Israel', had been destroyed. Here 'Gog and the land of Magog, the prince and head of Meshech and Tubal' is worship confined to external things. Anyone may see that Gog and Magog are not the subject, for the Word of the Lord does not deal with worldly things, but embodies Divine matters.

[3] In the same prophet,

Prophesy against Gog and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince, the head of Meshech and Tubal; and I will bring you back, and will split you into six, and make you come up from the uttermost parts of the north and bring you on to the mountains of Israel. On the mountains of Israel you will fall, you and all on your flanks, and the peoples that are with you. Ezekiel 39:1-2, 4.

The subject in the whole of this chapter is likewise external worship separated from internal and made idolatrous. Such worship is meant here by 'Gog, Meshech and Tubal' who are also used to mean the matters of doctrine which people adopt and then confirm from the literal sense of the Word, and in so doing falsify truths and destroy internal worship. For, as has been stated, those same nations also mean contrary things.

[4] In John,

When the thousand years have come to an end, Satan will be loosed from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth. Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. They went up over the breadth 2 of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, [and] the beloved city. Revelation 20:7-9.

Here also 'Gog and Magog' has a similar meaning. External worship separated from internal, that is, separated from love to the Lord and from love towards the neighbour, is nothing but idolatrous worship which 'surrounds the camp of the saints and the beloved city'.

[5] Meshech and Tubal are referred to in Ezekiel as follows,

Meshech and Tubal are there, and all their crowd; round about it are its graves; all of them are uncircumcised, pierced by the sword, for they spread their terror in the land of the living. Ezekiel 32:26.

This refers to Egypt, that is, to factual knowledge by means of which people wish to inquire into spiritual things. 'Meshech and Tubal' stands for doctrinal teachings, which were forms of ritual, which are called 'uncircumcised' when love does not exist. Consequently they are 'pierced by the sword, and a terror in the land of the living'.

[6] Javan is referred to in Joel,

You have sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem to the sons of the Javanites, 3 to remove them far away from their border. Joel 3:6.

'The sons of Judah' stands for things on the celestial side of faith, 'the sons of Jerusalem' for those on the spiritual side, and so for things that are internal. 'The sons of the Javanites' stands for worship in external things that is separated from internal worship; and because this worship is so far removed from that which is internal it is said that they 'removed them far away from their border'.

[7] 'Javan and Tubal' in Isaiah stands for true external worship itself,

One is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they will come and see My glory, and I will set a sign among them And I will send survivors from them to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the islands far off that have not heard My fame and have not seen My glory; and they will declare My glory among the nations. Isaiah 66:18-19.

This refers to the Lord's kingdom and His Coming. 'Tubal and Javan' stands for those whose worship is external corresponding to internal and who are to be informed about internal things.

Footnotes:

1. literally, faces

2. literally, the plain

3. i.e. the Greeks

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