The Bible

 

Ezekiel 42

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1 And he took me out into the inner square in the direction of the north: and he took me into the rooms which were opposite the separate place and opposite the building to the north.

2 On the north side it was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide,

3 Opposite the space of twenty cubits which was part of the inner square, and opposite the stone floor of the outer square. There were covered ways facing one another on the third floor.

4 And in front of the rooms was a walk, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long; and their doors were facing north.

5 And the higher rooms were shorter: for the covered ways took up more space from these than from the lower and middle rooms.

6 For they were on three floors, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the outer square; so the highest was narrower than the lowest and middle floors from the earth level.

7 And the wall which went outside by the side of the rooms, in the direction of the outer square in front of the rooms, was fifty cubits long.

8 For the rooms in the outer square were fifty cubits long: and in front of the Temple was a space of a hundred cubits.

9 And under these rooms was the way in from the east side, as one goes into them from the outer square at the head of the outer wall.

10 (And he took me) to the south, and in front of the separate place and in front of the building there were rooms.

11 And there was a walk in front of them like that by the rooms on the north; they were equally long and wide; and the ways out of them were the same in design and had the same sort of doors.

12 And under the rooms on the south was a door at the head of the outer wall in the direction of the east as one goes in.

13 And he said to me, The north rooms and the south rooms in front of the separate place are the holy rooms, where the priests who come near the Lord take the most holy things for their food: there the most holy things are placed, with the meal offering and the sin-offering and the offering for error; for the place is holy.

14 When the priests go in, they may not go out of the holy place into the outer square, and there they are to put the robes in which they do the work of the Lord's house, for they are holy: and they have to put on other clothing before they come near that which has to do with the people.

15 And when he had come to the end of measuring the inner house, he took me out to the doorway looking to the east, and took its measure all round.

16 He went round and took the measure of it on the east side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

17 And he went round and took the measure of it on the north side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

18 And he went round and took the measure of it on the south side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

19 And he went round and took the measure of it on the west side with the measuring rod, five hundred, measured with the rod all round.

20 He took its measure on the four sides: and it had a wall all round, five hundred long and five hundred wide, separating what was holy from what was common.

   

The Bible

 

Ezekiel 40:6

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6 Then he came to the doorway looking to the east, and went up by its steps; and he took the measure of the doorstep, one rod wide.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

The Lord #52

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52. 6. Jehovah himself - that is, the Lord - spoke the Word through prophets.

We read of the prophets that they had visions and that Jehovah talked with them. When they had visions, they were not focused on their bodies but on the spirit, in which state they saw things of a heavenly nature. When Jehovah talked with them, though, they were conscious of their bodies and heard Jehovah speaking.

We need to draw a clear distinction between these two states. In a visionary state, the eyes of their spirit were open and the eyes of their body were closed; and at such times they seemed to themselves to be taken from place to place while their bodies stayed where they were. Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel were in this state at times, and so was John when he wrote the Book of Revelation. They were then said to be in a vision or in the spirit. In fact, Ezekiel says,

The spirit lifted me up and brought me back into Chaldea, to the captivity, in a vision from God, in the spirit of God. In this way the vision that I saw came over me. (Ezekiel 11:1, 24)

He says that the spirit lifted him up and that he heard an earthquake and other things behind him (Ezekiel 3:12, 14). He also said that the spirit lifted him up between earth and heaven and took him off into Jerusalem in visions from God, and he saw abominations (Ezekiel 8:3 and following).

That is why (again in a vision of God or in the spirit) Ezekiel saw the four beasts that were angel guardians (chapters 1; 10), and he saw a new earth and a new temple with the angel measuring them, as we are told in chapters 40-48. He says in chapter 40:2, that he was then in visions from God; and in chapter 43:5, he says that the spirit lifted him up at that time.

The same thing happened with Zechariah. There was an angel inwardly present with him when he saw a man riding among myrtle trees (Zechariah 1:8 and following); when he saw four horns and then a man with a measuring line in his hand (Zechariah 1:18; 2:1); when he saw Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1 and following); when he saw a lampstand and two olive trees (Zechariah 4:1 and following); when he saw a flying scroll and a measuring basket (Zechariah 5:1, 6); and when he saw four chariots coming from between two mountains, along with horses (Zechariah 6:1 and following).

Daniel was in the same kind of state when he saw four beasts come up from the sea (Daniel 7:3) and when he saw battles between a ram and a goat (Daniel 8:1 and following).

We read in Daniel 7:1-2, 7, 13; 8:2; 10:1, 7-8 that he saw these things in visions. We read in Daniel 9:21 that he saw the angel Gabriel in a vision and talked with him.

Much the same happened with John when he wrote the Book of Revelation. He says that he was in the spirit on the Lord’s day (Revelation 1:10), that he was carried away in the spirit into the wilderness (17:3), to a high mountain in the spirit (21:10), that he saw horses in a vision (9:17), and elsewhere that he saw what he described, being therefore in the spirit or in a vision (1:2; 4:1; 5:1; 6:1; and in the particular chapters that follow).

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