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Ezekiel 43

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1 And he took me to the doorway looking to the east:

2 And there was the glory of the God of Israel coming from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of great waters, and the earth was shining with his glory.

3 And the vision which I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came for the destruction of the town: and like the vision which I saw by the river Chebar; and I went down on my face.

4 And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the doorway looking to the east.

5 And the spirit, lifting me up, took me into the inner square; and I saw that the house was full of the glory of the Lord.

6 And the voice of one talking to me came to my ears from inside the house; and the man was by my side.

7 And he said to me, Son of man, this is the place where the seat of my power is and the resting-place of my feet, where I will be among the children of Israel for ever: and no longer will the people of Israel make my holy name unclean, they or their kings, by their loose ways and by the dead bodies of their kings;

8 By putting their doorstep by my doorstep, and the pillar of their door by the pillar of my door, with only a wall between me and them; and they have made my holy name unclean by the disgusting things which they have done: so in my wrath I sent destruction on them.

9 Now let them put their loose ways and the dead bodies of their kings far from me, and I will be among them for ever.

10 You, son of man, give the children of Israel an account of this house, so that they may be shamed because of their evil-doing: and let them see the vision of it and its image.

11 And they will be shamed by what they have done; so give them the knowledge of the form of the house and its structure, and the ways out of it and into it, and all its laws and its rules, writing it down for them: so that they may keep all its laws and do them.

12 This is the law of the house: On the top of the mountain all the space round it on every side will be most holy. See, this is the law of the house.

13 And these are the measures of the altar in cubits: (the cubit being a cubit and a hand's measure;) its hollow base is a cubit high and a cubit wide, and it has an overhanging edge as wide as a hand-stretch all round it:

14 And from the base on the earth level to the lower shelf, the altar is two cubits high and a cubit wide; and from the smaller shelf to the greater shelf it is four cubits high and a cubit wide.

15 And the fireplace is four cubits high: and coming up from the fireplace are the horns, a cubit high.

16 And the fireplace is twelve cubits long and twelve cubits wide, square on its four sides.

17 And the shelf is fourteen cubits long and fourteen cubits wide, on its four sides; the edge round it is half a cubit; the base of it is a cubit all round, and its steps are facing the east.

18 And he said to me, Son of man, the Lord God has said, These are the rules for the altar, when they make it, for the offering of burned offerings on it and the draining out of the blood.

19 You are to give to the priests, the Levites of the seed of Zadok, who come near to me, says the Lord God, to do my work, a young ox for a sin-offering.

20 You are to take some of its blood and put it on the four horns and on the four angles of the shelf and on the edge all round: and you are to make it clean and free from sin.

21 And you are to take the ox of the sin-offering, and have it burned in the special place ordered for it in the house, outside the holy place.

22 And on the second day you are to have a he-goat without any mark on it offered for a sin-offering; and they are to make the altar clean as they did with the young ox.

23 And after you have made it clean, let a young ox without a mark be offered, and a male sheep from the flock without a mark.

24 And you are to take them before the Lord, and the priests will put salt on them, offering them up for a burned offering to the Lord.

25 Every day for seven days you are to give a goat for a sin-offering: and let them give in addition a young ox and a male sheep from the flock without any mark on them.

26 For seven days they are to make offerings to take away sin from the altar and to make it clean; so they are to make it holy.

27 And when these days have come to an end, then on the eighth day and after, the priests will make your burned offerings on the altar and your peace-offerings; and I will take pleasure in you, says the Lord.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #861

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861. 20:9 And they went up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. This symbolically means that, being roused up by followers of the dragon, these people scorned every truth in the church and attempted to destroy everything connected with the New Church and its fundamental doctrine regarding the Lord and life.

To go up over the breadth of the earth means, symbolically, to scorn every truth in the church, because going up over symbolically means to transcend and bypass, thus to scorn. And the breadth of the earth symbolizes the truth in the church, as will be seen below. To surround the camp of the saints means, symbolically, to besiege and try to destroy everything connected with the New Church, as will be seen in the number following next. And the beloved city symbolizes the doctrine of the New Church. That a city symbolizes a church's doctrine may be seen in nos. 194, 501, 502, 712 above. The city is called beloved because its doctrine teaches about the Lord and how to live, as it is the doctrine of the New Jerusalem that is meant here.

That this is the symbolic meaning of these words, no one can see except as a consequence of the Word's spiritual sense. For it cannot possibly enter a person's thought that the breadth of the earth symbolizes the truth in a church, that the camp of the saints symbolizes everything connected with the New Church, both its truths and its goods, and that the city symbolizes its doctrine. Lest the mind remain in a state of doubt, therefore, we must demonstrate what breadth and the camp of the saints symbolize in the spiritual sense, which will make it possible for one to see afterward that the meaning of these words is as we have said.

[2] The breadth of the earth symbolizes the truth in a church because the spiritual world has in it four zones - eastern, western, southern and northern - and the eastern and western zones form its longitude or length, while the southern and northern zones form its latitude or breadth. Moreover, because the inhabitants in the eastern and western zones are ones impelled by the goodness of love, and therefore the east and west symbolize goodness, so likewise does longitude or length. And because the inhabitants in the southern and northern zones are ones impelled by truths of wisdom, and therefore the south and north symbolize truth, so likewise does latitude or breadth. But for more on this subject, see the book Heaven and Hell (London, 1758), nos. 141-153.

That breadth symbolizes truth can be seen from the following passages in the Word:

You (Jehovah) have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in the broad place. (Psalms 31:8)

Out of distress I called on Yah; He answered me in the broad place. (Psalms 118:5)

(Jehovah) led me out into the broad place; He delivered me... (Psalms 18:19)

...I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and impetuous nation which marches into the breadths of the earth... (Habakkuk 1:6)

(The Assyrian) will pass through Judah, He will overflow and pass over..., and the spreading of his wings will fill the breadth... (Isaiah 8:8)

...Jehovah will pasture them like a lamb in broad pasture. (Hosea 4:16)

And so on elsewhere, as in Psalms 4:1; 66:12, Deuteronomy 33:20.

[3] Nothing else is meant by the breadth of the city New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:16). For since the New Jerusalem means the New Church, its breadth and length cannot symbolically mean its breadth and length, but its truth and goodness. These, indeed, are the measures of a church.

So also in Zechariah:

I said (to the angel), "Where are you going?" He said..., "To measure Jerusalem, to see how great its width is and how great its length." (Zechariah 2:2)

So likewise the breadth and length of the new temple and new earth in Ezekiel, chapters 40-47.

So, too, the length and breadth of the altar of burnt offering, of the Tabernacle, of the table of showbread, of the altar of incense, and of the ark within. So also the length and breadth of the temple in Jerusalem, and of many other things whose dimensions are given.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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