The Bible

 

Joel 3

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1 For in those days and in that time, when I let the fate of Judah and Jerusalem be changed,

2 I will get together all the nations, and make them come down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and there I will take up with them the cause of my people and of my heritage Israel, whom they have sent wandering among the nations, and of my land which has been parted by them.

3 And they have put the fate of my people to the decision of chance: giving a boy for the price of a loose woman and a girl for a drink of wine.

4 And further, what are you to me, O Tyre and Zidon and all the circle of Philistia? will you give me back any payment? and if you do, quickly and suddenly I will send it back on your head,

5 For you have taken my silver and my gold, putting in the houses of your gods my beautiful and pleasing things.

6 And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them far away from their land:

7 See, I will have them moved from the place where you have sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your head;

8 I will give your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah for a price, and they will give them for a price to the men of Sheba, a nation far off: for the Lord has said it.

9 Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them come up.

10 Get your plough-blades hammered into swords, and your vine-knives into spears: let the feeble say, I am strong.

11 Come quickly, all you nations round about, and get yourselves together there: make your strong ones come down, O Lord.

12 Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as judge of all the nations round about.

13 Put in the blade, for the grain is ready: come, get you down, for the wine-crusher is full, the vessels are overflowing; for great is their evil-doing.

14 Masses on masses in the valley of decision! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

15 The sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars keep back their shining.

16 And the Lord will be thundering from Zion, and his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth will be shaking: but the Lord will be a breastplate for his people and a strong place for the children of Israel.

17 And you will be certain that I am the Lord your God, living in Zion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem will be holy, and no strange person will ever again go through her.

18 And it will come about in that day that the mountains will be dropping sweet wine, and the hills will be flowing with milk, and all the streams of Judah will be flowing with water; and a fountain will come out from the house of the Lord, watering the valley of acacia-trees.

19 Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction, because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.

20 But Judah will be peopled for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

21 And I will send punishment for their blood, for which punishment has not been sent, for the Lord is living in Zion.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Heaven and Hell #119

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119. This is why in the Word the Lord is compared to the sun when the focus is on love and to the moon when the focus is on faith. It is also why the sun means a love for the Lord that comes from the Lord, and the moon means a faith in the Lord that comes from the Lord. Compare the following passages.

The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days. (Isaiah 30:26)

When I annihilate you, I will cover the heavens and blacken the stars.

I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not make its light. I will blacken all the luminaries in the heavens above you and send darkness over your land. (Ezekiel 32:7-8)

I will darken the sun in its rising, and the moon will not make its light shine. (Isaiah 13:10)

The sun and the moon will be blackened and the stars will withdraw their shining; the sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. (Joel 2:2, 10, 31, 3:15)

The sun became black as hairy sackcloth, and the moon became like blood, and the stars fell to earth. (Revelation 6:12-13)

Immediately after the affliction of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven. (Matthew 24:29)

And elsewhere. In these passages, the sun means love and the moon faith, while the stars mean instances of recognizing what is good and true. 1 These are said to be darkened, to lose their light, and to fall from heaven when they no longer exist.

The Lord's appearance as a sun in heaven may also be inferred from his transfiguration before Peter, James, and John, when "his face shone like the sun" (Matthew 17:2). This is how the Lord was seen by those disciples when they had been lifted out of their bodies and were in the light of heaven.

For this reason, when the early people (who constituted a representative church) were engaged in their divine worship, they faced the sun in the east. It is why they set their temples to face the east.

Footnotes:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] In the Word, the lesser and greater stars mean instances of recognizing what is good and true: 2495, 2849, 4697.

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