The Bible

 

以西結書 9

Study

   

1 他向我耳中聲喊:要使那監管這城的中各拿滅命的兵器前來。

2 忽然有從朝的上,各拿殺的兵器;內中有身穿細麻衣,腰間帶著墨盒子。他們進,站在銅祭壇旁。

3 以色列的榮耀本在基路伯上,現今從那裡升到殿的門檻。將那身穿細麻衣、腰間帶著墨盒子的召來。

4 耶和華對他:你去走遍耶路撒冷全城,那些因城中所行可憎之事歎息哀哭的人,畫記號在額上。

5 我耳中見他對其餘的人:要跟隨他走遍全城,以行擊殺。你們的眼不要顧惜,也不要可憐他們。

6 要將年老的、年少的,並處女、嬰孩,和婦女,從聖所起全都殺盡,只是凡有記號的不要挨他。於是他們從殿前的長老殺起。

7 他對他們:要污穢這殿,使院中充滿被殺的人。你們出去罷!他們就出去,在城中擊殺。

8 他們擊殺的時候,我被留下,我就俯伏在地,:哎!耶和華啊,你將忿怒傾在耶路撒冷,豈要將以色列所剩下的人都滅絕麼?

9 他對我以色列家和猶大家的罪孽極其重。遍有流血的事,滿城有冤屈,因為他們耶和華已經離棄這,他不見我們。

10 故此,我眼必不顧惜,也不可憐他們,要照他們所行的報應在他們上。

11 那穿細麻衣、腰間帶著墨盒子的將這事回覆:我已經照你所吩咐的行了。

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #440

Study this Passage

  
/ 962  
  

440. And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but who in Greek has the name Apollyon. (9:11) This symbolically means that those caught up in falsities springing from lusts, who by a total falsification of the Word destroyed the church, are in a satanic hell.

The angel of the bottomless pit as king does not signify that some angel is king there, but that falsity reigns in it. For a king in its genuine sense symbolizes someone who possesses truths owing to an affection for goodness, and abstractly truth itself (no. 20); and in an opposite sense, therefore, a king symbolizes someone who is caught up in falsities owing to a lust for evil, and abstractly falsity itself. The bottomless pit symbolizes the satanic hell where such people reside (nos. 387, 421). A name symbolizes the character of someone's or something's state (nos. 81, 122, 165).

Abaddon in Hebrew is someone who destroys, or a destroyer, and likewise Apollyon in Greek, and this is falsity of the most fundamental sort, which by a total falsification of the Word has destroyed the church.

Abaddon in the Hebrew text means destruction in the following places:

Your truth in destruction? (Psalms 88:11)

Hell is naked before Him, and destruction has no covering. (Job 26:6)

For it will be a fire that consumes to destruction... (Job 31:12)

Destruction and death say... (Job 28:22)

Elsewhere hell and the devil are called destruction or a destroyer (Isaiah 54:16, Ezekiel 5:16; 9:1, Exodus 12:13), but by using another term.

  
/ 962  
  

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