The Bible

 

耶利米書 49

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1 論亞捫人。耶和華如此以色列沒有兒子麼?沒有後嗣麼?瑪勒堪為何得迦得之地為業呢?屬他的民為何其中的城邑呢?

2 耶和華:日子將到,我必使人見打仗的喊聲,是攻擊亞捫人拉巴的喊聲。拉巴要成為亂堆;屬他的鄉村(原文是女子)要被焚燒。先前得以色列地為業的,此時以色列倒要得他們的地為業。這是耶和華的。

3 希實本哪,你要哀號,因為地變為荒場。拉巴的居民(原文是女子)哪,要呼喊,以麻布束腰;要哭號,在籬笆中跑來跑去;因瑪勒堪和屬他的祭司、首領要一同被擄去。

4 背道的民(原文是女子)哪,你們為何因有山谷,就是水流的山谷誇張呢?為何倚靠財寶:誰能到我們這裡呢?

5 ─萬軍之耶和華:我要使恐嚇從四圍的中臨到你們;你們必被趕出,各一直前往,沒有收聚逃民。

6 來我還要使被擄的亞捫人歸回。這是耶和華的。

7 以東。萬軍之耶和華如此:提幔中再沒有智慧麼?明哲人不再有謀略麼?他們的智慧盡歸無有麼?

8 底但的居民哪,要轉身逃跑在深密處;因為我向以掃追討的時候,必使災殃臨到他。

9 摘葡萄的若到他那裡,豈不剩下些葡萄呢?盜賊若夜間而,豈不毀壞直到夠了呢?

10 我卻使以掃赤露,顯出他的隱密處;他不能自藏。他的後裔、弟兄、鄰舍盡都滅絕;他也歸於無有。

11 你撇下孤兒,我必保全他們的命;你的寡婦可以倚靠我。

12 耶和華如此:原不該那杯的一定要。你能盡免刑罰麼?你必不能免,一定要

13 耶和華:我指著自己起誓,波斯拉必令人驚駭、羞辱、咒詛,並且荒涼。他的一切城邑必變為永遠的荒場。

14 我從耶和華那裡見信息,並有使者被差往列國去,:你們聚集攻擊以東,要起來爭戰。

15 我使你在列國中為最小,在世人中被藐視。

16 住在山穴中據守山頂的啊,論到你的威嚇,你因中的狂傲自欺;你雖如大搭窩,我卻從那裡拉你來。這是耶和華的。

17 以東必令人驚駭;凡經過的人就受驚駭,又因他一切的災禍嗤笑。

18 耶和華:必無在那裡,也無在其中寄居,要像所多瑪、蛾摩拉,和鄰近的城邑傾覆的時候一樣。

19 仇敵必像獅子從約但河邊的叢林上來,攻擊堅固的居所。轉眼之間,我要使以東人逃跑,離開這地。誰蒙揀選,我就派誰治理這地。誰能比我呢?誰能給我定規日期呢?有何牧人能在我面前站立得住呢?

20 你們要耶和華攻擊以東所說的謀略和他攻擊提幔居民所定的旨意。仇敵定要將他們眾微弱的拉去,定要使他們的居所荒涼。

21 因他們仆倒的聲音,就震動。人在紅那裡必見呼喊的聲音。

22 仇敵必如大飛起,展開翅膀攻擊波斯拉。到那日,以東的勇士中疼痛如臨產的婦人。

23 論大馬色。哈馬和亞珥拔蒙羞,因他們見凶惡的信息就消化了。上有憂愁,不得平靜

24 大馬色發軟,轉身逃跑。戰兢將他捉住;痛苦憂愁將他抓住,如產難的婦人一樣。

25 我所喜樂可稱讚的城,為何被撇棄了呢?

26 他的少年人必仆倒在街上;當那日,一切兵丁必默默無聲。這是萬軍之耶和華的。

27 我必在大馬色城中使著起,燒滅便哈達的宮殿

28 論巴比倫王尼布甲尼撒所攻打的基達和夏瑣的諸國。耶和華如此:迦勒底人哪,起來上基達去,毀滅東方人。

29 他們的帳棚和羊群都要奪去,將幔子和一切器皿,並駱駝為自己掠去。人向他們喊著說:四圍都有驚嚇。

30 耶和華:夏瑣的居民哪,要逃奔遠方,在深密處;因為巴比倫王尼布甲尼撒設計謀害你們,起意攻擊你們。

31 耶和華:迦勒底人哪,起來!上安逸無慮的居民那裡去;他們是無無閂、獨自居住的。

32 他們的駱駝必成為掠物;他們眾多的牲畜必成為擄物。我必將剃周圍頭髮的人分散四方(原文是),使災殃從四圍臨到他們。這是耶和華的。

33 夏瑣必成為野狗的處,永遠淒涼;必無在那裡,也無在其中寄居。

34 猶大王西底家登基的時候,耶和華論以攔的臨到先知耶利米說:

35 萬軍之耶和華如此:我必折斷以攔人的,就是他們為首的權力。

36 我要使風從方颳,臨到以攔人,將他們分散方(原文是風)。這被趕散的人沒有一國不到的。

37 耶和華:我必使以攔人在仇敵和尋索其命的人面前驚惶;我也必使災禍,就是我的烈怒臨到他們,又必使刀追殺他們,直到將他們滅盡。

38 我要在以攔設立我的寶座,從那裡除滅君和首領。這是耶和華的。

39 到末後,我還要使被擄的以攔人歸回。這是耶和華的。

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #537

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537. Behold, a great, fiery red dragon. This symbolizes people in the Protestant Reformed Church who make God three entities and the Lord two, and who divorce charity from faith, making faith saving and not at the same time charity.

These are the people meant by the dragon here and in the following verses. For they are antagonistic to the two essential elements of the New Church, namely, that God is one in essence and person, in whom is the Trinity, and that that God is the Lord; moreover, that charity and faith are one, like an essence and its form, and that only those people possess charity and faith who live in accordance with the Ten Commandments, which teach that evils are not to be done. To the extent anyone does not do evils then, by refraining from them as sins against God, to the same extent he does goods which are goods of charity and believes truths that are truths of faith.

[2] Everyone who considers it can see that people who make God three entities and the Lord two, and who divorce charity from faith, making faith saving and not at the same time charity, are antagonistic to these two essential elements of the New Church.

When we say that they make God three entities and the Lord two, we mean people who think of three persons as three gods and distinguish the Lord's humanity from His Divinity. Who, moreover, entertains any other thought, or can entertain any other thought, when he prays in accordance with the formal expression of his faith "that God the Father may send the Holy Spirit for His Son's sake"? Does he not pray to God the Father as one God, for the sake of the Son as another, concerning the Holy Spirit as a third?

It is apparent from this that even though someone intellectually may make the three persons one God, still he distinguishes between them, which is to say that he pictures them as three Gods when he prays these words. The same formal expression of his faith also makes the Lord two entities, since one thinks then only of the Lord's humanity and not at the same time of His Divinity; for the phrase, "for His Son's sake," means for the sake of His humanity that suffered the cross.

From this it can now be seen just who those are who are meant by the dragon which attempted to devour the woman's child, and which, because of the child, afterward pursued the woman into the wilderness.

[3] The dragon is called great because, with the exception of some people here and there who do not believe in the same way regarding the Trinity and faith, all the Protestant Reformed churches distinguish God into three persons and make faith alone saving. People who distinguish God into three persons and cling to this statement in the Athanasian Creed, "There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit," and also to this, "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God" - these people, I say, cannot make one God out of three. They can indeed say they are one God, but they cannot think it.

By the same token people who think of the Lord's Divinity from eternity as a second person in the Godhead, and of His humanity in time as being like the humanity of any other person, cannot help but make the Lord two entities, despite the statement in the Athanasian Creed that His Divinity and humanity are one person, united like soul and body.

[4] The dragon is called fiery red because a fiery red color symbolizes falsity arising from the evils attendant on lusts, which is a falsity of hell.

Now because these two fundamental doctrinal tenets in the Protestant Reformed churches are false, and falsities destroy the church, inasmuch as they take away its truths and goods, therefore they were represented by the dragon. That is because a dragon in the Word symbolizes the destruction of the church, as can be seen from the following passages:

I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a habitation of dragons; and I will turn the cities of Judah into a wasteland... (Jeremiah 9:11)

Behold..., there has come... a great tumult out of the north country, to turn the cities of Judah into a wasteland, a habitation of dragons. (Jeremiah 10:22)

Hazor shall be a habitation of dragons, a desolation forever. (Jeremiah 49:33)

...that it may be a habitation of dragons, a courtyard for the offspring of owls. (Isaiah 34:13)

In the habitation of dragons, her couch... (Isaiah 35:7)

I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like dragons, and a mourning like the offspring of owls. (Micah 1:8)

...I cried out for help. I am a brother of dragons, and a companion of the offspring of the screech owl. (Job 30:28-29)

The iyyim 1 will reply in her palaces, and dragons in her... temples. (Isaiah 13:22)

Let Babylon be a heap, a habitation of dragons, as a hissing and an astonishment... (Jeremiah 51:37)

You have crushed us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. (Psalms 44:18-19)

I have made (Esau's) mountains a wasteland, and his inheritance one for dragons of the wilderness. (Malachi 1:3)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 43:20, Jeremiah 14:6, Psalms 91:13-14, Deuteronomy 32:33.

[5] The dragon here means people who are caught up in faith alone and who reject works of the Law as not saving, and I have had this attested several times by personal experience in the spiritual world. I have seen many thousands of such people assembled into companies, and at a distance then they looked like a dragon with a long tail, which seemed to be covered with thorn-like spikes, symbolizing falsities.

I also once saw a still bigger dragon, which arched its back and extended its tail up to the sky in an effort to draw down the stars from there.

I thus had it visually shown to me that these and no others are the people meant by the dragon.

Footnotes:

1. A Hebrew word אִיִּים, appearing only three times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 13:22; 34:14

  
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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.