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Ezekiel 10

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1 Og jeg skuede og se, over hvælvingen over kerubernes hoveder var der noget som Safir; noget ligesom en Trone viste sig over dem.

2 sagde han til Manden i det linnede Klædebon: "Gå ind mellem Hjulene under keruberne og tag Hænderne fulde af glødende Kul fra ummet mellem Keruberne og strø det ud over Byen!" Og jeg så ham gå derhen.

3 Keruberne stod sønden for Templet, da Manden gik derhen, og Skyen fyldte den indre Forgård.

4 Og HE ENs Herlighed hævede sig fra Keruberne og flyttede sig hen til Templets Tærskel; da fyldtes Templet af Skyen, og Forgården fyldtes af HE ENs Herligheds Glalans.

5 Og Suset af Kerubernes Vinger hørtes helt ud i den ydre Forgård som Gud den Almægtiges øst, når han taler.

6 Så bød han Manden i det linnede Klædebon: "Tag Ild fra ummet mellem Hjulene, inde mellem keruberne!" Og Manden stillede sig hen ved Siden af det ene Hjul

7 og rakte Hånden ind i Ilden, som brændte mellem Keruberne, og kom ud med noget deraf.

8 Under Kerubernes Vinger sås noget, der lignede en Menneskehånd;

9 og jeg skuede, og se, der var fire Hjul ved Siden af Keruberne, eet ved hver Kerub, og Hjulene var som funklende Krysolit at se til.

10 De så alle fire ens ud, og det var, som om der i hvert Hjul var et andet Hjul,

11 De kunde gå til alle fire Sider de vendte sig ikke, når de gik. Thi de gik i den etning, den forreste vendte, og de vendte sig ikke, når de gik.

12 Hele deres Legeme, yg, Hænder og Vinger og ligeledes Hjulene var fulde af Øjne rundt om; således var det med alle fire Hjul.

13 Og jeg hørte, at Hjulene kaldtes Galgal.

14 Hver af dem havde fire Ansigter; det ene var et Kerubansigt, det andet et Menneskeansigt, det tredje et Løveansigt og det fjerde et Ørneansigt.

15 Og Keruberne hævede sig i Vejret. Det var det samme levende Væsen, jeg så ved Floden Kebar.

16 Når Keruberne gik, gik også Hjulene ved Siden af, og når Keruberne løftede Vingerne for at hæve sig fra Jorden, vendte Hjulene sig ikke fra dem;

17 når de standsede, standsede også de; og når de hævede sig, hævede de sig med, thi Væsenets Ånd var i dem.

18 Så forlod HE ENs Herlighed Templets Tærskel og stillede sig over Keruberne.

19 Og jeg så, hvorledes Keruberne løftede Vingerne og hævede sig fra Jorden, da de gik, og Hjulene med dem; og de standsede ved Indgangen til HE ENs Huses Østport, og Israels Guds Herlighed var oven over dem.

20 Det var det samme levende Væsen, jeg så under Israels Gud ved Floden Kebar; og jeg skønnede, at det var Keruber.

21 Hver af dem havde fire Ansigter og fire Vinger og noget ligesom Menneskehænder under Vingerne.

22 Og deres Ansigter var ligesom de Ansigter, jeg så ved Floden Kebar. De gik alle lige ud.

   


The Project Gutenberg Association at Carnegie Mellon University

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #308

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308. What 'the east' means and what 'the garden of Eden' means has been shown already and therefore there is no need to pause over them here. But the fact that 'cherubim' means the Lord's providing against a person's insanely entering into mysteries of faith from the proprium, sensory evidence, and factual knowledge as the starting point, and against his profaning those mysteries, and in so doing perishing, becomes clear from several places in the Word where mention is made of cherubim. Because the Jews were the kind of people who, if they had had any clear knowledge about the Lord's Coming, about the fact that the representatives, or types, in that Church meant the Lord, about life after death, about the inner man, and if they had had any clear knowledge of the internal sense of the Word, they would have committed profanation and would have perished for ever; the Lord's protection against this therefore was represented by the cherubim on the Mercy Seat over the Ark, and by those on the curtains of the Tabernacle, and on its veil, and similarly in the Temple. And the provision of the cherubim meant the Lord's care and protection of them, Exodus 25:18-21; 26:1, 31;1 Kings 6:23-29, 32, 35. For the Ark, which contained the covenant, had the same meaning as the tree of life 1 does here, that is, the Lord and heavenly things which are altogether His. Consequently the Lord is also many times called 'the God of Israel seated upon the cherubim'; and it was from between the cherubim that He spoke to Aaron and Moses, Exodus 25:22; Numbers 7:89.

[2] A plain description of this exists in Ezekiel where the following is stated,

The glory of the God of Israel was raised up from above the cherub over which it had been, towards the threshold of the house. He called out to the man clothed in linen. And He said to him, Pass through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who groan and sigh over all the abominations committed in the middle of it. And to the others He said, Pass through the city after him and smite; let not your eye spare, and show no clemency; slay outright old men, young men, virgins, little children, and women. Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. 2 Ezekiel 9:3-7.

And later on,

He said to the man clothed in linen, Go into the wheel underneath the cherub, and fill the palms of your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim and spread them over the city. A cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and he took [some of it] and put it into the palms of the man clothed in linen; and he took it and went out. Ezekiel 10:1-7.

From these verses it is clear that the Lord's providence which guards against people's penetrating mysteries of faith is meant by 'the cherubim', and that people were therefore abandoned to their insane desires, which in this quotation are also meant by 'the fire which was spread over the city', and by 'nobody's being spared'.

Footnotes:

1. literally, of lives

2. literally, the pierced

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