The Bible

 

Daniel 8

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1 In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar the king, a vision appeared unto me, [even] to me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.

2 And I saw in the vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was in the fortress of Shushan, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was by the river Ulai.

3 And I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns; and the two horns were high; and one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.

4 I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward, and no beast could stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; and he did according to his will, and became great.

5 And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west over the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.

6 And he came to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran upon him in the fury of his power.

7 And I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged with him, and smote the ram, and broke his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him; and he cast him down to the ground, and trampled upon him; and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.

8 And the he-goat became exceeding great; but when he was become strong, the great horn was broken; and in its stead came up four notable ones toward the four winds of the heavens.

9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which became exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the beauty [of the earth].

10 And it became great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down [some] of the host and of the stars to the ground, and trampled upon them.

11 (And he magnified [himself] even to the prince of the host, and from him the continual [sacrifice] was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

12 And a time of trial was appointed unto the continual [sacrifice] by reason of transgression.) And it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised and prospered.

13 And I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that one who spoke, How long shall be the vision of the continual [sacrifice] and of the transgression that maketh desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden down under foot?

14 And he said unto me, Until two thousand and three hundred evenings [and] mornings: then shall the sanctuary be vindicated.

15 And it came to pass, when I Daniel had seen the vision, I sought for the understanding of it, and behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man.

16 And I heard a man's voice between [the banks of] the Ulai; and he called and said, Gabriel, make this [man] to understand the vision.

17 And he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was afraid, and fell on my face; and he said unto me, Understand, son of man; for the vision is for the time of the end.

18 Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep stupor, with my face toward the ground. And he touched me, and set me up where I had stood.

19 And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be at the end of the indignation: for at the set time the end shall be.

20 The ram that thou sawest having the two horns: they are the kings of Media and Persia.

21 And the rough goat is the king of Greece; and the great horn that was between his eyes is the first king.

22 Now that being broken, whereas four stood up in its stead, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not with his power.

23 And at the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors shall have come to the full, a king of bold countenance, and understanding riddles, shall stand up.

24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; and he shall destroy marvellously, and shall prosper, and shall practise, and shall destroy the mighty ones, and the people of the saints.

25 And through his cunning shall he cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he will magnify [himself] in his heart, and by prosperity will corrupt many; and he will stand up against the Prince of princes: but he shall be broken without hand.

26 And the vision of the evening and the morning which hath been told is true; but close thou up the vision, for it is for many days [to come].

27 And I Daniel fainted, and was sick [certain] days: then I rose up, and did the king's business. And I was astonished at the vision, but none understood [it].

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #541

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541. Its tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. (12:4) This symbolically means that by falsifying the Word's truths they exiled all spiritual concepts of goodness and truth from the church, and by appeals to falsity completely destroyed them.

When referring to people who have used the Word to establish heresies, a tail symbolizes the Word's truths falsified (no. 438). Stars symbolize spiritual concepts of goodness and truth (nos. 51, 420). A third symbolizes all (nos. 400, 505). And to draw stars from heaven and throw them to the earth means, symbolically, to exile these concepts from the church and completely destroy them. For when they are taken down from heaven, they are also taken away from the church, as every truth of the Word is introduced into a person of the church by the Lord through heaven. Nor are truths taken away by anything else than by falsifications of truths in the Word, since that is where the truths of heaven and the church are found and originate.

[2] The idea that those people meant by the dragon, as described in no. 537 above, have destroyed all the Word's truths, is something no one in the world can believe; and yet they have so destroyed them that not one doctrinal truth remains. This has been investigated in the spiritual world by examining learned members of the clergy, and it has been found to be the case.

I know several reasons for this, but here I will mention only one: They assert that anything springing from a person's will and judgment is not good, and that because goods of charity or good works are done by the person, they therefore contribute nothing to his salvation, but that only faith does. And yet the only thing that makes a person human, and the only means by which he is conjoined with the Lord, is his ability to do good and believe truths as though of himself, namely, as though of his own will in accordance with his own judgment. If this one ability were to be taken away, every means of a person's conjunction with the Lord and of the Lord with the person would be taken away at the same time. For it is this ability to reciprocate love that the Lord confers on everyone who is born human, which He also preserves in the person even to the end of his life, and afterward to eternity.

If this were to be taken from a person, he would have every truth and good of the Word taken from him at the same time, to the point that the Word would become nothing but a dead letter and an empty book. For the Word teaches nothing else but a person's conjunction with the Lord through charity and faith, both emanating from the person as though from himself.

[3] People meant by the dragon, as described in no. 537 above, have broken this unique bond of conjunction by asserting that the goods of charity or good works that emanate from a person and from his will and judgment are nothing more than moral, civic and political works, works by which a person has a conjunction with the world, but not at all with God and heaven. And when that bond has been thus broken, then none of the Word's doctrinal truths remains. Moreover, if the Word's truths are used to support faith alone as saving apart from works of the Law, then those truths are all falsified. And if the falsification progresses to an affirmation that the Lord does not command good works in the Word for the sake of a person's conjunction with Him, but only for the sake of a conjunction with the world, then the Word's truths are profaned. For the Word thus becomes no longer a holy book, but a profane one. But on this subject, see the account at the end of the chapter.

The following report concerning the goat in Daniel has a similar symbolic meaning:

(The male goat with his horn) cast down some of the host (of heaven) and some of the stars to the ground, and trampled them...; and he cast truth down to the ground. (Daniel 8:10, 12)

  
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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.