The Bible

 

Daniel 9

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1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans,

2 in the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by the books that the number of the years, whereof the word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishment of the desolations of Jerusalem, was seventy years.

3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes;

4 and I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and made my confession, and said, Alas Lord! the great and terrible ùGod, keeping covenant and loving-kindness with them that love him, and that keep his commandments:

5 we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from thy commandments and from thine ordinances.

6 And we have not hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, who spoke in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

7 Thine, O Lord, is the righteousness, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, in all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their unfaithfulness in which they have been unfaithful against thee.

8 O Lord, unto us is confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.

9 With the Lord our God are mercies and pardons, for we have rebelled against him;

10 and we have not hearkened unto the voice of Jehovah our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us through his servants the prophets.

11 And all Israel have transgressed thy law, even turning aside so as not to listen unto thy voice. And the curse hath been poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God: for we have sinned against him.

12 And he hath performed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; so that there hath not been done under the whole heaven as hath been done upon Jerusalem.

13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet we besought not Jehovah our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth.

14 And Jehovah hath watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for Jehovah our God is righteous in all his works which he hath done; and we have not hearkened unto his voice.

15 -- And now, O Lord our God, who broughtest thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and hast made thee a name, as it is this day, -- we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

16 Lord, according to all thy righteousnesses, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain; for because of our sins, and because of the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people [are become] a reproach to all round about us.

17 And now, our God, hearken to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake.

18 Incline thine ear, O my God, and hear; open thine eyes and behold our desolations, and the city that is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee because of our righteousnesses, but because of thy manifold mercies.

19 Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord, hearken and do! defer not, for thine own sake, O my God! for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.

20 And whilst I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before Jehovah my God for the holy mountain of my God;

21 whilst I was yet speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.

22 And he informed [me], and talked with me, and said, Daniel, I am now come forth to make thee skilful of understanding.

23 At the beginning of thy supplications the word went forth, and I am come to declare [it]; for thou art one greatly beloved. Therefore consider the word, and have understanding in the vision:

24 Seventy weeks are apportioned out upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to close the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make expiation for iniquity, and to bring in the righteousness of the ages, and to seal the vision and prophet, and to anoint the holy of holies.

25 Know therefore and understand: From the going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah, the Prince, are seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks. The street and the moat shall be built again, even in troublous times.

26 And after the sixty-two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with an overflow, and unto the end, war, -- the desolations determined.

27 And he shall confirm a covenant with the many [for] one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and because of the protection of abominations [there shall be] a desolator, even until that the consumption and what is determined shall be poured out upon the desolate.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Coronis (An Appendix to True Christian Religion) #34

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34. V. THE FIFTH STATE OF THIS CHURCH WAS THE SEPARATION OF THE GOOD FROM THE EVIL, WHICH WAS THE LAST JUDGMENT ON ALL WHO WERE OF THAT CHURCH. This state is described by the "flood," in which all the wicked who remained perished; and by "Noah and his sons," by whom are meant all the good who were saved. The end of the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam, is described in the sixth chapter of Genesis by these words:

When Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was multiplied in the world, and moreover every imagination of his heart only evil every day, it repented Jehovah that He had made man on the earth: therefore Jehovah said, I will blot out man whom I have created from off the faces of the earth: only Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah (Gen. 6:5-8).

But the Last Judgment upon them is described by the flood. It is described by a "flood" for the reason that "waters" in the Word signify truths, and in an opposite sense falsities. Truths are signified by the waters of a fountain, the waters of a river, the waters of rain, and by the waters of the washings in time past, and the waters of baptism at this day: such correspondence arises from the circumstance that truths purify man's soul from uncleanness, as waters do his body; hence they are called "living waters." But in the opposite sense falsities are signified by "waters"; but by impure waters, such as those of marshes, evil-smelling cisterns, urine, and deadly waters; in general, by all hurtful and death-producing waters, therefore, also, by waters from an inundation of which man dies, consequently the Noachian flood.

[2] That falsities in the mass are described by inundations, may be evident from the following passages:

Jehovah is causing to come up upon them the waters of the river (Euphrates), strong and many; it shall pass through Judah, it shall inundate, it shall pass over, it shall reach even to the neck (Isa. 8:7-8).

By the "waters of the river" Euphrates, are signified reasonings from falsities, because by Assyria, whose river it was, reasoning is signified.

The spirit of Jehovah, like an inundating stream, shall divide in two even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity (Isa. 30:28):

by an inundating river, here, in like manner, is signified reasoning from falsities.

Behold waters are rising up out of the north, which are like an inundating stream, and it shall inundate the land and the fulness thereof (Jer. 47:2):

here the Philistines are treated of, by whom are meant those who are not in charity, and hence not in truths; the falsities of these are signified by "waters coming up from the north," and the devastation of the Church in consequence thereof, by "an inundating stream that shall inundate the land and its fulness"; "the land" is the Church, and its "fulness" all things pertaining to it.

Say unto those who daub what is unfit, There shall be an inundating rain, in which hail-stones shall fall upon you (Ezek. 13:11, 13):

the "daubing of what is unfit" is the confirmation of falsity, and hail-stones are falsities.

In an overflowing inundation He shall make the place thereof a consummation, and thick darkness shall pursue His enemies (Nahum 1:8):

by "the inundation" which shall consummate, is signified the falsification of truth, and by "thick darkness," truths themselves in the night.

Ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell have we made a vision; when the scourge of inundation shall pass over, it shall not come unto us; we have made a lie our trust, and in falsity we will hide ourselves (Isa. 28:15).

Here "inundation" manifestly denotes destruction by falsities; for it is said that they placed confidence in "a lie," and would hide themselves in "falsity."

[3] After the sixty-two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself; then the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, so that the end thereof shall be with an inundation even to desolations (Dan. 9:26);

speaking of the Christian Church that was to come, in which the worship of the Lord would perish; which is meant by "Messiah being cut off, but not for Himself"; that it would perish by falsifications, is meant by "the end thereof being with an inundation even to desolations"; "desolation" denoting the falsification. Hence it is, that, after the Lord spoke of the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel the prophet, and of the "consummation of the age" thereby, He said

That His coming would be as in the days when the flood came, and took them all away (Matt. 24:15, 39).

That by the drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea (Exod. 14), is meant, in the spiritual sense, destruction by falsities, has been shown in the ARCANA CAELESTIA, in the explanation of that chapter.

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