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Ezekiel 32

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1 And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, that the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou wast like a young lion among the nations, and thou wast as a monster in the seas; and thou didst break forth in thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.

3 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will also spread out my net over thee with an assemblage of many peoples; and they shall bring thee up in my net.

4 And I will leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field, and will cause all the fowl of the heavens to settle upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee.

5 And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with the heap of thy [members];

6 and I will water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the water-courses shall be full of thee.

7 And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heavens, and make the stars thereof black; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.

8 All the bright lights of the heavens will I make black over thee, and bring darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord Jehovah.

9 And I will vex the heart of many peoples, when I bring [the news of] thy destruction among the nations, into the countries that thou hast not known.

10 And I will make many peoples amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid at thee, when I brandish my sword before them; and they shall tremble at every moment, each one for his life, in the day of thy fall.

11 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee.

12 By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitude to fall: the terrible of the nations are they all: and they shall spoil the pride of Egypt, and all the multitude thereof shall be destroyed.

13 And I will destroy all the beasts thereof, from beside the great waters; and the foot of man shall not trouble them any more, nor shall the cloven hoofs of beasts trouble them.

14 Then will I make their waters clear, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord Jehovah.

15 When I shall make the land of Egypt a desolation, and the country shall be left desolate of all that was in it, when I have smitten all them that dwell therein, then shall they know that I [am] Jehovah.

16 It is a lamentation, and [thus] they shall lament her: the daughters of the nations shall say it in lamenting; they shall say it in lamenting over Egypt and over all her multitude, saith the Lord Jehovah.

17 And it came to pass in the twelfth year, on the fifteenth of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

18 Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, her and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the lower parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.

19 Whom dost thou surpass in beauty? Go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.

20 They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword. The sword hath been given: draw her out, and all her multitudes.

21 The strong among the mighty, with them that helped him, shall speak to him out of the midst of Sheol: they are gone down, they lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.

22 There is Asshur and all his assemblage, his graves round about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword;

23 their graves are set in the sides of the pit, and his assemblage is round about his grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, -- who caused terror in the land of the living.

24 There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who are gone down uncircumcised unto the lower parts of the earth, who caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their confusion with them that go down to the pit.

25 They have set him a bed in the midst of the slain, with all his multitude: their graves are round about him, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though their terror was caused in the land of the living; and they have borne their confusion with them that go down to the pit: he is put in the midst of them that are slain.

26 There is Meshech, Tubal, and all their multitude, their graves round about them, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living.

27 And they lie not with the mighty, [that are] fallen of the uncircumcised, who are gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war; and whose swords are laid under their heads, and whose iniquities are upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

28 Thou also shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with them that are slain with the sword.

29 There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, who in their might are laid with them that are slain by the sword: they lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.

30 There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, that are gone down with the slain -- ashamed of the terror which they caused through their might; and they lie uncircumcised with them that are slain by the sword, and bear their confusion with them that go down to the pit.

31 Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord Jehovah.

32 For I have caused my terror in the land of the living; and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain by the sword, Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord Jehovah.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #756

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756. 'All the fountains of the great deep were split open' means the full extent of temptation involving things of the will. This becomes clear from what has been stated already about temptations being of two kinds, the first involving things of the understanding, the second those of the will, and about the latter being severe in comparison with the former. It is clear as well from the fact that up to now temptation involving things of the understanding has been the subject. It is similarly clear from the meaning of 'the deep' as evil desires and derivative falsities, as shown already in 18, and also in the following in the Word: In Ezekiel,

Thus says the Lord Jehovah, When I make you a city laid desolate, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I shall cause the deep to come up over you, and many waters have covered you. Ezekiel 26:19.

Here 'the deep' and 'many waters' stand for the full extent of temptation.

In Jonah,

The waters closed around me, even to my soul, the deep surrounded me. Jonah 2:5.

Here similarly 'the waters' and 'the deep' stand for the full extent of temptation.

In David,

Deep is calling to deep at the noise of Your waterspouts; all Your breakers and all Your waves have gone over me. Psalms 42:7.

This plainly stands for the full extent of temptation. In the same author,

He rebuked the Sea Suph and it became dry; He caused them to go through the deeps, as in a desert, and He saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and He delivered them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their adversaries. Psalms 106:9-11.

Here 'the deep' stands for temptations in the wilderness.

[2] In early times 'the deep' meant hell, and delusions and persuasions of falsity were likened to waters and streams, and also smoke, pouring out of it. This is also what the hells of some people look like, that is to say, like deeps and like seas. These in the Lord's Divine mercy will be described later on. The evil spirits who are responsible for man's vastation, and also for temptation, come from these places. And their delusions which they infuse, and the desires with which they inflame man, are like deluges and vapours pouring out of there. For, as has been stated, man is joined to hell through evil spirits, and to heaven through angels. Consequently when 'all the fountains of the deep' are said to have been 'split open' matters of that kind are meant. The fact that hell is called the deep, and the foul things that come from there are called streams, is clear in Ezekiel,

Thus said the Lord Jehovih, On the day he went down into hell, I made him mourn, I covered the deep over him, and I restrained its streams, and the great waters were stayed. Ezekiel 31:15.

Hell is also called 'the deep' in John, in Revelation 9:1-2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3.

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

The Bible

 

Jonah 2:5

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5 The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head.