The Bible

 

Ezekiel 39

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1 And thou, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal;

2 and I will turn thee back, and lead thee, and will cause thee to come up from the uttermost north, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.

3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.

4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the peoples that are with thee: I have given thee to be meat for the birds of prey of every wing, and to the beasts of the field.

5 Thou shalt fall on the open field; for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord Jehovah.

6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell at ease in the isles: and they shall know that I [am] Jehovah.

7 And my holy name will I make known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not suffer my holy name to be profaned any more: and the nations shall know that I [am] Jehovah, the holy One in Israel.

8 Behold, it cometh, and shall be done, saith the Lord Jehovah. This is the day whereof I have spoken.

9 And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall kindle fire, and burn weapons, and shields, and targets, bows, and arrows, and hand-staves, and spears: and they shall make fires with them seven years.

10 And no wood shall be taken out of the field, neither cut down out of the forests; for they shall make fire with the weapons; and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and plunder those that plundered them, saith the Lord Jehovah.

11 And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] I will give unto Gog a place there for burial in Israel, the valley of the passers-by to the east of the sea; and it shall stop [the way] of the passers-by; and there shall they bury Gog and all the multitude; and they shall call it, Valley of Hamon-Gog.

12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying them, that they may cleanse the land;

13 and all the people of the land shall bury [them]; and it shall be to them for renown in the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord Jehovah.

14 And they shall sever out men of continual employment to go through the land, who, with the passers-by, shall bury those that remain upon the face of the land, to cleanse it: at the end of seven months shall they make a search.

15 And the passers-by shall pass through the land, and when [any] seeth a man's bone, he shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-Gog.

16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.

17 And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Speak unto the birds of every wing, and to every beast of the field, Gather yourselves together and come, assemble yourselves on every side to my sacrifice which I sacrifice for you, a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.

18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, [and] of bullocks, all of them fatted beasts of Bashan.

19 And ye shall eat fat till ye are full, and drink blood till ye are drunken, of my sacrifice which I sacrifice for you.

20 And ye shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord Jehovah.

21 And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and my hand which I have laid upon them.

22 And the house of Israel shall know that I [am] Jehovah their God from that day and forward.

23 And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they were unfaithful against me; and I hid my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies, so that they fell all of them by the sword.

24 According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I did unto them, and I hid my face from them.

25 Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name:

26 and they shall bear their confusion, and all their unfaithfulness in which they have acted unfaithfully against me, when they shall dwell safely in their land, and none shall make them afraid;

27 when I have brought them again from the peoples, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations.

28 And they shall know that I [am] Jehovah their God, in that I caused them to be led into captivity among the nations, and have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.

29 And I will not hide my face any more from them, for I shall have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah.

   

Commentary

 

Face

  
Photo by Caleb Kerr

“The eyes are the windows of the soul.” That's a sentiment with roots somewhere in murky antiquity, but one that has become hopelessly cliché because it is both poetic and obviously true. We feel that if we can look in someone's eyes, we can truly know what they are inside. And it's not just the eyes; really it is the face as a whole that conveys this. As Swedenborg puts it, the face is “man's spiritual world presented in his natural world” (Heaven and Hell, No. 91). Our faces reveal our interior thoughts and feelings in myriad ways, which is why psychologists, poker players and criminal investigators spend so much time studying them. It makes sense, then, that people's faces in the Bible represent their interiors, the thoughts, loves and desires they hold most deeply. We turn our faces to the ground to show humility when we bow in worship; we turn them to the mountains when seeking inspiration; we turn them toward our enemies when we are ready to battle temptation. When things are hard, we need to “face facts,” or accept them internally. When the topic is the Lord's face, it represents the Lord's interiors, which are perfect love and perfect mercy. And when people turn away from the Lord and refuse his love, it is described as the Lord “hiding his face.”

(References: Heaven and Hell 91)