The Bible

 

Ezekiel 46

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1 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working-days; but on the sabbath-day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.

2 And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of [that] gate from without, and shall stand by the post of the gate, and the priests shall offer his burnt-offering and his peace-offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate, and shall go forth: but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.

3 And the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before Jehovah on the sabbaths and on the new moons.

4 And the burnt-offering that the prince shall present unto Jehovah on the sabbath-day shall be six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish.

5 And the oblation shall be an ephah for a ram, and the oblation for the lambs as he shall be able to give; and oil, a hin for an ephah.

6 And on the day of the new moon, a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram: they shall be without blemish.

7 And he shall offer an oblation, an ephah for the bullock, and an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs according to what his hand may attain unto; and oil, a hin for an ephah.

8 And when the prince cometh in, he shall come in by the way of the porch of the gate, and he shall go out by the way thereof.

9 And when the people of the land come in before Jehovah in the set feasts, he that cometh in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that cometh in by the way of the south gate shall go out by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate by which he came in, but shall go out straight before him.

10 And the prince shall come in in the midst of them, when they come in; and when they go out, they shall go out [together].

11 And on the feast-days, and in the solemnities, the oblation shall be an ephah for a bullock and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs as he is able to give; and oil, a hin for an ephah.

12 And when the prince shall offer a voluntary burnt-offering or voluntary peace-offerings unto Jehovah, the gate that looketh toward the east shall be opened for him and he shall offer his burnt-offering and his peace-offerings as he did on the sabbath-day, and he shall go out again, and the gate shall be shut after he hath gone out.

13 And thou shalt daily offer a burnt-offering unto Jehovah, of a yearling-lamb without blemish: thou shalt prepare it morning by morning.

14 And thou shalt prepare an oblation with it every morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and of oil the third part of a hin, to moisten the fine flour: an oblation unto Jehovah continually by a perpetual ordinance.

15 They shall offer the lamb, and the oblation, and the oil, every morning for a continual burnt-offering.

16 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: If the prince give a gift unto any of his sons, it shall be that one's inheritance, for his sons: it shall be their possession by inheritance.

17 But if he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall be his until the year of liberty; and it shall return to the prince: to his sons alone shall his inheritance remain.

18 And the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance, to thrust them by oppression out of their possession: he shall give his sons an inheritance out of his own possession: that my people be not scattered every one from his possession.

19 Then he brought me through the passage which was at the side of the gate, into the holy cells which were for the priests, which looked toward the north; and behold, a place was there at the end westward.

20 And he said unto me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass-offering, and the sin-offering, [and] where they shall bake the oblation, that they bring them not out into the outer court, so as to hallow the people.

21 And he brought me forth into the outer court, and caused me to pass by the four corners of the court; and behold, in every corner of the court there was a court.

22 In the four corners of the court there were enclosed courts, forty [cubits] long and thirty broad: these four corner courts were of one measure.

23 And there was a row [of building] round about in them, round about those four, and it was made with boiling places under the rows round about.

24 And he said unto me, These are the boiling-houses, where those who do the service of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #904

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904. 21:15 And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. This symbolically means that to people who possess the goodness of love, the Lord grants a faculty for understanding and knowing the nature of the Lord's New Church as regards its doctrine and its introductory truths, and as regards the Word from which they are drawn.

He who spoke with me symbolizes the Lord speaking from heaven, because it was an angel speaking, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls mentioned in verse 9, who means the Lord speaking from heaven (no. 895). A reed symbolizes a power or ability springing from the goodness of love - a reed symbolizing power or ability (no. 485), and gold the goodness of love (nos. 211, 726). To measure means, symbolically, to learn the character of a thing, thus to understand and know it (no. 486). The city, the holy Jerusalem, symbolizes the church in respect to its doctrine (nos. 879, 880). Its gates symbolize concepts of truth and goodness from the Word's literal sense, which are truths and goods owing to the spiritual life in them (no. 899). And the wall symbolizes the Word in its literal sense from which the doctrine and concepts come (no. 898).

It is apparent from this that "he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall," symbolically means that to people who possess the goodness of love, the Lord grants a faculty for understanding and knowing the nature of the Lord's New Church as regards its doctrine and its introductory truths, and as regards the Word from which they are drawn.

[2] These symbolic meanings cannot be seen at all in the literal sense, for one sees in it only that an angel speaking with John had a gold reed with which to measure the city and its gates and wall. But even so, that these words contain another meaning, a spiritual meaning, is clearly apparent from the fact that the city Jerusalem does not mean a real city, but the church. Consequently everything said about Jerusalem as a city symbolizes such things as have to do with the church, and everything having to do with the church is, in itself, spiritual.

Such a spiritual meaning is present also in what is said in chapter 11 above, where we are told the following:

I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood by, saying, "Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there." (Revelation 11:1)

A similar spiritual meaning is present, too, in everything that the angel measured with a reed in Ezekiel 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48. Also in these verses in Zechariah:

I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. So I said, "Where are you going?" And he said to me, "To measure Jerusalem, to see what its width is and what its length." (Zechariah 2:1-2)

Indeed, such a spiritual meaning is present in everything connected with the Tabernacle and in everything connected with the Temple in Jerusalem, whose measurements we are told, and also in the measurements themselves. And yet nothing of this can be seen in the literal sense.

  
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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.