The Bible

 

Daniel 8

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1 In the third year of the reign of king Baltasar, a vision appeared to me. I Daniel, after what I had seen in the beginning,

2 Saw in my vision when I was in the castle of Susa, which is in the province of Elam: and I Saw in the vision that I was over the gate of Ulai.

3 And I lifted up my eyes, and saw: and behold a ram stood before the water, having two high horns, and one higher than the other, and growing up. Afterward

4 I saw the ram pushing with his horns against the west, and against the north, and against the south: and no beasts could withstand him, nor be delivered out of his hand: and he did according to his own will, and became great.

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

6 And he went up to the ram that had the horns, which I had seen standing before the gate, and he ran towards him in the force of his strength.

7 And when he was come near the ram, he was enraged against him, and struck the ram: and broke his two horns, and the ram could not withstand him: and when he had cast him down on the ground, he stamped upon him, and none could deliver the ram out of his hand.

8 And the he goat became exceeding great: and when he was grown, the great horn was broken, and there came up four horns under it towards the four winds of heaven.

9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn: and it became great against the south, and against the east, and against the strength.

10 And it was magnified even unto the strength of heaven: and it threw down of the strength, and of the stars, and trod upon them.

11 And it was magnified even to the prince of the strength: and it took away from him the continual sacrifice, and cast down the place of his sanctuary.

12 And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper.

13 And I heard one of the saints speaking, and one saint said to another, I know not to whom that was speaking: How long shall be the vision, concerning the continual sacrifice, and the sin of the desolation that is made: and the sanctuary, and the strength be trodden under foot?

14 And he said to him: Unto evening and morning two thousand three hundred days: and the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

15 And it came to pass when I Daniel saw the vision, and sought the meaning, that behold there stood before me as it were the appearance of a man.

16 And I heard the voice of a man between Ulai: and he called, and said: Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.

17 And he came and stood near where I stood: and when he was come, I fell on my face trembling, and he said to me: Understand, O son of man, for in the time of the end the vision shall be fulfilled.

18 And when he spoke to me I fell flat on the ground: and he touched me, and set me upright,

19 And he said to me: I will shew thee what things are to come to pass in the end of the malediction: for the time hath its end.

20 The ram, which thou sawest with horns, is the king of the Medes and Persians.

21 And the he goat, is the king of the Greeks, and the great horn that was between his eyes, the same is the first king.

22 But whereas when that was broken, there arose up four for it: four kings shall rise up of his nation, but not with his strength.

23 And after their reign, when iniquities shall be grown up, there shall arise a king of a shameless face, and understanding dark sentences.

24 And his power shall be strengthened, but not by his own force: and he shall lay all things waste, and shall prosper, and do more than can be believed. And he shall destroy the mighty, and the people of the saints,

25 According to his will, and craft shall be successful in his hand: and his heart shall be puffed up, and in the abundance of all things he shall kill many: and he shall rise up against the prince of princes, and shall be broken without hand.

26 And the vision of the evening and the morning, which was told, is true: thou therefore seal up the vision, because it shall come to pass after many days.

27 And I Daniel languished, and was sick for some days: and when I was risen up, I did the king's business, and I was astonished at the vision, and there was none that could interpret it.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Explained #716

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716. And ten horns.- That this signifies much power is evident from the signification of horn, as denoting the power of truth against falsity and evil, and, in the opposite sense, the power of falsity against truth and good (concerning which see above, n. 316, 567); and from the signification of ten, as denoting all men and things, also many men and things (concerning which also see above, n. 675); it is therefore plain that the ten horns signify much power. That the dragon had much power is evident from what follows, namely, that because of him the male child which the woman brought forth was caught up unto God; that his tail drew down from heaven the third part of the stars; also, that he fought with Michael and his angels; and afterwards, that he stirred up Gog and Magog, and the nations in great number, to war against the saints.

[2] The dragon had such power, because by him are meant those who have separated faith from the goods of charity, which are works, and have confirmed this by means of the sense of the letter of the Word, which they have thus twisted from its genuine sense, and as it were drawn down from heaven; and because, at the end of the church, which the Apocalypse treats of, there is no charity, the dragon then has power. For at the end of the church every one desires to live for himself, for the world, and according to his own natural bent, and few wish to live for the Lord, for heaven, and eternal life; and the principle concerning faith alone, which is faith separated from charity, favours that life, and like the current of a river draws in and bears all away to such belief and to such a life. This is why the dragon, which signifies such persons and such things, appeared to have ten horns.

[3] It has been previously said that falsities from evil have no power, but it must be understood that falsities have no power against truth from good; for truth from good is from the Lord, and all power belongs to the Lord through His Divine Truth. But falsities from evil have the power that is signified by the ten horns of the dragon, because they prevail against those who are in falsities from evil, for they act as one. And a man is hereditarily in evil and thence in falsities from his parents, and afterwards from actual life, especially at the end of the church, and those falsities from evil cannot be driven out from him in a moment, but only by degrees; for if they were to be expelled in a moment, a man would die, because they constitute his life. Because such is the state of man at the end of the church, therefore falsities of evil prevail, although they have not the least power against truth from good. The Lord by means of His Divine Truth could cast out the falsities of evil in a man instantly, but this would result in his being immediately cast into hell; these must first be removed, and as far as they are removed, so far room is given for truths from good to be implanted, and the man is reformed. Such as are here meant by the dragon are also meant by the goat that fought with the ram (Daniel viii.), and also by the goats inMatthew 25; for the goats there signify those who are in faith separated from charity, and the ram and the sheep, those who are in charity.

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.