Ezechiele 27:8
To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.
Apocalypse Revealed #787
787. 18:18 "Stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, 'What other city may be compared to this great city?'" This symbolizes their mourning in a state apart over the damnation of the Roman Catholic religion, which they believed to be preeminent over every other religion in the world.
The merchants' standing at a distance symbolizes a time when they were as yet in a state apart from a state of damnation, and yet were afraid of being punished (nos. 769, 783). Their crying out symbolizes their mourning. The smoke of the city's burning symbolizes a state of damnation because of its adulteration and profanation of the Word (nos. 766, 767). Their saying, "What other city may be compared to this great city," means symbolically that they believed that religion to be preeminent over every other religion in the world. That great city symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion, here as a number of times above.
Everyone knows that Roman Catholics believe their religion to be preeminent over every other religion, and that their church is the mother, queen and mistress of them all. Everyone knows, too, that their believing so is continually instilled in them by canons and monks, and people attentive to it know also that the canons and monks are moved to do this by a fire to achieve dominion and material gain. And yet because of the power of their domination Roman Catholics cannot separate themselves from all the external practices of that religion; but they can nevertheless separate themselves from its internal constituents, since everyone's will and intellect, and so affection and thought, have been left, and continue to be left, in complete freedom.
Apocalypse Revealed #416
416. Saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!" This symbolizes the utmost lamentation over the state of damnation of people in the church who in doctrine and life have confirmed themselves in a faith divorced from charity.
"Woe" symbolizes a lamentation over the evil in someone, and so over his unhappy state. Here it means over the state of damnation of those people who are the subject of the next chapter and later. "Woe, woe, woe," moreover, symbolizes the utmost lamentation; for tripling it forms a superlative, since three symbolizes all and complete (no. 505).
Inhabitants of the earth mean people who are in a church which has the Word and where by it the Lord is known. To be shown that the earth symbolizes the church, see no. 285 above.
The blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound symbolize the examination and exposure of the state of the church and life in people who in doctrine and life have confirmed themselves in a faith divorced from charity, over whose state the lamentation takes place.
"Woe" symbolizes a lamentation over the present or future calamity, unhappiness, or damnation of various other people in the following:
Woe to you, ...Pharisees (and) hypocrites... (Matthew 23:13-16, 23, 25, 27, 29)
...woe to (the) man by whom (the Son of man) is betrayed! (Luke 22:22)
...woe to him through whom (offenses) do come! (Luke 17:1)
Woe to those who join house to house... Woe to those who rise early in the morning; they pursue intoxicating drink... Woe to those who draw to themselves iniquity... Woe to those who speak... good of evil... Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes... Woe to men mighty at drinking wine... (Isaiah 5:8, 11, 18, 20, 21, 22)
And so also in many other places.
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