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Ezekiel 23

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1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:

3 And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.

4 And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.

5 And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours,

6 Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.

7 Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.

8 Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her.

9 Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.

10 These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her.

11 And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms.

12 She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.

13 Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way,

14 And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion,

15 Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity:

16 And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.

17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.

18 So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister.

19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.

20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

21 Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.

22 There, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side;

23 The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them: all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses.

24 And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments.

25 And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.

26 They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels.

27 Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.

28 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated:

29 And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.

30 I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.

31 Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand.

32 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much.

33 Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.

34 Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

35 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.

36 The LORD said moreover unto me; Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations;

37 That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.

38 Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths.

39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.

40 And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments,

41 And satest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set mine incense and mine oil.

42 And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.

43 Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them?

44 Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women.

45 And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

46 For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and spoiled.

47 And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

48 Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.

49 And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #9434

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9434. 'And the sight of Jehovah's glory was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel' means Divine Truth beaming brightly with the good of love in heaven itself, but harmful and ruinous with those restricted to its outward level, separated from the inward. This is clear from the meaning of 'the sight of Jehovah's glory' as the appearance presented by Divine Truth emanating from the Lord (the fact that 'the sight of' means the appearance presented before the eyes is self-evident; and for the meaning of 'Jehovah's glory' as Divine Truth emanating from the Lord, see 9429); from the meaning of 'fire' as love in both senses, dealt with in 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 7324, in this instance God's love itself; from the meaning of 'the top of the mountain' as the inmost part of heaven, for 'Mount Sinai' means heaven, 9420, 9427, and its highest point, which is called 'the top' and the peak, means its inmost part, 9422; from the meaning of 'devouring' as consuming, and so harming and ruining; and from the representation of 'the children of Israel' as those restricted to outward things, apart from inward ones, dealt with often above. From all this it becomes clear that 'the sight of Jehovah's glory was like a [devouring] fire on the top of the mountain' means Divine Truth beaming brightly with the good of love in heaven itself; and the statement that it was 'like a devouring fire in the eyes of the children of Israel' means that with those restricted to its outward level, apart from the inward, it was harmful and ruinous.

[2] The implications of all this are that there are two kinds of love which are complete opposites, heavenly love and hellish love. Heavenly love consists of love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour; hellish love consists of self-love and love of the world. Those with whom hellish loves reign are in hell, whereas those with whom heavenly loves reign are in heaven. For love is what constitutes the actual life within a person; without the love there is no life whatever. In everyone the heat and fire that his life possesses originate in his love; without that animating heat and fire he has no life, as is plainly evident. From this it follows that the character of the love determines the character of the life, and therefore that the character of the love determines that of the person. This being so, anyone can know from what his loves are whether he has heaven within himself or hell. The love present in a person is like a fire or flame, and in addition constitutes, as has been stated, the fire or flame of life; and the faith present there is like the light radiating from that fire or flame, and in addition constitutes the light which enlightens the more internal parts of his understanding. This also reveals the character of the light which gives rise to faith among those governed by heavenly love and the character of the light which gives rise to faith among those ruled by hellish love. The latter kind of light gives rise to faith that is no more than persuasion, which in itself is not faith at all, only a conviction that something is so, dictated by selfishness and worldliness, see 9363-9369. In the Church at the present day spiritual life, which is eternal life, is thought to lie in faith alone, thus in faith without the good works of heavenly love. But anyone who gives thought to the matter can see from the things which have now been stated what the character of that life is.

[3] Something must be said next about what Divine fire, that is, Divine Love, is like among those governed by heavenly love and what it is like among those ruled by hellish love. Among those governed by heavenly love it is God's fire or love constantly creating and renewing the interior parts of the will and enlightening the interior parts of the understanding. But among those ruled by hellish love it is God's fire or love constantly harming and ruining; and the reason for this is that among these people God's love meets with contrary feelings that destroy it. For it is turned into the fire or love of self and the world, and so into contempt for others in comparison with themselves, into feelings of enmity towards all who do not support them, thus into feelings of hatred, feelings of vengeance, and finally the readiness to behave brutally. This is why Jehovah's fire appeared before the eyes of the children of Israel as a devouring or consuming one. For being restricted to outward things, apart from inward, they were ruled by selfish and worldly love.

[4] The fact that this fire was to them a devouring and consuming one is again evident elsewhere in Moses,

It happened, when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, and the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. And you said, Lo, Jehovah our God has caused us to see His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire. Why therefore should we die? For this great fire will devour us; if we hear the voice of Jehovah our God any more we shall certainly die. Deuteronomy 5:23-25.

See also what has been shown in 6832, 8814, 8819, and the places quoted in 9380 showing that the character of this people was such. There are other places in the Word in which 'devouring fire' is used in reference to the wicked and means ruination, for example in Joel,

The day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and thick darkness, a day of cloud and gloom. Fire devours before them, 1 and behind them a flame burns. The land before them is like the garden of Eden, but behind them a desolate wilderness. 2 Joel 2:1-3.

[5] In Isaiah,

Jehovah will cause His glorious voice 3 to be heard, in the flame of a devouring fire. Isaiah 30:30.

In the same prophet,

Who among us will dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us will dwell with the hearths of eternity? Isaiah 33:14.

In the same prophet,

You will be punished 4 by Jehovah with the flame of a devouring fire. Isaiah 29:6.

In Ezekiel,

Your descendants will be devoured by fire. Ezekiel 23:25.

In these places 'a devouring fire' is the fire of desires that spring from self-love and love of the world, for this fire is that which consumes a person and ruins the Church. This was also represented by the fire that went out from before Jehovah, which devoured Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu, because they put foreign 5 fire in their censers, Leviticus 10:1-2. 'Putting foreign fire in censers' means introducing worship that springs from a love other than that which is heavenly. Such fire means selfish and worldly love, and every desire arising from it, see 1297, 1861, 5071, 5215, 6314, 6832, 7324, 7575, 9141.

Footnotes:

1. i.e. the great and strong people who will invade the land

2. literally, a wilderness of ruination

3. literally, the glory of His voice

4. literally, visited

5. i.e. unauthorized or profane

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