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Ezekiel 37

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1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,

2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.

4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.

5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.

8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.

12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.

13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,

14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.

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

16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:

17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.

18 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?

19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.

20 And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.

21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:

22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.

24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.

25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.

26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.

27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

   

The Bible

 

Isaiah 26:19

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19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #3921

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3921. 'Rachel said, God has judged me, and also has heard my voice' in the highest sense means righteousness and mercy, in the internal sense the holiness of faith, in the external sense the good of life. This is clear from the meaning of 'God's judging me', and from the meaning of 'hearing my voice'. 'God's judging me' means the Lord's righteousness, as may be seen without explanation, while 'hearing my voice' means mercy, as may likewise be seen; for the Lord judges everyone from righteousness, and hears everyone from mercy. He judges from righteousness in that He does so from Divine Truth, and hears from mercy in that He does so from Divine Good. He judges from righteousness those who do not receive Divine Good, and hears from mercy those who do. Yet when He judges from righteousness He does so at the same time from mercy since all Divine righteousness includes mercy within itself, even as Divine Truth includes Divine Good within it. But as these arcana are too deep for brief comment, they will in the Lord's Divine mercy be explained more fully elsewhere.

[2] The reason why 'God has judged me, and also has heard my voice' in the internal sense means the holiness of faith is that faith, which is associated with truth, corresponds to Divine righteousness, and holiness, which is goodness, corresponds to the Lord's Divine mercy; and in addition to this, judging or judgement is associated with the truth of faith, 2235. And since it is God who is said to have judged, that which is good or holy is meant. From this it is evident that the holiness of faith, at the same time as righteousness and mercy, is meant by these two expressions - 'God has judged me' and 'has heard my voice'. And because the two together mean a single entity they are joined by the words 'and also'. The reason the good of life is meant in the external sense is also rooted in correspondence, for the good of life corresponds to the holiness of faith. Without the internal sense no one can know what 'God has judged me, and also has heard me' means, and this is evident from the consideration that in the sense of the letter the two phrases do not fit together very easily to present one complete and intelligible idea.

[3] The reason why in this verse and in those that follow as far as 'Joseph' the name God is used and why in the verses immediately before these Jehovah is used is that in this and the following verses the regeneration of the spiritual man is the subject, whereas in those before them the regeneration of the celestial man was the subject. For God is used when the good of faith which is an attribute of the spiritual man is the subject, but Jehovah when the good of love which is an attribute of the celestial man is the subject, see 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822. For Judah, down to whom the births of sons went in the previous chapter, represented the celestial man, see 3881, whereas Joseph, down to whom those births go in the present chapter, represents the spiritual man, dealt with below in verses 23-24. The name Jehovah is used down to Judah, see Genesis 29:32-33, 35, but God down to Joseph, see verses 6, 8, 17-18, 20, 22-23 of the present chapter, after which Jehovah occurs again because the subject moves on from the spiritual man to the celestial. This is the arcanum which lies concealed in these words and which no one can know except from the internal sense, and also unless he knows what the celestial man is and what the spiritual.

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