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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.

   

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Job 17:15

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15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

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Apocalypse Revealed #866

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866. 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. This symbolizes all people of every condition and character, who had died from earthly lands and were now among those in the world of spirits, gathered by the Lord for judgment.

The dead symbolize all who had departed from earthly lands, or who had died physically. More on this below. Small and great symbolize people of every condition and character, as in no. 604. To stand before God, that is, before Him who sat on the throne, symbolically means to be gathered and presented for judgment.

The dead in the Word have the same symbolic meaning as their deaths, and deaths have various symbolic meanings. For death symbolizes not only the extinction of natural life, which is its demise, but also the extinction of spiritual life, which is a state of damnation. Death also symbolizes the extinction of physical loves or lusts of the flesh, which is followed by a renewal of life. Death likewise symbolizes resurrection, because after death a person immediately rises again. Death also symbolizes a state of being ignored, disregarded and rejected by the world.

In its most general sense, however, death has the same symbolic meaning as the Devil, which is why the Devil is also called Death, 1 and the Devil means the hell where the inhabitants are called devils. Consequently death means evil of will as well, which makes a person to be a devil. It is in this last sense that Death is referred to in the next two verses, where we are told that Death and Hell delivered up their dead and that these were cast into the lake of fire.

It can be seen from this who are symbolically meant by the dead in the various senses of the term. Symbolized here are all those people who had departed from the world or died from earthly lands, and were then in the world of spirits.

[2] We say, in the world of spirits, because all people come first into that world after their demise, and are there prepared, the good for heaven and the evil for hell, and some remain there for only a month or a year, and some for as much as ten to thirty years. And those who were granted to form for themselves pseudo-heavens remained there for several centuries. People today, however, remain no more than twenty years. There is a huge multitude of them, and they form societies there as in the heavens and hells. Regarding this world, see nos. 784, 791 above.

It was on these people in the world of spirits that the Last Judgment was executed, and not on those in heaven or those in hell. For those who were in heaven had already been saved, and those who were in hell had already been damned.

It can be seen from this how deluded those people are who believe that the Last Judgment will take place on earth, and that people will then rise again with their bodies. For all who have lived from the first creation of the world are together in the spiritual world, and all are clothed with a spiritual body, so that to the eyes of spiritual people they appear in the same human form as people do in the natural world to the eyes of natural people.

Footnotes:

1. As in Revelation 6:8; 20:13, 14

  
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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.

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