The Bible

 

Matthew 8

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1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,

6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

14 And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever.

15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.

16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:

17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.

19 And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

20 And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.

24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.

25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.

26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!

28 And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.

29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

30 And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding.

31 So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.

32 And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.

33 And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils.

34 And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.

   

Commentary

 

Hogs

  

In Leviticus 11:7 and Matthew 7:6, this signifies filthy loves of those in the hells of adulterers. (Apocalypse Explained 1044[4]) Swine signify people who love only worldly riches. (Apocalypse Revealed 727)

In Isaiah 65:4, this signifies appropriation of infernal evils. (Apocalypse Explained 659[2]) 'Swine' or 'hogs' correspond to the life of greed and its delight.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 1742)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Providence #230

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230. The profanation of what is holy is referred to in the second of the Ten Commandments in the words, "You shall not profane the name of your God" [Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11]; and the Lord's prayer is telling us that we must not profane what is holy when it says, "Hallowed be your name" [Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2]. Hardly anyone in all Christendom knows what "the name of God" means. This is because people do not know that people in the spiritual world do not have names the way we do in this physical world. Rather, each individual is named for her or his own love and wisdom. As soon as we enter a community or a gathering of people, we are immediately given a name that expresses our nature. We are named in a spiritual language that is essentially able to give a distinctive name to every individual thing, because every letter in its alphabet means something definite; and when many letters are combined into a single word, as happens with an individual's name, they include the whole state of that object. This is just one of the marvels of the spiritual world.

[2] We can see from this that in the Word, "the name of God" means both God and everything divine that is in him and that emanates from him. Since the Word is a divine emanation, it is a name of God; and since all the divine gifts that we refer to as the spiritual gifts of the church come from the Word, they too are a name of God.

This enables us to see what "You shall not profane the name of your God" means in the second of the Ten Commandments, and what "Hallowed be your name" means in the Lord's Prayer.

"The name of God" and "the name of the Lord" mean much the same in many passages in the Word in both Testaments. See, for example, Matthew 7:22; Matthew 10:22; Matthew 18:5, 20; Matthew 19:29; Matthew 21:9; Matthew 24:9-10; John 1:12; John 2:23; John 3:17-18; John 12:13, 28; John 14:14-15, 16; John 16:23-24, 26-27; John 17:6; and John 20:31, among others, as well as a great many in the Old Testament.

[3] If you know the meaning of this "name," then you can know the meaning of the Lord's words, "Whoever accepts a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. Whoever receives a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward; and whoever gives one of these little ones something cold to drink in the name of a disciple will not lose the reward" (Matthew 10:21 [Matthew 10:41-42]). If you understand the name of a prophet or a righteous person or a disciple to mean nothing but the prophet or the righteous person or the disciple, then the only meaning you get will be a literal one. You will not know, either, what is meant by the reward of the prophet or the reward of the righteous person or the reward for the cold drink given on behalf of the disciple. Yet the name and the reward of the prophet mean the blessed state of people who enjoy divine gifts of truth, and the name and the reward of the righteous person mean the blessed state of people who enjoy divine gifts of what is good, while the disciple means the state of people who have some of the spiritual gifts of the church, and the cold drink is any element of truth.

[4] We can also tell that the name means the nature of the state of love and wisdom, or of what is good and true, from these words of the Lord: "The one who comes in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens to him and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out" (Matthew 10:2, 3 [John 10:2-3]). "Calling sheep by name" is teaching and leading every individual whose deeds are prompted by caring, and doing so in keeping with that individual's state of love and wisdom. "The door" means the Lord, as we can tell from verse 9: "I am the door. Anyone who enters in by me will be saved." This shows that we need to turn to the Lord himself if we are to be saved, and that the one who does turn to him is a shepherd of his sheep. Anyone who does not turn to him is a thief and a robber, as it says in the first verse of the same chapter.

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