11
καί-C λαμβάνω-VBI-AAI3P ὁ-
A--ASN βιβλίον-N2N-ASN ὁ-
A--GSF κτῆσις-N3I-GSF ὁ-
A--ASN σφραγίζω-VTI-XMPASN καί-C ὁ-
A--ASN ἀναγιγνώσκω-VT--XMPASM
Jeremiah 39:11
Apocalypse Revealed #748
748. "And eat her flesh and burn her with fire." This symbolically means that Protestants will with hatred condemn and destroy in themselves the evils and falsities inherent in the Roman Catholic religion, and will renounce the religion itself and expunge it in themselves.
This is said of Protestants, who will deal thus with the harlot, that is, with the Roman Catholic religion. To eat her flesh means, symbolically, with hatred to condemn and destroy in themselves the inherent characteristics of that religion, which are evils and falsities, about which we will say more below. And to burn her with fire means, symbolically, to renounce that religion as profane and expunge it in themselves.
This is what burning with fire means because the penalty for profaning something holy was burning. Therefore, according to Divine law, people who profaned the name of Jehovah by worshiping other gods were burned with fire - they and all their belongings (Deuteronomy 13:12-18). Therefore Moses burned with fire the golden calf that the children of Israel were profanely worshiping (Exodus 32:20, Deuteronomy 9:21). Moreover, because two of Aaron's sons profaned holy things, they were consumed by fire from heaven (Leviticus 10:1-6). Nor is anything else symbolized by the fire and pyre in Tophet but the fire of hell, which awaits those who profane holy things (Isaiah 30:33, Jeremiah 7:11, 31-32; 19:5-6, 2 Kings 23:10), for there the people worshiped Molech with a heinous sacrifice. 1
[2] Since the fourth beast in Daniel 7 symbolizes a religion that profanes the Word and consequently the sanctities of the church (no. 717), therefore we are told that it was burned with fire (Daniel 7:11).
Now, because it is profane worship to worship a person instead of the Lord, we are accordingly told here that they burnt the harlot with fire, which symbolically means that they renounced the religion itself and expunged it in themselves.
To eat her flesh means, symbolically, with hatred to condemn and destroy in themselves the inherent characteristics of that religion, which are evils and falsities, because that is the symbolic meaning of eating her flesh. For flesh symbolizes the inherent characteristics of a thing which relate to goods and truths, and in an opposite sense, to evils and falsities, and to eat means, symbolically, to consume, thus to destroy.
That flesh symbolizes a person's inherent character, which in itself is evil, is clear from the following passages:
It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. (John 6:63)
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6)
As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to be children of God...: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh... (John 1:12-13)
(God) remembered that they were flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again. (Psalms 78:39)
The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. (Isaiah 31:3)
(Jerusalem) committed harlotry with the Egyptians..., great of flesh. (Ezekiel 16:26)
Jesus... said to (Peter), ."..flesh and blood has not revealed this to you...." (Matthew 16:17)
Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm... (Jeremiah 17:5)
[3] Because flesh symbolizes a person's inherent character, and people who hate others attack their personal character with the intention of destroying it, therefore to eat the flesh has also this symbolic meaning, as in the following passages:
Let the dying die, and the cut off be cut off. Those that are left eat each other's flesh. (Zechariah 11:9)
They shall devour Israel with the whole mouth... Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm - Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh. (Isaiah 9:12, 20-21)
I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh... (Isaiah 49:26)
...everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend... (Jeremiah 19:9)
To eat the flesh of sons and daughters (Jeremiah 19:9, Leviticus 26:29, Deuteronomy 28:53) means, symbolically, to destroy truths and goods in oneself, for sons symbolize truths, and daughters goods, as may be seen in nos. 139, 543, 545, 612[1-4] above.
Moreover, in the Word we find reference to "all flesh," and this symbolically means all mankind (Genesis 6:12-13, 17, 19).
Footnotes:
1. The heinous sacrifice consisted of "passing infants through the fire to Molech," by burning them alive on a sacrificial altar. Vestiges of this worship have been found elsewhere, as far as northern Africa. Tophet was a site in the valley of Hinnom at the foot of Mount Zion on the south side. Because of the nature of its worship, the valley of Hinnon (Ge' Hinnom = Gehenna) became synonymous with Hades or hell.
Leviticus 26
1
"'You shall make for yourselves no idols, neither shall you raise up an engraved image or a pillar, neither shall you place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it: for I am Yahweh your God.
2
"'You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.
3
"'If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;
4
then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
5
Your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6
"'I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid; and I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
7
You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8
Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9
"'I will have respect for you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
10
You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new.
11
I will set my tent among you: and my soul won't abhor you.
12
I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people.
13
I am Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; and I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you go upright.
14
"'But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments;
15
and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant;
16
I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
17
I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18
"'If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.
19
I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass;
20
and your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won't yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21
"'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.
22
I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your roads will become desolate.
23
"'If by these things you won't be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me;
24
then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.
25
I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
26
When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27
"'If you in spite of this won't listen to me, but walk contrary to me;
28
then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins.
29
You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
30
I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.
31
I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings.
32
I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it.
33
I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34
Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
35
As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn't have in your sabbaths, when you lived on it.
36
"'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues.
37
They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies.
38
You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up.
39
Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
40
"'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,
41
I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity;
42
then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
43
The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.
44
Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God;
45
but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.'"
46
These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
