The Bible

 

ယေဇကျေလ 26

Study

   

1 သက္ကရာဇ်ဆယ်တခု၊ ပဌမတရက်နေ့တွင်၊ ထာဝရဘုရား၏နှုတ်ကပတ်တော်သည် ငါ့ဆီသို့ ရောက် ာ၍၊

2 အချင်းလူသားတုရုမြို့က၊ အေ့ဟေ၊ တိုင်းနိုင်ငံ တို့၏ တံခါးဖြစ်သော ယေရုရှလင်မြို့သည် ပျက်စီးသည် ဖြစ်၍၊ ငါ့လက်သို့ ရောက်လိမ့်မည်။ ထိုမြို့ဆိတ်ညံသော ကြောင့် ငါစည်ပင်လိမ့်မည်ဟု ယေရုရှလင်မြို့တဘက်၌ ဆိုမိသောကြောင့်၊

3 အရှင်ာဝရဘုရားမိန့်တော်မူသည်ကား၊ အိုတုရုမြို့၊ သင့်တဘက်၌ ငါနေ၏။ သမုဒ္ဒရာလှိုင်းတပိုး တက်သကဲ့သို့၊ လူအမျိုးမျိုးတို့သည် သင်ကိုတက်၍ တိုက်စေမည်။

4 သူတို့သည် တုရုမြို့ရိုးကိုဖျက်၍ ပြအိုးတို့ကို ဖြိုချကြလိမ့်မည်။ မြေမှုန့်ကို ငါခြစ်ခွာ၍ ရှင်းလင်းသောကျောက် ကဲ့သို့ ဖြစ်စေမည်။

5 ပင်လယ်အလယ်၌ ပိုက်ကွန်လှန်းရာ အရပ် ဖြစ်လိမ့်မည်။ ငါပြောပြီဟု အရှင်ထာဝရဘုရားမိန့်တော် မူ၏။ လူမျိုးလုယူရာဖြစ်ရလိမ့်မည်။

6 လယ်ပြင်၌ရှိသော သမီးတို့သည် ထားဖြင့် သေ၍၊ ငါသည် ထာဝရဘုရားဖြစ်ကြောင်းကို သိရကြ လိမ့်မည်ဟု မိန့်တော်မူ၏။

7 တဖန် အရှင်ထာဝရဘုရား မိန့်တော်မူသည် ကား၊ ဘုရင်တို့၏ဘုရင်တည်းဟူသော မြောက်မျက်နှာရှင် ဘုရင်နေဗုခဒ်နေဇာကို၊ မြင်းထားရထား၊ မြင်းစီးသူရဲ၊ လူများအလုံးအရင်းနှင့်တကွ တုရုမြို့သို့ ငါဆောင်ခဲ့ မည်။

8 သူသည်လယ်ပြင်၌ရှိသော သင်၏သားသမီးတို့ကို ထားနှင့်သတ်လိမ့်မည်။ သင့်တလက်၌ ရဲတိုက်ကိုတည်၍ မြေရိုးကိုဖို့ပြီးလျှင်၊ ဒိုင်းလွှားတို့ကို ချီကာလိမ့်မည်။

9 သင်၏မြို့ရိုးတဘက်တချက်၊ ဝက်ခွတိုင်၌ တုံးတို့ကို ဆွဲထား၍ သင်၏ရဲတိုက်တို့ကို တူးရွင်းနှင့် ဖြိုချလိမ့်မည်။

10 မြင်းများသောကြောင့် မြေမှုန့်သည် သင့်ကို ဖုံးလွှမ်းလိမ့်မည်။ တိုက်ဖျက်သော မြို့ထဲသို့ဝင်တတ် သကဲ့သို့ သင်၏မြို့တံခါးသို့ ဝင်သောအခါ၊ လှည်းရထား မျိုးမြည်သံ၊ မြင်းစီးသူရဲတို့ အသံကြောင့် သင်၏မြို့ရိုး လှုပ်ရှားလိမ့်မည်။

11 မြင်းခွာတို့ဖြင့် သင်၏လမ်းရှိသမျှတို့ကို နင်း လျက်၊ သင်၏လူတို့ကို ထားနှင့်သတ်၍၊ သင်ခိုလှုံစရာ ရုပ်တုဆင်းတုတို့သည် မြေတိုင်အောင် ပြိုလဲကြလိမ့်မည်။

12 သင်၏ဥစ္စာကို လုယူ၍သင်၏ကုန်များကိုလည်း သိမ်းယူကြလိမ့်မည်။ သင်၏အုတ်ထရံတို့ကို ဖြို၍ဘုံဗိမာန် တို့ကို ဖျက်ပြီးလျှင်၊ သင်၏ ကျောက်၊ သစ်သား၊ မြေတို့ကို ရေထဲမှာ ချပစ်ကြလိမ့်မည်။

13 သင်ဆိုသောသီချင်းသံကို ငါငြိမ်းစေ၍၊ သင်တီး သော စောင်းသံကို နောက်တဖန် အဘယ်သူမျှမကြားရ။

14 သင်သည် ရှင်းလင်းသောကျောက်ကဲ့သို့ ငိုက်ကွန်လှန်ရာ အရပ်ဖြစ်ရလိမ့်မည်။ နောက်တဖန် မတည်ပြန်ရ။ ငါထာဝရဘုရားပြောပြီဟု အရှင်ထာဝရ ဘုရားမိန့်တော်မူ၏။

15 တုရုမြို့ကို ရည်မှတ်၍ အရှင်ထာဝရဘုရား မိန့်တော်မူသည်ကား၊ သင့်အလယ်၌ ကြီးစွာသော လုပ်ကြံခြင်း အမှုဖြစ်၍၊ ထိခိုက်သော သူတို့သည် အော်ဟစ်သောအခါ၊ သင်ပြိုလဲခြင်း အသံကြောင့် တကျွန်းတနိုင်ငံ အရပ်တို့သည် တုန်လှုပ်ကြလိမ့်မည်။

16 သမုဒ္ဒရာမင်းအပေါင်းတို့သည် ရာဇပလ္လင်ပေါ် က ဆင်း၍၊ အင်္ကျီတော်ကို၎င်း၊ ချယ်လှယ်သော အဝတ် တော်ကို၎င်း၊ ချွတ်ပယ်ပြီးမှ၊ တုန်လှုပ်ခြင်းအဝတ်ကို ဝတ်လျက်၊ မြေပေါ်၌ ထိုင်လျက် ခဏခဏတုန်လှုပ်၍၊ သင်၏အမှုကြောင့် မိန်းမောတွေဝေကြလိမ့်မည်။

17 သူတို့ကလည်း၊ အိုကျော်စောသောမြို့ပင်လယ် သားနေပင်လယ်၌ အားကြီးသော မြို့ပင်လယ်သား အပေါင်းတို့ ရိုသေဘွယ်သော မြို့သားနှင့် ပြည့်စုံသော မြို့၊ သင်သည် အလွန်ပျက်စီးလေပြီတကားဟု သင့်အား ဆိုလျက်၊ သင့်အတွက် မြည်တမ်းကြလိမ့်မည်။

18 သင်ပြိုလဲသောနေ့တွင် တကျွန်းတနိုင်ငံ အရပ် တို့သည် တုန်လှုပ်၍၊ သင်ကွယ်ပျောက်သောကြောင့် ပင်လယ်၌ရှိသော ကျွန်းများတို့သည် ထိတ်လန့်ကြလိမ့် မည်။

19 အရှင်ထာဝရဘုရား မိန့်တော်မူသည်ကား၊ လူမနေသောမြို့ကဲ့သို့ ငါသည် သင့်ကိုဆိတ်ညံစေလျက်၊ ပင်လယ်ကိုသင့်အပေါ်သို့ ဆောင်ခဲ့၍၊ လှိုင်းတံပိုးတို့သည် သင့်ကိုလွှမ်းမိုးသောအခါ၊

20 ရှေးလူဟောင်းတို့ နေရာမြေတွင်းထဲသို့ ဆင်း သော သူတို့နှင့်အတူ သင့်ကိုငါ နှိမ့်ချ၍၊ သင်၌လူမနေစေ ခြင်းငှါ မြေတွင်းထဲသို့ဆင်းသောသူတို့နှင့်အတူ၊ ရှေး ကာလမှစ၍ဆိတ်ညံရာအရပ်၊ မြေအောက်အရပ်တို့၌ ငါချထားမည်။ ထိုအခါ အသက်ရှင်သောသူတို့၏ နေရာ ၌ ငါ့ဘုန်းကို ငါဖွင့်မည်။

21 သင်မူကား၊ ကြောက်မက်ဘွယ်သော အရာဖြစ် ၍၊ နောက်တဖန် အဘယ်သူမျှရှာ၍ မတွေ့နိုင်အောင်၊ ပျောက်ကုန်ရာသို့ရောက်လိမ့်မည်ဟု အရှင်ထာဝရ ဘုရားမိန့်တော်မူ၏။

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #774

Study this Passage

  
/ 962  
  

774. "Every kind of thyine wood, 1 every kind of ivory vessel." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these because they do not have any of the natural goods and truths to which such things correspond.

This statement is similar to the ones explained in nos. 772 and 773 above, the only difference being that the valuables named first mean spiritual goods and truths (as explained in no. 772 above), and that those named second mean celestial goods and truths (as explained just above in no. 773), while those named now - thyine wood and ivory vessel - mean natural goods and truths.

[2] To explain: There are three degrees of wisdom and love, and so three degrees of truth and goodness. We call the first degree celestial, the second spiritual, and the third natural. These three degrees are present from birth in every person, and they are present in general also in heaven and in the church. Because of this there are three heavens, a highest one, an intermediate one, and a lowest one, altogether distinct from each other in accordance with these degrees. The same is true of the Lord's church on earth. But this is not the place to explain the nature of the church with people in the celestial degree, with people in the spiritual degree, and with people in the natural degree. See instead what we said about them in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, Part Three, where we dealt with degrees. Here we will say only that in the case of people coming from Babylon, they have no spiritual goods and truths, no celestial goods and truths, and not even any natural goods and truths.

Spiritual goods and truths are mentioned first, because many of those coming from Babylon can be spiritual, provided they hold the Word holy at heart, as they do with the mouth. But they cannot become celestial, because they do not turn to the Lord, but turn to people living and dead and worship them. It is for this reason that celestial goods and truths are mentioned second.

[3] Thyine wood symbolizes natural good because wood in the Word symbolizes goodness, and stone truth, and thyine wood derives its name from a word meaning two, and the number two also symbolizes goodness.

The good symbolized is natural good, because wood is not a valuable material like gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet. The same is true of stone. The case is similar with ivory, which symbolizes natural truth. Ivory symbolizes natural truth because it is white and can be polished, and because it protrudes from the mouth of an elephant and also constitutes its might. In order for ivory to symbolize the natural truth of the goodness symbolized by thyine wood, the text specifies a vessel of ivory, as a vessel symbolizes something that contains, here truth that contains good.

[4] That wood symbolizes goodness can be seen to some extent from the following considerations: That the bitter waters at Marah were made sweet by casting in something wooden (Exodus 15:25). That the tables of stone on which the Law was written were placed in an ark made of acacia wood (Exodus 25:10-16). That the Temple in Jerusalem was roofed with wood and paneled inside with wood (1 Kings 6:9, 15). And that the altar in the wilderness was made of wood (Exodus 27:1, 6).

It can be seen to some extent also from the following:

...the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the wood answers it. (Habakkuk 2:11)

They will plunder your riches and pillage your merchandise..., and they will cast your stones and your timber... into the midst of the sea. (Ezekiel 26:12)

The prophet Ezekiel was told to take a piece of wood and write on it the names of Judah and the children of Israel, and also on another piece of wood the names of Joseph and Ephraim; and that the Lord Jehovih would make them into one piece of wood (Ezekiel 37:16, 19).

We drink our water in exchange for silver, and our wood comes at a price. (Lamentations 5:4)

If someone goes with his neighbor into a forest..., and the ax head (falls) from the wooden handle...(onto) his neighbor so that he dies, he shall flee to (a city of refuge). (Deuteronomy 19:5)

The latter is said because wood symbolizes goodness, and so because the person did not kill his neighbor out of evil or with evil intention, therefore, but by accident, being impelled by good. And so on elsewhere.

[5] In an opposite sense, however, wood symbolizes something evil or cursed. So for example, they made graven images out of wood and worshiped them (Deuteronomy 4:23-28; Isaiah 37:19; 40:20; Jeremiah 10:3, 8; Ezekiel 20:32). Also, being hanged from a tree was a curse (Deuteronomy 21:22-23).

That ivory symbolizes natural truth can be seen moreover from passages which mention ivory, such as Ezekiel 27:6, 15; Amos 3:15; 6:4; Psalms 45:8.

Footnotes:

1. Thyine wood has not been identified. It has been associated with citron wood, and also with scented wood in general.

  
/ 962  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

The Bible

 

Genesis 19

Study

   

1 The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth,

2 and he said, "See now, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way." They said, "No, but we will stay in the street all night."

3 He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.

5 They called to Lot, and said to him, "Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them."

6 Lot went out to them to the door, and shut the door after him.

7 He said, "Please, my brothers, don't act so wickedly.

8 See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don't do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof."

9 They said, "Stand back!" Then they said, "This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them!" They pressed hard on the man Lot, and drew near to break the door.

10 But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.

11 They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

12 The men said to Lot, "Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of the place:

13 for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it."

14 Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, "Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city." But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

15 When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, "Get up! Take your wife, and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city."

16 But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife's hand, and his two daughters' hands, Yahweh being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city.

17 It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, "Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!"

18 Lot said to them, "Oh, not so, my lord.

19 See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.

20 See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and my soul will live."

21 He said to him, "Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.

22 Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

24 Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.

25 He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.

26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh.

28 He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.

29 It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

30 Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.

31 The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in the way of all the earth.

32 Come, let's make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."

33 They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.

34 It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed."

35 They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she got up.

36 Thus both of Lot's daughters were with child by their father.

37 The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day.

38 The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.