The Bible

 

Ezekiel 31

Study

   

1 It happened in the eleventh year, in the third [month], in the first [day] of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

2 Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude: Whom are you like in your greatness?

3 Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, and of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs.

4 The waters nourished it, the deep made it to grow: its rivers ran all around its plantation; and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.

5 Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were multiplied, and its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it shot [them] forth.

6 All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs; and under its branches did all the animals of the field bring forth their young; and under its shadow lived all great nations.

7 Thus was it beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its root was by many waters.

8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it; the fir trees were not like its boughs, and the plane trees were not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty.

9 I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.

10 Therefore thus said the Lord Yahweh: Because you are exalted in stature, and he has set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;

11 I will even deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal with him; I have driven him out for his wickedness.

12 Strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: on the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land; and all the peoples of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.

13 On his ruin all the birds of the sky shall dwell, and all the animals of the field shall be on his branches;

14 to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, neither set their top among the thick boughs, nor that their mighty ones stand up on their height, [even] all who drink water: for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.

15 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: In the day when he went down to Sheol I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers; and the great waters were stayed; and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth.

17 They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, [that] lived under his shadow in the midst of the nations.

18 To whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth: you shall lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, says the Lord Yahweh.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #467

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

467. In the Word the Garden of Eden does not mean a garden, but intelligence, and a tree does not mean a tree, but man. The Garden of Eden can be shown to mean intelligence and wisdom from the following passages:

In your intelligence and wisdom you made riches for yourself. 1 Ezekiel 28:4.

and in the continuation of this chapter:

Full of wisdom, you were in Eden, God's garden; every kind of precious stone was your covering, Ezekiel 28:12-13.

This is said of the prince and king of Tyre, to whom wisdom is attributed, because Tyre in the Word means the church in respect of knowledge of truth and good, which is the means to wisdom. The precious stones which are to be his covering also mean things known about truth and good; for the prince and king of Tyre were not in the Garden of Eden.

[2] In another passage in Ezekiel:

Asshur is a cedar in Lebanon. The cedars have not hidden it in the garden of God. All the trees in the garden of God were not its equal in beauty; all the trees of Eden in the garden of God envied it, Ezekiel 31:3, 8-9.

And further on:

To whom you thus became like in glory and size among the trees of Eden, Ezekiel 31:18.

This is said of Asshur, because in the Word Asshur means rationality and intelligence arising from this.

[3] In Isaiah:

Jehovah will comfort Zion, and turn its desert into an Eden and its wilderness into a garden of Jehovah, Isaiah 51:3.

Zion there is the church, Eden and the garden of Jehovah are wisdom and intelligence. In Revelation:

To him who overcomes I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise 2 of God, Revelation 2:7.

In the midst of the street, on either side of the river was the tree of life, Revelation 22:2.

[4] These passages show plainly that the garden in Eden, in which we are told Adam was placed, means intelligence and wisdom, because similar things are said of Tyre, Asshur and Zion. A garden also means intelligence in other passages of the Word, such as Isaiah 58:11; 61:11; Jeremiah 31:12; Amos 9:14; Numbers 24:6. This spiritual way of understanding a garden is due to the representations seen in the spiritual world. There parks are to be seen, wherever angels possess intelligence and wisdom; it is the intelligence and wisdom themselves, which they get from the Lord, which produce such appearances around them. This is due to the correspondence, because everything which comes into being in the spiritual world is an example of correspondence.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin text repeats here the phrase 'you were in Eden, God's garden' from the next quotation.

2. The Greek word paradeisos, used here in its Latin form, means properly an enclosed garden or park; the meaning 'paradise' arose only later.

  
/ 853  
  

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