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Ezekiel 42

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1 Then he brought me forth into the outer court, the way toward the north: and he brought me into the room that was over against the separate place, and which was over against the building toward the north.

2 Before the length of one hundred cubits was the north door, and the breadth was fifty cubits.

3 Over against the twenty [cubits] which belonged to the inner court, and Over against the pavement which belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in the third story.

4 Before the rooms was a walk of ten cubits' breadth inward, a way of one cubit; and their doors were toward the north.

5 Now the upper rooms were shorter; for the galleries took away from these, more than from the lower and the middle, in the building.

6 For they were in three stories, and they didn't have pillars as the pillars of the courts: therefore [the uppermost] was straitened more than the lowest and the middle from the ground.

7 The wall that was outside by the side of the rooms, toward the outer court before the rooms, its length was fifty cubits.

8 For the length of the rooms that were in the outer court was fifty cubits: and behold, before the temple were one hundred cubits.

9 From under these rooms was the entry on the east side, as one goes into them from the outer court.

10 In the thickness of the wall of the court toward the east, before the separate place, and before the building, there were rooms.

11 The way before them was like the appearance of [the way of] the rooms which were toward the north; according to their length so was their breadth: and all their exits were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.

12 According to the doors of the rooms that were toward the south was a door at the head of the way, even the way directly before the wall toward the east, as one enters into them.

13 Then he said to me, The north rooms and the south rooms, which are before the separate place, they are the holy rooms, where the priests who are near to Yahweh shall eat the most holy things: there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meal offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy.

14 When the priests enter in, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the outer court, but there they shall lay their garments in which they minister; for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and shall approach to that which pertains to the people.

15 Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it all around.

16 He measured on the east side with the measuring reed five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed all around.

17 He measured on the north side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed all around.

18 He measured on the south side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

19 He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

20 He measured it on the four sides: it had a wall around it, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #945

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945. 22:8 Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. This means that John supposed that the angel sent to him by the Lord to keep him in a state of the spirit was the God who revealed these things, when in fact that was not the case, as the angel only showed him what the Lord presented.

Clearly John supposed that the angel sent to him was the Lord Himself, for we are told that he fell down to worship before the angel's feet. But that it was not as he supposed is apparent from the next verse, in which the angel tells him that he is his fellow servant: "Worship God." That the angel was sent to John by the Lord is apparent from verse 16, which says, "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches."

But behind this lies the following secret: The Lord sent the angel to John in order to keep him in a state of the spirit and to show him in that state the visions he saw. For whatever John saw, he saw not with the eyes of his body, but with the eyes of his spirit, as can be seen from the passages in which he says that he was in the spirit and seeing a vision (Revelation 1:10; 9:17; 17:3; 21:10), thus everywhere that he says "he saw." And a person can enter that state and be kept in it only by angels who are closely attached to the person, who induce their own spiritual state on the interiors of his mind. For this raises the person into the light of heaven, and in that light he sees sights in heaven and not in the world.

[2] Ezekiel, Zechariah, Daniel, and other prophets were at times in the same state, but not when they spoke the Word. When they spoke the Word they were not in the spirit, but conscious in the body, and the words they wrote they heard from Jehovah Himself, that is, from the Lord.

These two states experienced by the prophets must be properly distinguished. The prophets themselves also properly distinguished them, for they everywhere say when they wrote the Word from Jehovah that Jehovah spoke with them and to them, and most often, "Thus says Jehovah," or "the word of Jehovah." However, when they were in the other state, they say that they were in the spirit or seeing in a vision, as can be seen from the following: (Ezekiel said,) "The spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision... of God into Chaldea, to those in captivity. So the vision that I saw went up upon me." (Ezekiel 11:1, 24)

Ezekiel says that the spirit lifted him up and that he heard behind him an earthquake, among other things (Ezekiel 3:12, 14). Also that the spirit lifted him up between earth and heaven, and brought him in visions of God to Jerusalem, where he saw abominations (Ezekiel 8:3ff.). Therefore he was also seeing in a vision of God or in the spirit when he saw four living creatures, which were cherubim (Ezekiel 1 and 10). And when he saw a new temple and a new land, and an angel measuring them (Ezekiel 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48). He says that he was then seeing in the visions of God (Ezekiel 40:2), and that the spirit lifted him up (Ezekiel 43:5).

[3] It was the same with Zechariah, who had an angel with him at the time when he saw a man riding among the myrtle trees (Zechariah 1:8ff.). When he saw the four horns, and then the man with a measuring line in his hand (Zechariah 1:18; 2:1ff.). When he saw Joshua, the high priest (Zechariah 3:1ff.). When he saw the lampstand and two olive trees (Zechariah 4:1ff.). When he saw the flying scroll and the ephah (Zechariah 5:1, 6). And when he saw the four chariots and their horses coming from between two mountains (Zechariah 6:1ff.).

Daniel was in the same state when he saw four beasts coming up from the sea (Daniel 7:1ff.), and when he saw the combat of the ram and the male goat (Daniel 8:1ff.). That he saw these sights in visions is said in Daniel 7:1-2, 7, 13; 8:2; 10:1, 7-8. Moreover, that he saw the angel Gabriel and spoke with him in a vision (Daniel 9:21).

It was the same with John when he saw the sights he described, as when he saw the Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands; when he saw the tabernacle, 1 the temple, 2 the ark, 3 and the altar 4 in heaven; the dragon and its combat with Michael; 5 the beasts; 6 the woman sitting on the scarlet beast; 7 the new heaven and new earth, and the holy Jerusalem with its wall, gates, and foundations; 8 and more.

These sights were revealed by the Lord, but shown by an angel.

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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.