The Bible

 

Ezekiel 46

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1 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: The gate of the inner court that looks toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.

2 The prince shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate outside, and shall stand by the post of the gate; and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate: then he shall go forth; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.

3 The people of the land shall worship at the door of that gate before Yahweh on the Sabbaths and on the new moons.

4 The burnt offering that the prince shall offer to Yahweh shall be on the Sabbath day six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish;

5 and the meal offering shall be an ephah for the ram, and the meal offering for the lambs as he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

6 On the day of the new moon it shall be a young bull without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram; they shall be without blemish:

7 and he shall prepare a meal offering, an ephah for the bull, and an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs according as he is able, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

8 When the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of the gate, and he shall go forth by its way.

9 But when the people of the land shall come before Yahweh in the appointed feasts, he who enters by the way of the north gate to worship shall go forth by the way of the south gate; and he who enters by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate by which he came in, but shall go forth straight before him.

10 The prince, when they go in, shall go in with of them; and when they go out, he shall go out.

11 In the feasts and in the solemnities the meal offering shall be an ephah for a bull, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs as he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

12 When the prince shall prepare a freewill offering, a burnt offering or peace offerings as a freewill offering to Yahweh, one shall open for him the gate that looks toward the east; and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he does on the Sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.

13 You shall prepare a lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering to Yahweh daily: morning by morning you shall prepare it.

14 You shall prepare a meal offering with it morning by morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of a hin of oil, to moisten the fine flour; a meal offering to Yahweh continually by a perpetual ordinance.

15 Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meal offering, and the oil, morning by morning, for a continual burnt offering.

16 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: If the prince give a gift to any of his sons, it is his inheritance, it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance.

17 But if he give of his inheritance a gift to one of his servants, it shall be his to the year of liberty; then it shall return to the prince; but as for his inheritance, it shall be for his sons.

18 Moreover the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance, to thrust them out of their possession; he shall give inheritance to his sons out of his own possession, that my people not be scattered every man from his possession.

19 Then he brought me through the entry, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy rooms for the priests, which looked toward the north: and behold, there was a place on the hinder part westward.

20 He said to me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass offering and the sin offering, [and] where they shall bake the meal offering; that they not bring them forth into the outer court, to sanctify the people.

21 Then he brought me forth into the outer court, and caused me to pass by the four corners of the court; and behold, in every corner of the court there was a court.

22 In the four corners of the court there were courts enclosed, forty [cubits] long and thirty broad: these four in the corners were of one measure.

23 There was a wall around in them, around the four, and boiling places were made under the walls all around.

24 Then he said to me, These are the boiling houses, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

The Lord #52

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52. 6. Jehovah himself - that is, the Lord - spoke the Word through prophets.

We read of the prophets that they had visions and that Jehovah talked with them. When they had visions, they were not focused on their bodies but on the spirit, in which state they saw things of a heavenly nature. When Jehovah talked with them, though, they were conscious of their bodies and heard Jehovah speaking.

We need to draw a clear distinction between these two states. In a visionary state, the eyes of their spirit were open and the eyes of their body were closed; and at such times they seemed to themselves to be taken from place to place while their bodies stayed where they were. Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel were in this state at times, and so was John when he wrote the Book of Revelation. They were then said to be in a vision or in the spirit. In fact, Ezekiel says,

The spirit lifted me up and brought me back into Chaldea, to the captivity, in a vision from God, in the spirit of God. In this way the vision that I saw came over me. (Ezekiel 11:1, 24)

He says that the spirit lifted him up and that he heard an earthquake and other things behind him (Ezekiel 3:12, 14). He also said that the spirit lifted him up between earth and heaven and took him off into Jerusalem in visions from God, and he saw abominations (Ezekiel 8:3 and following).

That is why (again in a vision of God or in the spirit) Ezekiel saw the four beasts that were angel guardians (chapters 1; 10), and he saw a new earth and a new temple with the angel measuring them, as we are told in chapters 40-48. He says in chapter 40:2, that he was then in visions from God; and in chapter 43:5, he says that the spirit lifted him up at that time.

The same thing happened with Zechariah. There was an angel inwardly present with him when he saw a man riding among myrtle trees (Zechariah 1:8 and following); when he saw four horns and then a man with a measuring line in his hand (Zechariah 1:18; 2:1); when he saw Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1 and following); when he saw a lampstand and two olive trees (Zechariah 4:1 and following); when he saw a flying scroll and a measuring basket (Zechariah 5:1, 6); and when he saw four chariots coming from between two mountains, along with horses (Zechariah 6:1 and following).

Daniel was in the same kind of state when he saw four beasts come up from the sea (Daniel 7:3) and when he saw battles between a ram and a goat (Daniel 8:1 and following).

We read in Daniel 7:1-2, 7, 13; 8:2; 10:1, 7-8 that he saw these things in visions. We read in Daniel 9:21 that he saw the angel Gabriel in a vision and talked with him.

Much the same happened with John when he wrote the Book of Revelation. He says that he was in the spirit on the Lord’s day (Revelation 1:10), that he was carried away in the spirit into the wilderness (17:3), to a high mountain in the spirit (21:10), that he saw horses in a vision (9:17), and elsewhere that he saw what he described, being therefore in the spirit or in a vision (1:2; 4:1; 5:1; 6:1; and in the particular chapters that follow).

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