The Bible

 

Obadiah 1

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1 Thus said the Lord Jehovah to Edom, A report we have heard from Jehovah, And an ambassador among nations was sent, `Rise, yea, let us Rise against her for battle.'

2 Lo, little I have made thee among nations, Despised [art] thou exceedingly.

3 The pride of thy heart hath lifted thee up, O dweller in clifts of a rock, (A high place [is] his habitation, He is saying in his heart, `Who doth bring me down [to] earth?')

4 If thou dost go up high as an eagle, And if between stars thou dost set thy nest, From thence I bring thee down, An affirmation of Jehovah.

5 If thieves have come in to thee, If spoilers of the night, How hast thou been cut off! Do they not steal their sufficiency? If gatherers have come in to thee, Do they not leave gleanings?

6 How hath Esau been searched out! Flowed out have his hidden things,

7 Unto the border sent thee have all thine allies, Forgotten thee, prevailed over thee, have thy friends, Thy bread they make a snare under thee, There is no understanding in him!

8 Is it not in that day -- an affirmation of Jehovah, That I have destroyed the wise out of Edom, And understanding out of the mount of Esau?

9 And broken down have been thy mighty ones, O Teman, So that every one of the mount of Esau is cut off.

10 For slaughter, for violence [to] thy brother Jacob, Cover thee doth shame, And thou hast been cut off -- to the age.

11 In the day of thy standing over-against, In the day of strangers taking captive his force, And foreigners have entered his gates, And for Jerusalem have cast a lot, Even thou [art] as one of them!

12 And -- thou dost not look on the day of thy brother, On the day of his alienation, Nor dost thou rejoice over sons of Judah, In the day of their destruction, Nor make great thy mouth in a day of distress.

13 Nor come into a gate of My people in a day of their calamity, Nor look, even thou, on its misfortune in a day of its calamity, Nor send forth against its force in a day of its calamity,

14 Nor stand by the breach to cut off its escaped, Nor deliver up its remnant in a day of distress.

15 For near [is] the day of Jehovah, on all the nations, As thou hast done, it is done to thee, Thy deed doth turn back on thine own head.

16 For -- as ye have drunk on My holy mount, Drink do all the nations continually, And they have drunk and have swallowed, And they have been as they have not been.

17 And in mount Zion there is an escape, And it hath been holy, And the house of Jacob have possessed their possessions.

18 And the house of Jacob hath been a fire, And the house of Joseph a flame, And the house of Esau for stubble, And they have burned among them, And they have consumed them, And there is not a remnant to the house of Esau, For Jehovah hath spoken.

19 And they have possessed the south with the mount of Esau, And the low country with the Philistines, And they have possessed the field of Ephraim, And the field of Samaria, And Benjamin with Gilead.

20 And the removed of this force of the sons of Israel, That [is with] the Canaanites unto Zarephat, And the removed of Jerusalem that [is] with the Sepharad, Possess the cities of the south.

21 And gone up have saviours on mount Zion, To judge the mount of Esau, And the kingdom hath been to Jehovah!'

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #338

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338. Hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. This symbolically means that they were now caught up in evils and in the falsities accompanying evil.

Hiding themselves in caves and in mountain rocks means, symbolically, to be caught up in evils and in the falsities accompanying evil, because the people who pretended before the world that they were prompted by the goodness of love, and yet were caught up in evil, after death hid themselves in caves. And those who pretended that they were prompted by truths of faith, and yet were caught up in the falsities accompanying evil, hid themselves in mountain rocks.

The entrances appear as holes in the ground and as crevices in the mountains, into which they slip like snakes and there hide themselves.

That such is the nature of their abodes is something I have often seen.

It is in consequence of this that caves in the following places symbolize the evils in such people, and holes and crevices the falsities accompanying evil:

(In that day) they shall go into caves in the rocks, and into crevices in the cliffs..., when (Jehovah) rises to terrify the earth. (Isaiah 2:19)

In that day...(they shall) go into clefts in the rocks and into crevices in the cliffs, because of their terror of Jehovah... (Isaiah 2:20-21)

(They shall) live in crevices in the valleys, (and) in holes in the earth, and in rocks. (Job 30:6)

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who dwell in crevices... (Obadiah v. 3)

...in that day... they will come, and... will rest in the desolate river beds and in the crevices of the rocks... (Isaiah 7:18-19)

...the palace will be a wilderness... The stronghold and watchtower shall be upon caves forever... (Isaiah 32:14)

...the pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the holes of the rock... (Jeremiah 49:16)

...they shall hunt them upon every mountain and hill, and out of the holes of the rocks... They are not hidden before Me, nor is their iniquity hidden... (Jeremiah 16:16-17)

(In that day) the nursing child shall play on the viper's hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk's 1 cave. (Isaiah 11:8)

Footnotes:

1. Legendary serpents or dragons, whose breath and glance were said to be lethal. Formerly identified in English translations of the Latin Vulgate with the cockatrice, and retained as such in the King James Bible.

  
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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.