From Swedenborg's Works

 

The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms #161

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161. Internal Meaning of Ezekiel, Chapter 38

1-2 Those who are in the mere sense of the letter of the Word, and in a worship therefrom which is external without an internal, are meant by Gog. (2)

3-7 Everything and all things of that worship will perish. (2)

8-16 That worship will possess the church, and will vastate it, and it will thus be in externals without internals. (2)

17-19 The state of the church will therefore be changed. (2, 7)

20-23 And the truths and goods of religion will perish in consequence, and falsities will succeed in their place. (2)

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

The Bible

 

Ezekiel 38:8-16

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8 After many days you shall be visited: in the latter years you shall come into the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, on the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste; but it is brought forth out of the peoples, and they shall dwell securely, all of them.

9 You shall ascend, you shall come like a storm, you shall be like a cloud to cover the land, you, and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.

10 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: It shall happen in that day, that things shall come into your mind, and you shall devise an evil device:

11 and you shall say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates;

12 to take the spoil and to take the prey; to turn your hand against the waste places that are [now] inhabited, and against the people who are gathered out of the nations, who have gotten livestock and goods, who dwell in the middle of the earth.

13 Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions of it, shall tell you, Have you come to take the spoil? have you assembled your company to take the prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great spoil?

14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and tell Gog, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: In that day when my people Israel dwells securely, shall you not know it?

15 You shall come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you, and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army;

16 and you shall come up against my people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land: it shall happen in the latter days, that I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when I shall be sanctified in you, Gog, before their eyes.