592. The meaning of Jehovah said, "I will obliterate the human" as the fact that humanity would annihilate itself is established by what was said above [§588]. That is, Jehovah (the Lord) is described as punishing, testing, doing evil, destroying or killing, and cursing. For instance, Jehovah is said to have killed Er, Judah's firstborn, and Onan, his second (Genesis 38:7, 10), and all the firstborn of Egypt (Exodus 12:12, 29). Jeremiah has an example:

... whom I have struck in my anger and in my wrath. (Jeremiah 33:5)

In David:

He sent against them the wrath of his anger, his ire, and fury, and anguish, a delegation of evil angels. (Psalms 78:49)

In Amos:

Will there be evil in the city and Jehovah did not do it? (Amos 3:6)

In John:

... seven golden bowls full of the anger of God, who lives forever and ever. (Revelation 15:1, 7; 16:1)

All of these banes are said to be from Jehovah, even though the truth is the exact opposite.

The reason they are attributed to him was given above [§§588-589]. A further purpose is to allow people to form first the very general idea that the Lord controls and arranges absolutely everything. Later they can learn that nothing bad comes from the Lord, least of all murder, but that we humans are the ones who bring evil on ourselves and destroy and kill ourselves. Still, it is not we who do so but evil spirits who goad us and lead us on; and yet it is we who do so after all, because we fully believe it is.

This is the reason, then, that the present verse says Jehovah would obliterate the human, when truly it is humans who destroyed and annihilated themselves.

[2] The actual situation is especially clear from those in the other life who undergo the tortures of hell. They are constantly weeping and blaming the Lord for all the negative consequences of their punishment. Those evil spirits in the realm of evil spirits who take pleasure — their greatest pleasure — in hurting and punishing others lay the blame in the same place. The ones they wound and discipline think it is the Lord who does so, but I told them and showed them that absolutely nothing bad comes from the Lord. "On the contrary," I said, "you bring the evil on yourselves.

"The way all things in this other life are arranged and balanced, evil rebounds on the evildoer and turns into the miseries of punishment. This evil cannot be helped. It is described as being tolerated — tolerated for the sake of evil's cure. But the Lord still converts all the negative consequences of punishment into good, so that nothing but goodness ever comes from him."

What this kind of toleration is no one yet realizes. People view the thing that is tolerated as having been carried out by the One who allows it, simply because he allows it. The reality, though, is quite different, as will be explained later [§2447], with the Lord's divine mercy.