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Ezekiel 38

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1 And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him,

3 and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

4 and I will turn thee about, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them handling swords;

5 Persia, Cush, and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet;

6 Gomer, and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes; even many peoples with thee.

7 Be thou prepared, yea, prepare thyself, thou, and all thy companies that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.

8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, upon 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 And thou shalt ascend, thou shalt come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy hordes, and many peoples with thee.

10 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: It shall come to pass in that day, that things shall come into thy mind, and thou shalt devise an evil device:

11 and thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that 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 thy hand against the waste places that are [now] inhabited, and against the people that are gathered out of the nations, that have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the middle of the earth.

13 Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take the spoil? hast thou assembled thy company to take the prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take great spoil?

14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: In that day when my people Israel dwelleth securely, shalt thou not know it?

15 And thou shalt come from thy place out of the uttermost parts of the north, thou, and many peoples with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army;

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

17 Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Art thou he of whom I spake in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, that prophesied in those days for [many] years that I would bring thee against them?

18 And it shall come to pass in that day, when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah, that my wrath shall come up into my nostrils.

19 For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;

20 so that the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the heavens, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

21 And I will call for a sword against him unto all my mountains, saith the Lord Jehovah: every man's sword shall be against his brother.

22 And with pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him; and I will rain upon him, and upon his hordes, and upon the many peoples that are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

23 And I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.

   

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #6949

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6949. 'And it was made into a serpent' means the sensory and bodily level of a person's mind separated from the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'a serpent' as a person who engages in reasoning based on sensory evidence, dealt with in 195-197, 6398, 6399, thus the sensory level of a person's mind. And since 'a serpent' means the sensory level it means the bodily also, for the sensory level acquires its perceptions from the bodily senses. And since the sensory level regarded in itself is such as is described immediately above in 6948, 'a serpent', which is the sensory level, also means all evil in general, 251, 254, 257. The use of 'a serpent' here to mean the sensory and bodily level of a person's mind separated from the internal or rational level is evident from the fact that Moses fled from before it, meaning a feeling of horror caused by it, as well as from the fact that this sign describes the state of those who belonged to the spiritual Church if they were not in possession of faith; for in that case their internal would be closed and no more of the light of heaven would flow in than would be sufficient to enable them to think on that separated sensory level and therefore speak on that level. This level, separated [from the internal], is the one on which all people think who defend falsities in opposition to truths, and evils in opposition to forms of good, in short all who in life pursue what is evil and who are consequently devoid of any faith since those who lead an evil life have no belief at all. People like this have greater ability than others to engage in reasoning and to convince others, especially the simple, because when they speak they draw on the illusions of the senses and worldly appearances. They also know how to demolish truths or hide them from view by means of illusions, on account of which cunning and deceitfulness are also meant by 'serpents'. When however the sensory level has become joined to the internal or has been made properly subordinate to the rational, 'a serpent' means shrewdness and circumspection, 197, 4111, 6398.

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