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Ezekiel 32

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1 And it cometh to pass, in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first of the month, hath a word of Jehovah been unto me, saying,

2 `Son of man, lift up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and thou hast said unto him: A young lion of nations thou hast been like, And thou [art] as a dragon in the seas, And thou comest forth with thy flowings, And dost trouble the waters with thy feet, And thou dost foul their flowings.

3 Thus said the Lord Jehovah: And -- I have spread out for thee My net, With an assembly of many peoples, And they have brought thee up in My net.

4 And I have left thee in the land, On the face of the field I do cast thee out, And have caused to dwell upon thee every fowl of the heavens, And have satisfied out of thee the beasts of the whole earth.

5 And I have put thy flesh on the mountains, And filled the valleys [with] thy hugeness,

6 And watered the land with thy flowing, From thy blood -- unto the mountains, And streams are filled from thee.

7 And in quenching thee I have covered the heavens, And have made black their stars, The sun with a cloud I do cover, And the moon causeth not its light to shine.

8 All luminaries of light in the heavens, I make black over thee, And I have given darkness over thy land, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah,

9 And I have vexed the heart of many peoples, In My bringing in thy destruction among nations, Unto lands that thou hast not known.

10 And I have made many peoples astonished at thee, And their kings are afraid at thee with trembling, In My brandishing My sword before their faces, And they have trembled every moment, Each for his life -- in the day of thy fall.

11 For thus said the Lord Jehovah: A sword of the king of Babylon entereth thee,

12 By swords of the mighty I cause thy multitude to fall, The terrible of nations -- all of them, And they have spoiled the excellency of Egypt, And destroyed hath been all her multitude.

13 And I have destroyed all her beasts, From beside many waters, And trouble them not doth a foot of man any more, Yea, the hoofs of beasts trouble them not.

14 Then do I cause their waters to sink, And their rivers as oil I cause to go, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

15 In My making the land of Egypt a desolation, And desolated hath been the land of its fulness, In My smiting all the inhabitants in it, And they have known that I [am] Jehovah.

16 A lamentation it [is], and they have lamented her, Daughters of the nations do lament her, For Egypt, and for all her multitude, they lament her, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.'

17 And it cometh to pass, in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth of the month, hath a word of Jehovah been unto me, saying,

18 `Son of man, Wail for the multitude of Egypt, And cause it to go down, It -- and the daughters of honourable nations, Unto the earth -- the lower parts, With those going down to the pit.

19 Than whom hast thou been more pleasant? Go down, and be laid with the uncircumcised.

20 In the midst of the pierced of the sword they fall, [To] the sword she hath been given, They drew her out, and all her multitude.

21 Speak to him do the gods of the mighty out of the midst of sheol, With his helpers -- they have gone down, They have lain with the uncircumcised, The pierced of the sword.

22 There [is] Asshur, and all her assembly, Round about him [are] his graves, All of them [are] wounded, who are falling by sword,

23 Whose graves are appointed in the sides of the pit, And her assembly is round about her grave, All of them wounded, falling by sword, Because they gave terror in the land of the living.

24 There [is] Elam, and all her multitude, Round about [is] her grave, All of them wounded, who are falling by sword, Who have gone down uncircumcised unto the earth -- the lower parts, Because they gave their terror in the land of the living, And they bear their shame with those going down to the pit.

25 In the midst of the wounded they have appointed a bed for her with all her multitude, Round about him [are] her graves, All of them uncircumcised, pierced of the sword, For their terror was given in the land of the living, And they bear their shame with those going down to the pit, In the midst of the pierced he hath been put.

26 There [is] Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude, Round about him [are] her graves, All of them uncircumcised, pierced of the sword, For they gave their terror in the land of the living,

27 And they lie not with the mighty, Who are falling of the uncircumcised, Who have gone down to sheol with their weapons of war, And they put their swords under their heads, And their iniquities are on their bones, For the terror of the mighty [is] in the land of the living.

28 And thou, in the midst of the uncircumcised art broken, And dost lie with the pierced of the sword.

29 There [is] Edom, her kings, and all her princes, Who have been given up in their might, With the pierced of the sword, They with the uncircumcised do lie, And with those going down to the pit.

30 There [are] princes of the north, All of them, and every Zidonian, Who have gone down with the pierced in their terror, Of their might they are ashamed, And they lie uncircumcised with the pierced of the sword, And they bear their shame with those going down to the pit.

31 Then doth Pharaoh see, And he hath been comforted for all his multitude, The pierced of the sword -- Pharaoh and all his force, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

32 For I have given his terror in the land of the living, And he hath been laid down in the midst of the uncircumcised, With the pierced of the sword -- Pharaoh, and all his multitude, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah!'

   

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Sacred Scripture #15

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15. To show that the prophetic books of the Word of the Old Testament are in many places unintelligible apart from their spiritual meaning, I should like to cite just a few. This from Isaiah, for example:

Then Jehovah will rouse up a whip against Assyria, like the blow against Midian on the rock Oreb; his staff will be stretched out over the sea, and he will lift it against the way of Egypt. And it will happen on that day that his burden will depart from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck. He will come against Aiath; he will cross over into Migron. He will command his weapons against Michmash; they will cross Mabara. Gibeah will be a place of lodging for us; Ramah will tremble with fear; Gibeah of Saul will flee. Wail with your voice, daughter of Gallim! Listen to Laishah, unfortunate Anathoth! Madmenah will wander; the inhabitants of Gebim will gather together. In Nob is it still a day for standing firm? The mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem, will move its hand. Jehovah will cut down the tangled places in the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by means of the Mighty One. (Isaiah 10:24-34)

All we find here are names from which we can draw no sense without the aid of the spiritual meaning, in which all the names in the Word point to matters of heaven and the church. We gather from this meaning that this passage refers to the ruin of the whole church by information that corrupted every true teaching and supported every false teaching.

[2] In another passage from the same prophet,

On that day the rivalry of Ephraim will wane and the enemies of Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will not compete with Judah, and Judah will not trouble Ephraim, but they will swoop down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the sea. Together they will plunder the children of the east. Edom and Moab will be [subject to] the stretching out of their hand. Jehovah will curse the tongue of the sea of Egypt and will shake his hand over the river with the vehemence of his spirit; and he will strike it into seven streams, to make a pathway [that can be trodden] with sandals. Then there will be a highway for the rest of his people, the remnant from Assyria. (Isaiah 11:11, 13-16)

Here too, only those who know what these particular names mean will see anything divine, when in fact this is about the Lord’s Coming and what will happen then, as is perfectly obvious from the first ten verses of the chapter. So without the aid of the spiritual meaning, who would see what these statements in this sequence mean, namely, that if people are caught up in false beliefs because of ignorance but have not let themselves be led astray by evil tendencies, they will find their way to the Lord, and that the church will then understand the Word, so that their false beliefs will no longer harm them?

[3] It is much the same in other passages where there are no names, as in Ezekiel:

Thus says the Lord Jehovih: “Son of Humanity, say to every winged bird and to every beast of the field, ‘Gather and come. Gather yourselves from all around for my sacrifice, which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, so that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You will eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the rulers of the earth. You will eat fat until you are full and drink blood until you are drunk, from my sacrifice, which I am sacrificing for you. At my table you will eat your fill of horses and chariots and the mighty and every man of war. This is how I will establish my glory among the nations.’” (Ezekiel 39:17-21)

If readers do not know from the spiritual sense the meaning of a sacrifice, of flesh and blood, of horses, chariots, the mighty, and men of war, all they can conclude is that they are going to eat and drink things like this. The spiritual meaning, though, tells us that eating flesh and drinking blood from a sacrifice that the Lord Jehovih offers on the mountains of Israel means taking divine goodness and divine truth into ourselves from the Word. This passage is about summoning everyone to the Lord’s kingdom, specifically the Lord’s establishment of a church among the nations. Can anyone fail to see that flesh does not mean flesh and that blood does not mean blood in this text? The same holds true for drinking blood until we are drunk and eating our fill of horses, chariots, the mighty, and every man of war.

There are passages like this in a thousand other places in the prophets.

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