Matteo 12:22
To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.
Apocalypse Revealed # 350
350. Of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed. (7:5) This symbolizes celestial love, which is love toward the Lord, and this in all those people who will be in the Lord's New Heaven and New Church.
In the highest sense Judah symbolizes the Lord in relation to celestial love; in the spiritual sense, the Lord's celestial kingdom and the Word; and in the natural sense, the doctrine of a celestial church drawn from the Word. Here, however, Judah symbolizes celestial love, which is love toward the Lord; and because it is named first in the series, it symbolizes that love in all those people who will be in the New Heaven and in the Lord's New Church. For the tribe named first is everything in the rest, being to them as though their head and serving as a universal property entering into all those that follow, tying them together, qualifying them and affecting them. This property is love toward the Lord.
To be shown that twelve thousand symbolizes all who possess that love, see no. 348 above.
[2] People know that after the death of Solomon the twelve tribes of Israel were divided into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. The kingdom of Judah represented the celestial kingdom or the Lord's priestly kingdom, while the kingdom of Israel represented the spiritual kingdom or the Lord's royal kingdom. But the latter was destroyed when the people had nothing spiritual left in them, whereas the kingdom of Judah was preserved, for the sake of the Word, and because the Lord would be born there. However, when the people adulterated the Word completely, and thus could not recognize the Lord, then their kingdom was destroyed.
It can be seen from this that the tribe of Judah symbolizes celestial love, which is love toward the Lord. But because the people were of the character they were with respect to the Word and with respect to the Lord, the tribe of Judah symbolizes also the opposite love, which is love of self - properly speaking, a love of dominating springing from a love of self - a love which we call diabolical love.
[3] The fact that Judah and his tribe symbolize the celestial kingdom and its love, which is love toward the Lord, follows from these passages:
Judah, your brothers shall praise you... The scepter shall not be taken from Judah... until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. Binding his donkey's foal to the vine, his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he washes his garment in wine... His eyes are redder than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. (Genesis 49:8-12)
...David shall be their prince forever, and I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them..., and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. (Ezekiel 37:25-26)
Exult and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! ...Jehovah will make Judah an inheritance for Himself, His portion on the holy land. (Zechariah 2:10-12)
O Judah, celebrate your feasts, perform your vows. For Belial 1 shall no more pass through you; he is utterly cut off. (Nahum 1:15)
The Lord... will suddenly come to His temple... Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be sweet to Jehovah as in the days of old... (Malachi 3:1, 4)
Judah shall abide forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. (Joel 3:20)
Behold, the days are coming..., that I will raise to David a righteous Branch... In His days Judah will be saved... (Jeremiah 23:5-6)
I will bring forth offspring from Jacob, and from Judah an heir of My mountains, that My elect may possess it... (Isaiah 65:9)
Judah became His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion. (Psalms 114:2)
Behold, the days are coming..., when I will make a new covenant... with the house of Judah... ...this will be the covenant...: I will put My law within them, and write it on their heart... (Jeremiah 31:27, 31, 33-34)
In those days ten men... shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, "We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." (Zechariah 8:23)
...as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me..., so shall your offspring and your name remain.
Kings (of the nations) shall be your foster fathers, their princesses your nursing mothers. They shall bow down to you, their faces to the ground, and lick the dust of your feet. (Isaiah 66:22; 49:23)
[4] From these and many other passages, which we do not have the space to cite because of their number, it can be clearly seen that Judah means not Judah but the church. We are told, for example, that the Lord would make a new and eternal covenant with that nation, that He would make it His heir and His sanctuary forevermore, and that kings of the nations and their princesses would bow down to them, licking the dust of their feet, and so on.
[5] That the tribe of Judah, regarded in itself, means the diabolic kingdom, which is one of a love of dominating springing from a love of self, can be seen from the following passages:
I will hide My face from them, I will see what their posterity will be. ...they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith... ...they are a nation void of counsel... ...their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah; its grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. Is this not laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries? (Deuteronomy 32:20-34)
(Know that) it is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart... that Jehovah... is... giving you (the land of Canaan)..., for you are a stiff-necked people. (Deuteronomy 9:5-6)
...according to the number of your cities have been your gods, O Judah... ...according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars... to burn incense to Baal. (Jeremiah 2:28; 11:13)
You are of your father the devil, and you choose to do the desires of your father. (John 8:44)
Jews are said to be full of hypocrisy, iniquity, and uncleanness (Matthew 23:27-28.
Сноски:
1. In the Old Testament, the personification of wickedness and destruction, originally conceived perhaps as some sort of spirit demon.
Ezekiel 38
1
The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
2
Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him,
3
and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I am against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:
4
and I will turn you around, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you forth, with all your 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 you.
7
Be prepared, yes, prepare yourself, you, and all your companies who are assembled to you, and be a guard to them.
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.
17
Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Are you he of whom I spoke in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for [many] years that I would bring you against them?
18
It shall happen in that day, when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, says the Lord Yahweh, 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 fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the field, and all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface 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
I will call for a sword against him to all my mountains, says the Lord Yahweh: every man's sword shall be against his brother.
22
With pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him, and on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and sulfur.
23
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 Yahweh.
