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Ezekiel 28

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1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

2 Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus saith the Lord God: Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast said: I am God, and T sit in the chair of God in the heart of the sea: whereas thou art a man, and not God: and hast set thy heart as if it were the heart of God.

3 Behold thou art wiser than Daniel: no secret is hid from thee.

4 In thy wisdom and thy understanding thou hast made thyself strong: and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures.

5 By the greatness of thy wisdom, and by thy traffic thou hast increased thy strength: and thy heart is lifted up with thy strength.

6 Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Because thy heart is lifted up as the heart of God:

7 Therefore behold, I will bring upon thee strangers the strongest of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy beauty.

8 They shall kill thee, and bring thee down: and thou shalt die the death of them that are slain in the heart of the sea.

9 Wilt thou yet say before them that slay thee: I am God; whereas thou art a man, and not God, in the hand of them that slay thee?

10 Thou shalt die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

11 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre:

12 And say to him: Thus saith the Lord God: Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

13 Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God: every precious stone teas thy covering: the sardius, the topaz, and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and the carbuncle, and the emerald: gold the work of thy beauty: and thy pipes were prepared in the day that thou wast created.

14 Thou a cherub stretched out, and protecting, and I set thee in the holy mountain of God, thou hast walked in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until iniquity was found in thee.

16 By the multitude of thy merchandise, thy inner parts were filled with iniquity, and thou hast sinned: and I cast thee out from the mountain of God, and destroyed thee, O covering cherub, out of the midst of the stones of fire.

17 And thy heart was lifted up with thy beauty: thou best lost thy wisdom in thy beauty, I have cast thee to the ground: I have set thee before the face of kings, that they might behold thee.

18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thy iniquities, and by the iniquity of thy traffic: therefore I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, to devour thee, and I will make thee as ashes upon the earth in the sight of all that see thee.

19 All that shall see thee among the nations, shall be astonished at thee: thou art brought to nothing, and thou shalt never be any more.

20 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

21 Son of man, set thy face against Sidon: and thou shalt prophesy of it,

22 And shalt say: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, Sidon, and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall execute judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.

23 And I will send into her pestilence, and blood in her streets: and they shall fall being slain by the sword on all sides in the midst thereof: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

24 And the house of Israel shall have no more a stumblingblock of bitterness, nor a thorn causing pain on every side round about them, of them that are against them: and they shall know that I am the Lord God.

25 Thus saith the Lord God: When I shall have gathered together the house of Israel out of the people among whom they are scattered: I will be sanctified in them before the Gentiles: and they shall dwell in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob.

26 And they shall dwell therein secure, and they shall build houses, and shall plant vineyards, and shall dwell with confidence, when I shall have executed judgments upon all that are their enemies round about: and they shall know that I am the Lord their God.

   

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The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms #151

  
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151. Internal Meaning of Ezekiel, Chapter 28

1-5 Since they believe that they are learned from mere knowledges [cognitiones] and say in their heart that they are most intelligent from themselves, (2, 3)

6-10 therefore they will falsify all knowledges [cognitiones] of truth, and will perish thereby. (2, 3, 16)

11 Respecting learning from the Word. (2, 3)

12 From the Word they have all truths and goods of heaven and of the church; (2, 11)

12-18 in consequence of which they were in intelligence at first, but afterwards this was dissipated by means of their pride. (2)

19-20 Natural love consumed all things of the church, resulting in their destruction. (3)

21-23 Of the understanding of truth, which is meant by Zidon: it will perish by means of falsities. (2)

24 Their destruction, lest the church should be still further destroyed. (3)

25-26 A new church will come into existence, when the former has been condemned. (11)

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

Kommentar

 

Jacob or Israel (the man)

  

Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to meet Esau, and the angel tells him that his name will be changed. After he is reconciled with Esau, they go their separate ways. Jacob moves to Shechem and then on to Bethel, where he builds an altar to the Lord. The Lord appears to him there, renews the covenant He first made with Abraham and again tells him that his name will be Israel (Genesis 35). The story goes on to tell of Benjamin's birth and Rachel's death in bearing him, and then of Jacob's return to Isaac and Isaac's death and burial. But at that point the main thread of the story leaves Israel and turns to Joseph, and Israel is hardly mentioned until after Joseph has risen to power in Egypt, has revealed himself to his brothers and tells them to bring all of their father's household down to Egypt. There, before Israel dies, he blesses Joseph's sons, plus all his own sons. After his death he is returned to the land of Canaan for burial in Abraham's tomb. In the story of Jacob and Esau, Jacob represents truth, and Esau good. Jacob's stay in Padan-Aram, and the wealth he acquired there, represent learning the truths of scripture, just as we learn when we read the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. The change of name from Jacob to Israel represents the realization that what we learn should not simply be knowledge, but should be the rules of our life, to be followed by action. This action is the good that Esau has represented in the story up to that time, but after the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau, Jacob as Israel now represents the truth and the good, together. It is interesting that even after his name change Jacob is rarely called Israel. Sometimes he is called one and sometimes the other, and sometimes he is called both Jacob and Israel in the same verse (Genesis 46:2, 5, & 8 also Psalm 14:7). This is because Jacob represents the external person and Israel the internal person, and even after the internal person comes into being, we spend much of our lives living on the external level.

(Referenser: Arcana Coelestia 4274, 4292, 4570, 5595, 6225, 6256, Genesis 2:5, 46:8)