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Ezekiel第27章

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1 The word of the Lord came to me again, saying,

2 And you, son of man, make a song of grief for Tyre;

3 And say to Tyre, O you who are seated at the doorway of the sea, trading for the peoples with the great sea-lands, these are the words of the Lord: You, O Tyre, have said, I am a ship completely beautiful.

4 Your builders have made your outlines in the heart of the seas, they have made you completely beautiful.

5 They have made all your boards of fir-trees from Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make the supports for your sails.

6 Of oak-trees from Bashan they have made your driving blades; they have made your floors of ivory and boxwood from the sea-lands of Kittim.

7 The best linen with needlework from Egypt was your sail, stretched out to be a flag for you; blue and purple from the sea-lands of Elishah gave you shade.

8 The people of Zidon and Arvad were your boatmen; the wise men of Zemer were in you; they were guiding your ships;

9 The responsible men of Gebal and its wise men were in you, making your boards watertight: all the ships of the sea with their seamen were in you trading in your goods.

10 Cush and Lud and Put were in your army, your men of war, hanging up their body-covers and head-dresses of war in you: they gave you your glory.

11 The men of Arvad in your army were on your walls, and were watchmen in your towers, hanging up their arms on your walls round about; they made you completely beautiful.

12 Tarshish did business with you because of the great amount of your wealth; they gave silver, iron, tin, and lead for your goods.

13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your traders; they gave living men and brass vessels for your goods.

14 The people of Togarmah gave horses and war-horses and transport beasts for your goods.

15 The men of Rodan were your traders: a great number of sea-lands did business with you: they gave you horns of ivory and ebony as an offering.

16 Edom did business with you because of the great number of things which you made; they gave emeralds, purple, and needlework, and the best linen and coral and rubies for your goods.

17 Judah and the land of Israel were your traders; they gave grain of Minnith and sweet cakes and honey and oil and perfume for your goods.

18 Damascus did business with you because of the great amount of your wealth, with wine of Helbon and white wool.

19 ... for your goods: they gave polished iron and spices for your goods.

20 Dedan did trade with you in cloths for the backs of horses.

21 Arabia and all the rulers of Kedar did business with you; in lambs and sheep and goats, in these they did business with you.

22 The traders of Sheba and Raamah did trade with you; they gave the best of all sorts of spices and all sorts of stones of great price and gold for your goods.

23 Haran and Canneh and Eden, the traders of Asshur and all the Medes:

24 These were your traders in beautiful robes, in rolls of blue and needlework, and in chests of coloured cloth, corded with cords and made of cedar-wood, in them they did trade with you.

25 Tarshish ships did business for you in your goods: and you were made full, and great was your glory in the heart of the seas.

26 Your boatmen have taken you into great waters: you have been broken by the east wind in the heart of the seas.

27 Your wealth and your goods, the things in which you do trade, your seamen and those guiding your ships, those who make your boards watertight, and those who do business with your goods, and all your men of war who are in you, with all who have come together in you, will go down into the heart of the seas in the day of your downfall.

28 At the sound of the cry of your ships' guides, the boards of the ship will be shaking.

29 And all the boatmen, the seamen and those who are expert at guiding a ship through the sea, will come down from their ships and take their places on the land;

30 And their voices will be sounding over you, and crying bitterly they will put dust on their heads, rolling themselves in the dust:

31 And they will have the hair of their heads cut off because of you, and will put haircloth on their bodies, weeping for you with bitter grief in their souls, even with bitter sorrow.

32 And in their weeping they will make a song of grief for you, sorrowing over you and saying, Who is like Tyre, who has come to an end in the deep sea?

33 When your goods went out over the seas, you made numbers of peoples full; the wealth of the kings of the earth was increased with your great wealth and all your goods.

34 Now that you are broken by the seas in the deep waters, your goods and all your people will go down with you.

35 All the people of the sea-lands are overcome with wonder at you, and their kings are full of fear, their faces are troubled.

36 Those who do business among the peoples make sounds of surprise at you; you have become a thing of fear, you have come to an end for ever.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Apocalypse Revealed#774

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774. "Every kind of thyine wood, 1 every kind of ivory vessel." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these because they do not have any of the natural goods and truths to which such things correspond.

This statement is similar to the ones explained in nos. 772 and 773 above, the only difference being that the valuables named first mean spiritual goods and truths (as explained in no. 772 above), and that those named second mean celestial goods and truths (as explained just above in no. 773), while those named now - thyine wood and ivory vessel - mean natural goods and truths.

[2] To explain: There are three degrees of wisdom and love, and so three degrees of truth and goodness. We call the first degree celestial, the second spiritual, and the third natural. These three degrees are present from birth in every person, and they are present in general also in heaven and in the church. Because of this there are three heavens, a highest one, an intermediate one, and a lowest one, altogether distinct from each other in accordance with these degrees. The same is true of the Lord's church on earth. But this is not the place to explain the nature of the church with people in the celestial degree, with people in the spiritual degree, and with people in the natural degree. See instead what we said about them in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, Part Three, where we dealt with degrees. Here we will say only that in the case of people coming from Babylon, they have no spiritual goods and truths, no celestial goods and truths, and not even any natural goods and truths.

Spiritual goods and truths are mentioned first, because many of those coming from Babylon can be spiritual, provided they hold the Word holy at heart, as they do with the mouth. But they cannot become celestial, because they do not turn to the Lord, but turn to people living and dead and worship them. It is for this reason that celestial goods and truths are mentioned second.

[3] Thyine wood symbolizes natural good because wood in the Word symbolizes goodness, and stone truth, and thyine wood derives its name from a word meaning two, and the number two also symbolizes goodness.

The good symbolized is natural good, because wood is not a valuable material like gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet. The same is true of stone. The case is similar with ivory, which symbolizes natural truth. Ivory symbolizes natural truth because it is white and can be polished, and because it protrudes from the mouth of an elephant and also constitutes its might. In order for ivory to symbolize the natural truth of the goodness symbolized by thyine wood, the text specifies a vessel of ivory, as a vessel symbolizes something that contains, here truth that contains good.

[4] That wood symbolizes goodness can be seen to some extent from the following considerations: That the bitter waters at Marah were made sweet by casting in something wooden (Exodus 15:25). That the tables of stone on which the Law was written were placed in an ark made of acacia wood (Exodus 25:10-16). That the Temple in Jerusalem was roofed with wood and paneled inside with wood (1 Kings 6:9, 15). And that the altar in the wilderness was made of wood (Exodus 27:1, 6).

It can be seen to some extent also from the following:

...the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the wood answers it. (Habakkuk 2:11)

They will plunder your riches and pillage your merchandise..., and they will cast your stones and your timber... into the midst of the sea. (Ezekiel 26:12)

The prophet Ezekiel was told to take a piece of wood and write on it the names of Judah and the children of Israel, and also on another piece of wood the names of Joseph and Ephraim; and that the Lord Jehovih would make them into one piece of wood (Ezekiel 37:16, 19).

We drink our water in exchange for silver, and our wood comes at a price. (Lamentations 5:4)

If someone goes with his neighbor into a forest..., and the ax head (falls) from the wooden handle...(onto) his neighbor so that he dies, he shall flee to (a city of refuge). (Deuteronomy 19:5)

The latter is said because wood symbolizes goodness, and so because the person did not kill his neighbor out of evil or with evil intention, therefore, but by accident, being impelled by good. And so on elsewhere.

[5] In an opposite sense, however, wood symbolizes something evil or cursed. So for example, they made graven images out of wood and worshiped them (Deuteronomy 4:23-28; Isaiah 37:19; 40:20; Jeremiah 10:3, 8; Ezekiel 20:32). Also, being hanged from a tree was a curse (Deuteronomy 21:22-23).

That ivory symbolizes natural truth can be seen moreover from passages which mention ivory, such as Ezekiel 27:6, 15; Amos 3:15; 6:4; Psalms 45:8.

脚注:

1. Thyine wood has not been identified. It has been associated with citron wood, and also with scented wood in general.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.