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Ezekiel第39章

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1 And you, son of man, be a prophet against Gog, and say, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, O Gog, ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

2 And turning you round, I will be your guide, and make you come up from the inmost parts of the north; I will make you come on to the mountains of Israel:

3 And with a blow I will send your bow out of your left hand and your arrows falling from your right hand.

4 On the mountains of Israel you will come down, you and all your forces and the peoples who are with you: I will give you to cruel birds of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be their food.

5 You will come down in the open field: for I have said it, says the Lord.

6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and on those who are living in the sea-lands without fear: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

7 And I will make clear my holy name among my people Israel; I will no longer let my holy name be made unclean: and the nations will be certain that I am the Lord, the holy One in Israel.

8 See, it is coming and it will be done, says the Lord; this is the day of which I have given word.

9 And those who are living in the towns of Israel will go out and make fires of the instruments of war, burning the body-covers and the breastplates, the bows and the arrows and the sticks and the spears, and for seven years they will make fires of them:

10 And they will take no wood out of the field or have any cut down in the woods; for they will make their fires of the instruments of war: and they will take by force the property of those who took their property, and go off with the goods of those who took their goods, says the Lord.

11 And it will come about in those days, that I will give to Gog a last resting-place there in Israel, in the valley of Abarim on the east of the sea: and those who go through will be stopped: and there Gog and all his people will be put to rest, and the place will be named, The valley of Hamon-gog.

12 And the children of Israel will be seven months putting them in the earth, so as to make the land clean.

13 And all the people of the land will put them in the earth; and it will be to their honour in the day when I let my glory be seen, says the Lord.

14 And they will put on one side men to do no other work but to go through the land and put in the earth the rest of those who are still on the face of the land, to make it clean: after seven months are ended they are to make a search.

15 And while they go through the land, if anyone sees a man's bone, he is to put up a sign by the place till those who are doing the work have put it in the earth in the valley of Hamon-gog.

16 And there they will put all the army of Gog in the earth. So they will make the land clean.

17 And you, son of man, this is what the Lord has said: Say to the birds of every sort and to all the beasts of the field, Get together and come; come together on every side to the offering which I am putting to death for you, a great offering on the mountains of Israel, so that you may have flesh for your food and blood for your drink.

18 The flesh of the men of war will be your food, and your drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of sheep and lambs, of he-goats, of oxen, all of them fat beasts of Bashan.

19 You will go on feasting on the fat till you are full, and drinking the blood till you are overcome with it, of my offering which I have put to death for you.

20 At my table you will have food in full measure, horses and war-carriages, great men and all the men of war, says the Lord.

21 And I will put my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see my punishments which I have put into effect, and my hand which I have put on them.

22 So the children of Israel will be certain that I am the Lord their God, from that day and for the future.

23 And it will be clear to the nations that the children of Israel were taken away prisoners for their evil-doing; because they did wrong against me, and my face was covered from them: so I gave them up into the hands of their attackers, and they all came to their end by the sword.

24 In the measure of their unclean ways and their sins, so I did to them; and I kept my face covered from them.

25 For this cause the Lord has said, Now I will let the fate of Jacob be changed, and I will have mercy on all the children of Israel, and will take care of the honour of my holy name.

26 And they will be conscious of their shame and of all the wrong which they have done against me, when they are living in their land with no sense of danger and with no one to be a cause of fear to them;

27 When I have taken them back from among the peoples and got them together out of the lands of their haters, and have made myself holy in them before the eyes of a great number of nations.

28 And they will be certain that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them away as prisoners among the nations, and have taken them together back to their land; and I have not let one of them be there any longer.

29 And my face will no longer be covered from them: for I have sent the out-flowing of my spirit on the children of Israel, says the Lord.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#10033

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10033. Since the present chapter deals with the sacrifice and the burnt offering through which Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the priestly office a little more will be stated regarding the blood and the fat. All the blood of a sacrifice or of a burnt offering had to be poured out at the altar and all the fat had to be burned on the altar, as the statutes and laws in Leviticus relating to burnt offerings and sacrifices make clear. The reason why this was done to the blood and fat was that the blood meant Divine Truth and the fat Divine Good. The fact that the blood meant Divine Truth is clear from what has been shown regarding 'blood' in 4735, 6378, 6978, 7317, 7326, 7850, 9127, 9393, and that the fat meant Divine Good is clear from what has been shown in 5943.

[2] That 'blood' means Divine Truth is perfectly clear in Ezekiel,

Gather yourselves from all around to My sacrifice which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrifice upon 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 princes of the earth. You will eat fat till you are glutted, and drink blood till you are drunk, from My sacrifice which I will sacrifice for you. You will be glutted at My table with horse, chariot, the mighty, and every man of war. Thus will I set My glory among the nations. Ezekiel 39:17-22.

Anyone can see that 'blood' is not used to mean blood here, for it states that they were going to drink the blood of the princes of the earth, doing so till they were drunk, and also that they were going to eat fat till they were glutted, and then that they would be glutted with horse and chariot. From these statements it is evident that 'blood' is used to mean something other than blood, 'the princes of the earth' to mean something other than princes of the earth, and also 'fat' as well as 'horse and chariot' something other than fat, or horse and chariot. What is meant however none can know except through the internal sense. This shows that 'blood' means Divine Truth, 'the princes of the earth' the Church's primary or leading truths, 'fat' Divine Good, 'horse' the internal sense of the Word, and 'chariot' actual doctrinal teachings derived from there.

'Blood' means Divine Truth; this is clear from the places referred to above.

'The princes of the earth' means primary truths, 5044.

'The earth' means the Church, 9325.

'Horse' means the internal sense of the Word, 2760-2762.

'Chariot' means doctrinal teachings, 5321, 8215.

[3] From all this it is now evident what the meaning is of the Lord's words in John,

Jesus said, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you will have no life in yourselves. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. John 6:53-56.

'Flesh' means Divine Good, see 3813, 7850, 9127; and 'the Son of Man' whose flesh they were to eat and blood they were to drink means the Lord in respect of Divine Truth emanating from Divine Good, 9807.

[4] But the fact that 'fat' means Divine Good is clear in Isaiah,

Jehovah will make for all peoples on this mountain a feast of fat things. Isaiah 25:6.

In the same prophet,

Attend [diligently] to Me and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Isaiah 55:2.

And in Jeremiah,

I will fill the soul of the priests with fat, and My people will be satisfied with My goodness. Jeremiah 31:14.

From these quotations it becomes clear why all the fat of a sacrifice was burned on the altar and why all the blood was poured out at the side of it.

[5] Because blood and fat were signs of those Divine Entities the Israelite people were totally forbidden to eat fat or blood, as is clear in Moses,

[This shall be] a perpetual statute throughout your generations: You shall eat no fat and no blood. Leviticus 3:17.

In the same author,

You shall eat no fat, neither of ox, nor sheep, nor she-goat. Everyone who eats fat from a beast, from one that is offered as a fire-offering to Jehovah, that soul eating it will be cut off from his peoples. Leviticus 7:23, 25.

And again in the same author,

Whoever eats any blood, I will set My face against the soul eating blood and will cut him off from among his people. Leviticus 17:10-14; Deuteronomy 12:16, 23-25.

[6] The reason why eating blood and fat was so strictly forbidden was that eating them represented the profanation of Divine Truth and Divine Good. For the Israelite and Jewish nation was interested in outward forms but not their inner substance, so that in their faith and love there was no Divine Truth nor any Divine Good; and their worship was external devoid of these. This was because they were ruled by self-love and love of the world more than other nations; consequently they were steeped in evils gushing out of those loves, these evils being contempt for others, enmity, hatred, vengeance, brutality, and cruelty. This also was the reason why internal truths were not revealed to them, for if these had been revealed that nation would have inevitably profaned them. Such was the character of that nation, as may be seen in the places referred to in 9320(end), 9380. Therefore they would have represented profanation if they had eaten blood and fat; for whatever was established among them was representative of the interior things of the Church and heaven.

[7] From these considerations it is even more evident what the meaning is of the words in Ezekiel 39:17-22, dealt with above, stating that they would eat fat till they were glutted and drink blood, the blood of the princes of the earth, till they were drunk. That is to say, the meaning is that when inner virtues were opened up, those with whom these virtues existed, that is, faith in and love to the Lord, would have Divine Truth and Divine Good imparted to them as their own, as happened among gentile nations when the Lord came into the world. Therefore also those words go on to say, Thus will I set My glory among the nations, 'glory' meaning Divine Truth emanating from the Lord as it exists in heaven, 9429, and 'the nations' meaning all who are governed by good, 1259, 1260, 1416, 1849, 4574, 6005, 8771, 9256.

[8] This the Lord Himself corroborates, in His declaration that His flesh was truly food and His blood was truly drink, and whoever ate His flesh and drank His blood would abide in Him, and He in that person, John 6:55-56, and also in His institution of the Holy Supper, in which they were to eat His flesh and to drink His blood, Matthew 26:26-29, by which receiving Divine Good and Divine Truth from Him and making them their own was meant. Receiving Divine Good and Divine Truth from the Lord and making them their own is possible only with those who acknowledge the Lord's Divinity, for this is the first and most essential of all matters of belief within the Church. To no others can the way to heaven be opened, because the whole of heaven assents to that belief, and therefore Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good, meant here by 'blood', cannot be imparted to them. Therefore let anyone who is within the Church beware of refusing to believe in the Lord and also His Divinity; for heaven is closed and hell opened to that refusal. For those people are separated from the Lord, and so are separated from heaven, where the Lord's Divinity is the All in all since it composes heaven. And when heaven has been closed, knowledge of the truths of faith derived from the Word and from the teachings of the Church indeed exists, but not a particle of faith that is real faith because real faith comes from above, that is, from the Lord by way of heaven.

[9] The Lord spoke in this manner, that is to say, He called the Divine Good emanating from Himself His flesh, and the Divine Truth emanating from His Divine Good His blood, because the Word, which sprang from Him, was His Divinity filling the whole of heaven. Such a Word must manifest itself through the use of correspondences, as a result of which it is representative and carries a spiritual meaning in every single part; for in this and no other way could it link members of the Church to angels in heaven. For when people in the world understand the Word according to its literal meaning angels understand it according to its inner meaning. Thus instead of the Lord's flesh they understand Divine Good, and instead of His blood they understand Divine Truth, both emanating from the Lord. As a consequence that which is holy flows in by way of the Word.

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