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Daniel第2章

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1 And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, and his spirit was troubled, and his sleep went from him.

2 And the king commanded to call the scribes, and the magicians, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, to shew the king his dreams; and they came and stood before the king.

3 And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.

4 And the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, O king, live for ever! tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.

5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The command is gone forth from me: If ye do not make known unto me the dream, and its interpretation, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.

6 But if ye shew the dream and its interpretation, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour; therefore shew me the dream and its interpretation.

7 They answered the second time and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.

8 The king answered and said, I know of a certainty that ye would gain time, because ye see the word is gone forth from me;

9 but if ye do not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you; for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me its interpretation.

10 The Chaldeans answered before the king and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter; therefore there is no king, however great and powerful, that hath asked such a thing of any scribe, or magician, or Chaldean.

11 For the thing that the king demandeth is extraordinary, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.

12 For this cause the king was irritated and very wroth, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

13 And the decree went forth that the wise men were to be slain; and they sought Daniel and his companions to slay them.

14 Then Daniel answered with counsel and prudence to Arioch the chief of the king's bodyguard, who had gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon:

15 he answered and said to Arioch the king's captain, Why is the decree so rigorous from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.

16 And Daniel went in, and requested of the king that he would give him time, that he might shew the king the interpretation.

17 Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions;

18 that they would desire mercies of the God of the heavens concerning this secret; that Daniel and his companions should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

19 Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of the heavens.

20 Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever; For wisdom and might are his.

21 And it is he that changeth times and seasons; He deposeth kings, and setteth up kings; He giveth wisdom to the wise, And knowledge to them that know understanding.

22 It is he that revealeth the deep and secret things; He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

23 I thank thee, and I praise thee, O God of my fathers, Who hast given me wisdom and might, And hast made known unto me already what we desired of thee; For thou hast made known unto us the king's matter.

24 Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon; he went and said thus unto him: Destroy not the wise men of Babylon; bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.

25 Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him: I have found a man of the sons of the captivity of Judah that will make known unto the king the interpretation.

26 The king answered and said unto Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream that I have seen, and its interpretation?

27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, The secret that the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the magicians, the scribes, the astrologers, shew unto the king;

28 but there is a God in the heavens, who revealeth secrets, and maketh known to king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be at the end of days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these:

29 -- as for thee, O king, thy thoughts arose upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter; and he that revealeth secrets hath made known to thee what shall come to pass.

30 And as for me, this secret is revealed to me, not by [any] wisdom that I have more than any living, but to the intent that the interpretation should be made known to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, a great image. This image was mighty and its brightness excellent; it stood before thee, and its appearance was terrible.

32 This image's head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of brass,

33 its legs of iron, its feet part of iron and part of clay.

34 Thou sawest till a stone was cut out without hands; and it smote the image upon its feet of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces.

35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken in pieces together, and they became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them. And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation of it before the king.

37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings, unto whom the God of the heavens hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory;

38 and wheresoever the children of men, the beasts of the field, and the fowl of the heavens dwell, he hath given them into thy hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all: thou art this head of gold.

39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee; then another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth everything, and as iron that breaketh all these, so shall it break in pieces and bruise.

41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

42 And [as] the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.

43 And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron doth not mingle with clay.

44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of the heavens set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the sovereignty thereof shall not be left to another people: it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, but itself shall stand for ever.

45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, -- the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. And the dream is certain, and the interpretation of it sure.

46 Then king Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.

47 The king answered Daniel and said, Of a truth it is that your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, because thou wast able to reveal this secret.

48 Then the king made Daniel great, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.

49 And Daniel requested of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego over the administration of the province of Babylon. And Daniel was in the gate of the king.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#10030

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10030. 'Covering the intestines' means which exists on last or lowest levels. This is clear from the meaning of 'the intestines' as last or lowest things. The reason why the intestines have this meaning is that they are the last and lowest of a person's internal organs, not only as regards their location but also as regards their function. As regards their location, they are below the stomach, to which they are attached; and as regards their function, they are the last organs to receive the things undergoing digestion in a person. Above them, as is well known, come the stomach, liver, pancreas, and spleen; higher still, the heart and lungs; and still higher, the head. It is also well known that these higher parts of the body discharge their filth and waste products into the intestines and banish them through these, partly by way of the stomach, partly by way of the ducts from the liver - called the hepatic ducts, and also the cystic or biliary ducts - and partly by way of the ducts from the pancreas, which like all the other ducts have their outlet into the duodenum. From all this it is now evident why last or lowest things are meant by 'the intestines'. The fact that the internal organs in the human body mean such things as belong to the spiritual world becomes clear from what has been abundantly shown at the ends of a large number of chapters where the correspondence of the Grand Man, which is heaven, with everything present in the human being has been the subject. For what specifically corresponds to the intestines, see 5392. The hells correspond to the impurities and excrement cast out from them, 5393-5396.

[2] Since several organs of the body are mentioned in what immediately follows, such as the lesser omentum, liver, kidneys, legs, breast, flank, and head, and the arrangement of them in sacrifices is dealt with, it must first be shown here that by parts of the human body in general the kinds of things that exist in the Grand Man, that is, in heaven, are meant. Here let the meaning of just those parts of the body which are used in Daniel to describe Nebuchadnezzar's statue be indicated. There, in Chapter 2:32-33, it says that its head was pure gold, breast and arms were silver, belly and side bronze, legs iron, and feet partly iron and partly clay. Anyone who does not know that the Lord's Word is spiritual supposes that these things were said in reference to earthly kingdoms. But the Word is not dealing with earthly kingdoms, only with God's kingdom, thus with heaven and the Church. The reason why these are described by means of the kinds of things that exist in earthly lands and their kingdoms is that worldly and earthly things correspond to the kinds of things that exist in heaven. For the whole natural order and the whole universe is a theatre representative of the Lord's kingdom, see the places referred to in 9280, and earthly and worldly things are what a person comes to know of first.

[3] From this it may be recognized that Nebuchadnezzar's statue seen in a dream does not mean worldly but heavenly things. But what specifically is meant by the head, the breast, the belly and side, the legs, and the feet may be known from their correspondence, thus from the internal sense of the Word. From correspondence one can know that the head means the first state of the Church, the breast and arms the second, the belly and side the third, the legs the fourth, and the feet the last. Since the first state of the Church was a state of the good of love to the Lord it says that the head was of pure gold; since the second state was a state of truth springing from that good it says that the breast and arms were of silver; since the third state was the good of love and its truth in the external or natural man it says that the belly and side were of bronze; since the fourth state was the truth of faith it says that the legs were of iron; and since the last state was truth which, though called the truth of faith, is devoid of good it says the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay. And such being the last state of the Church verses 34, 35 say that out of the rock a stone was cut, which smashed them all to pieces and scattered them, so that the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them, meaning that the good of love to the Lord, the good of charity towards the neighbour, and the good of faith were completely dispersed, so completely that there was no knowledge of what they were. No more than some knowledge of the truths of faith existed, without any knowledge of good; or if any knowledge of good existed it was not real good, thus was not the good that coheres with the truths of faith.

[4] This good is external good without internal, which is what the good of merit is, and what good pursued for selfish and worldly reasons is, thus good pursued for the sake of gain, position, and reputation, for the sake of friendship cultivated because of these things, or for the sake of currying favour. Or else it is pursued solely on account of fear of the law. It is not pursued on account of the good of charity, which is the good of one's fellow citizen, the good of human society, the good of one's country, or the good of the Church.

[5] The types of good mentioned above are meant by 'the clay' or 'the mire', the truth with which that good does not cohere being 'the iron'. Therefore verse 43 says, [Just as] the iron which you saw was mixed with the miry clay, they will mingle through the seed of man (homo) 1 , but they will not cohere with one another, just as iron is not mingled with clay. 'The seed of man' is the truth of faith when it originates in the self, which is truth falsified and adulterated through application to evils that exist as the result of a regard for self and the world. From all this it is evident that the parts of a person's body from his head to the soles of his feet mean such things as belong to the Church.

[6] In general 'the head' means celestial good, which is the good of love to the Lord, 'the breast' spiritual good, which is the good of charity towards the neighbour, and 'the feet' natural good, which is the good and truth of faith, see 9913, 9914; and the same kinds of good are meant by 'gold', 'silver', 'bronze', and 'iron', 5658. But for what is meant specifically by 'the head', see 4938, 4939, 5328, 9913, 9914, by 'gold', 113, 1551, 1552, 5658, 9510, 9881, by 'the breast', 4938, 4939, 5328, 6436, 9913, 9914, and by 'silver', 1551, 5658, 6914, 6917. From this it is evident what is meant by 'the belly' and 'the side', which are the parts below the breast. But for what 'bronze' means, [see] 425, 1551, 'the feet', 2162, 3147, 3761, 4938-4952, 'iron', 425, 426, and 'clay' or 'mire', 1300, 6669.

[7] From all this it may now be recognized that the members or organs of the human body mean such things as correspond to them in the Grand Man, which is heaven. They all have connection with the good of love and the truth of faith; and because they correspond to these they also correspond to the same realities in the Church, because the Lord's heaven on earth is the Church.

There is a correspondence of the human being and all parts of the human being with the Grand Man, which is heaven; see what has been shown from actual experience at the ends of a number of chapters, in the following places, 3624-3649, 3741-3751, 3883-3896, 4039-4051, 4218-4228, 4318-4331, 4403-4421, 4527-4533, 4622-4633, 4652-4660, 4791-4805, 4931-4953, 5050-5061, 5171-5189, 5377-5396, 5552-5573, 5711-5727, 5846-5866, 5976-5993, 6053-6058, 6189-6215, 6307-6326, 6466-6495.

What correspondence is, 2987-3003, 3213-3227, 3337-3352, 3472-3485.

脚注:

1. i.e. they will become mixed together through intermarriages

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