7
그 한 방의 바깥 담 곧 뜰의 담과 마주 대한 담의 장이 오십척이니
Apocalypse Revealed#322
322. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill. This symbolizes the destruction of all good in the church.
Since death means the extinction of a person's spiritual life, and hell his damnation, it follows that to kill here means to destroy the life of a person's soul. The life of the soul is spiritual life.
A fourth of the earth means, symbolically, all good in the church. The earth is the church (no. 285).
That a fourth means all good can be known only by someone who knows what numbers in the Word symbolize. The numbers two and four are said in application to goods, and they symbolize those goods. And the numbers three and six are said in application to truths, and they symbolize those truths. Thus a fourth part, or simply a fourth, symbolizes all good, while a third part, or simply a third, symbolizes all truth. Therefore to kill a fourth of the earth here means, symbolically, to destroy all good in the church.
Clearly he who sat on the pale horse was not given the power to kill a fourth part of the habitable earth.
[2] In addition, the number four in the Word symbolizes the union of goodness and truth.
That the number four has these symbolic meanings can, indeed, be confirmed from the Word, as by the four living creatures or cherubim in Ezekiel 1,3, 10; by the four chariots between two mountains in Zechariah 6:1; by the four horns in Zechariah 1:18ff.; by the four horns of the altar in Exodus 27:1-8, and Revelation 9:13; and by the four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, in Revelation 7:1 (cf. Matthew 24:31). It can be confirmed, too, by the "visiting the iniquity to the third and fourth generation" in Numbers 14:18, and by the third and fourth generation mentioned elsewhere. By these passages in the Word and more, I say, one can confirm that the number four is said in application to goods, and that they symbolize those goods, and also the conjunction of goodness and truth. But because it would take a lengthy explanation of these passages to make this apparent, it is enough to briefly state that this is the meaning that the number four and a fourth part have in heaven.
Zechariah第7章
1
It happened in the fourth year of king Darius that the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev.
2
The people of Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem Melech, and their men, to entreat Yahweh's favor,
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and to speak to the priests of the house of Yahweh of Armies, and to the prophets, saying, "Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?"
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Then the word of Yahweh of Armies came to me, saying,
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"Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?
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When you eat, and when you drink, don't you eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
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Aren't these the words which Yahweh proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?'"
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The word of Yahweh came to Zechariah, saying,
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"Thus has Yahweh of Armies spoken, saying, 'Execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother.
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Don't oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.'
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But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.
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Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which Yahweh of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of Armies.
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It has come to pass that, as he called, and they refused to listen, so they will call, and I will not listen," said Yahweh of Armies;
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"but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned: for they made the pleasant land desolate."
