246. CONCERNING THE SUPPLICATION OF CERTAIN OF THE JEWS FOR THE MERCY OF GOD MESSIAH When the 16th Chapter of Ezekiel* was being explained, where the whoredom of the church of Jacob's descendants is treated of, there were present certain of the Jews who said that they had been of the sect of the Pharisees. When they had attended for some time to the interior sense of the words, they were so deeply moved by their truth, that, confessing their iniquities they devoutly supplicated the mercy of God Messiah. 1747, Nov. 13, o.s. * No exposition of the book of Ezekiel by Swedenborg is known to exist, except that contained in the Summary Exposition of the Prophets and Psalms which was not written until several years later. It is probable, however, that the explanation of the chapter referred to was written in the margin of the Schmidius Biblia Sacra. Unfortunately, the pages containing the sixteenth chapter have been removed from Swedenborg's copy, but as most of the remaining pages are very fully annotated, it seems likely that the missing pages were also annotated. That this chapter had been carefully studied by Swedenborg is evident from the exposition to be found in the Index Biblicus.