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Deuteronomy 7

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1 When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

2 and when Jehovah thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them;

3 neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

4 For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly.

5 But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

6 For thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.

7 Jehovah did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all peoples:

8 but because Jehovah loveth you, and because he would keep the oath which he sware unto your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9 Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,

10 and repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them.

12 And it shall come to pass, because ye hearken to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Jehovah thy God will keep with thee the covenant and the lovingkindness which he sware unto thy fathers:

13 and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; he will also bless the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground, thy grain and thy new wine and thine oil, the increase of thy cattle and the young of thy flock, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

14 Thou shalt be blessed above all peoples: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.

15 And Jehovah will take away from thee all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, will he put upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.

16 And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God shall deliver unto thee; thine eye shall not pity them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.

17 If thou shalt say in thy heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?

18 thou shalt not be afraid of them: thou shalt well remember what Jehovah thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt;

19 the great trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, whereby Jehovah thy God brought thee out: so shall Jehovah thy God do unto all the peoples of whom thou art afraid.

20 Moreover Jehovah thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves, perish from before thee.

21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them; for Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a great God and a terrible.

22 And Jehovah thy God will cast out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.

23 But Jehovah thy God will deliver them up before thee, and will discomfit them with a great discomfiture, until they be destroyed.

24 And he will deliver their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt make their name to perish from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them.

25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy God.

26 And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, and become a devoted thing like unto it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 921

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921. 'Noah built an altar to Jehovah' means a representative of the Lord. This is clear from what has been stated just above. All the religious observances of the Ancient Church were representative of the Lord, as also were those of the Jewish Church. But the chief representative in later times was the altar, and also the burnt offering, which, because it was made from clean beasts and clean birds, represented the same as that of which it was the meaningful sign. Clean beasts represented goods that stem from charity, and clean birds the truths of faith. And when offering these, members of the Ancient Church meant that they were offering gifts of those goods or truths to the Lord. Nothing else can be offered up to the Lord that will please Him. But their descendants, like the gentiles, and also the Jews, corrupted these offerings, for they did not even know that these had such a meaning. They confined worship solely to things of an external nature.

[2] That the altar was the chief representative of the Lord becomes clear also from the consideration that there were altars even among gentiles before all the other religious observances were established, before the Ark [of the Covenant] was made, and before the Temple was built. This is clear from Abram's going on to the mountain east of Bethel, erecting an altar, and calling on the name of Jehovah, Genesis 12:8; from his being commanded to offer Isaac as a burnt offering on an altar, Genesis 22:2, 9, from Jacob's building an altar in Luz, which was Bethel, Genesis 35:6-7; and from Moses' building an altar at the foot of Mount Sinai and offering sacrifice, Exodus 24:4-6. Each of these events took place before the establishment of the sacrificial system and before the construction of the Ark, the place where worship was at a later time celebrated in the wilderness. The fact that gentiles too had altars is clear from what is said about Balaam telling Balak to build seven altars and to prepare seven young bulls and seven rams, Numbers 23:1-7, 15-18, 29-30, and also from the command to destroy the altars of the nations, as in Deuteronomy 7:5; Judges 2:2. Consequently Divine worship involving the use of altars and sacrifices was not something new when it was established among the Jews. Indeed men were building altars, especially those for commemorative purposes, before they ever knew of immolating young bulls and other animals on them.

[3] That 'altars' means a representative of the Lord, and 'burnt offerings' consequent worship of Him, is quite clear from the Prophets and also in Moses where Levi to whom the priesthood was entrusted is the subject,

They will teach Jacob Your judgements and Israel Your law. They will put incense in Your nostrils, and whole (burnt offering) upon Your altar. Deuteronomy 33:10.

This stands for the whole of worship. 'Teaching Jacob His judgements, and Israel His law' stands for internal worship, while 'putting incense in His nostrils, and whole [burnt offering] on the altar' stands for corresponding external worship, and so for the whole of worship. In Isaiah,

On that day a man will look to his Maker and his eyes will regard the Holy One of Israel. And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands. Isaiah 17:7-8.

Here 'looking to the altars' clearly means representative worship in general, which was to be abolished. In the same prophet,

On that day there will be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at its border to Jehovah. Isaiah 19:19.

Here too 'altar' stands for external worship.

[4] In Jeremiah,

The Lord has abandoned His altar, He has abhorred His sanctuary. Lamentations 2:7.

'Altar' stands for representative worship which had become idolatrous. In Hosea,

Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have been to him altars for sinning. Hosea 8:11.

'Altars' here stands for all representative worship separated from internal, and so stands for what is idolatrous. In the same prophet,

The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. Thorn and thistle will grow up on their altars. Hosea 10:8.

Here too 'altars' stands for idolatrous worship. In Amos,

On the day I visit Israel for his transgressions, I will visit the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar will be cut off. Amos 3:14.

Here also 'altars' stands for representative worship that had become idolatrous.

[5] In David,

They will bring me to Your holy mountain, and to Your dwellings! Then I will go in to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy. Psalms 43:3-4.

Here 'altar' clearly stands for the Lord. So the making of an altar in the Ancient and the Jewish Churches stood for a representative of the Lord. Because worship of the Lord was carried out principally by means of burnt offerings and sacrifices, and these principally meant representative worship, it is clear that the altar itself means representative worship itself.

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