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Exodus 34

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1 And Jehovah said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou brakest.

2 And be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me on the top of the mount.

3 And no man shall come up with thee; neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.

4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone.

5 And Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah.

6 And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth,

7 keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.

8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

9 And he said, If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

10 And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of Jehovah; for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee.

11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:

13 but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim;

14 for thou shalt worship no other god: for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

15 lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot after their gods, and sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice;

16 and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods, and make thy sons play the harlot after their gods.

17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

18 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.

19 All that openeth the womb is mine; and all thy cattle that is male, the firstlings of cow and sheep.

20 And the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. All the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, [even] of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

23 Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel.

24 For I will cast out nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou goest up to appear before Jehovah thy God three times in the year.

25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

26 The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

27 And Jehovah said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

28 And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

29 And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.

30 And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.

31 And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses spake to them.

32 And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that Jehovah had spoken with him in mount Sinai.

33 And when Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

34 But when Moses went in before Jehovah to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.

35 And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

   

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Early

  
Sailing ships at dawn by Constantine Volanakis

Since the sun represents the Lord, the early morning and sunrise represent a state of enlightenment with a new and clear understanding coming after a time of darkness. There are many ways this representation appears in modern life. For one, it’s long been tradition to orient churches with the sanctuary in the east, toward the rising sun. People grappling with a problem often decide to “sleep on it,” anticipating that answers will be more clear in the morning. And we actually use “dawn” as a verb for sudden enlightenment: “As he stared out the window, it dawned on him that the answer had been in his hands all along.”

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 8495

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8495. 'A holy sabbath to Jehovah shall tomorrow be' means the joining together of goodness and truth into eternity. This is clear from the meaning of 'sabbath' as the joining together of goodness and truth, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'tomorrow' as into eternity, dealt with in 3998. Anyone who does not know what the sabbath represented, and what it was consequently a sign of, also cannot know why it was held to be the holiest institution of all. It was held to be the holiest because in the highest sense it represented the union of the Divine and the Divine Human within the Lord, and in the relative sense the joining together of the Lord's Divine Human and the human race. This is why the sabbath was the holiest. And since it represented those realities it also represented heaven in respect of the joining together of goodness and truth, that is, the joining together called the heavenly marriage. And since the joining together of goodness and truth is accomplished by the Lord alone and nothing at all of it by man, and since it is accomplished in a state of peace, people were most strictly forbidden to do any work on that day. The prohibition was so strict that the soul who did do any was to be cut off. This is stated in Moses as follows,

You shall keep the sabbath, for it is holy to you. He who profanes it must certainly die; for everyone who does work on that day, this soul shall be cut off from the midst of his people. Exodus 31:14.

This was why the one who merely gathered sticks on that day was stoned, Numbers 15:32-36. It is also why the command regarding the sabbath is the third of the Ten Commandments, coming immediately after the two regarding holy worship of Jehovah, Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12. And it is why the sabbath is called 'an eternal covenant', Exodus 31:16; for 'a covenant' means a joining together, 665, 666, 1023, 1038, 1864, 1996, 2003, 2021, 6804.

[2] From all this one may now see what is meant in the internal sense by the things said about the sabbath in the following places, as in Isaiah,

Blessed is the person keeping the sabbath so that he does not profane it. Thus said Jehovah to the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths and choose that in which I delight, and hold fast to My covenant, I will give those in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an eternal name which will not be cut off. Whoever keeps the sabbath so that he does not profane it, and those who hold fast to My covenant, I will bring them onto My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Isaiah 56:2-7.

From these words it is evident that those who are joined to the Lord are meant by those who keep the sabbath holy. That they will be in heaven is meant by the promise that those in Jehovah's house will be given a place and a name better than sons and daughters, an eternal name which will not be cut off, and that they will be brought onto the holy mountain.

[3] In the same prophet,

If you turn away your foot from the sabbath, so that you do not do your own will on My holy day, but call the sabbath, Delights holy to Jehovah, honourable, and honour it, so that you do not do your own ways, nor find your own desire or speak [your own] words, then you will take delight in Jehovah, and I will convey you into the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob. Isaiah 58:13-14.

What was represented by the requirement that they should not do any work on the sabbath day is clearly evident here, namely that they must not do anything that begins in themselves, only what begins in the Lord. For the angelic state in heaven is such that they do not will or do, they do not even think or utter, anything that begins in themselves or what is properly their own. This is what their being joined to the Lord consists in. Not doing anything that begins in themselves is meant when it says that they should not do their own will, nor do their own ways, nor find their own desire, nor speak [their own] words. This state existing with the angels is the heavenly state itself; and when they are in it they experience peace and rest. Also the Lord has rest, for when they have been joined to Him their labour ceases; they now abide in the Lord. These things are meant by the words 'so shall you call the sabbath, Delights holy to Jehovah' and that they will take delight in Jehovah. The Lord's rest is meant where it says that after creating on six days 'He rested on the seventh day', Genesis 2:2.

[4] The same things are meant by the following words in Jeremiah,

If you most certainly hear Me, so that you do not bring a burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, and you keep the sabbath day holy, so that you do not do any work in it, then there will enter through the gates of this city kings and princes seated on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men (vir) of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And this city will be inhabited forever. Jeremiah 17:24-25

'Work on the sabbath' means everything that springs from the self. The state of people who are not led by self but by the Lord is what 'there will enter through the gates of the city kings and princes seated on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses' describes. 'Kings' means the truths of faith, 'princes' leading aspects of them, 'seated on the throne of David' the fact that they come from the Lord, and 'chariots and horses' religious teachings and intellectual concepts belonging to faith. It should be recognized that everything coming from a person's self is bad, and everything coming from the Lord is good. The fact that everything, in the case of those who are led by the Lord, flows in, down to the smallest particle of life in both their understanding and their will, thus down to every single part of the faith and charity they possess, see what has been shown abundantly from experience in 2886-2888, 6053-6058, 6189-6215, 6307-6327, 6466-6495, 6598-6626, 6982, 6985, 6996, 7004, 7055, 7056, 7058, 7147, 7270.

[5] As regards the sabbath and its being a representative of the joining together of the Lord and the human race, this is clear in Ezekiel,

I gave them My sabbaths, in order that they might be a sign between Me and them, to know that I am Jehovah who sanctifies them. Ezekiel 20:12.

See too Exodus 31:13. Therefore also it was forbidden to kindle fire on the sabbath day, Exodus 35:3, because 'fire' meant all that composed life, and 'kindling fire' that which composed life beginning from self. From all that has been stated it is evident that the Lord is Lord of the sabbath, in accordance with His words in Matthew 12:1-9. It is evident too why a large number of healings by the Lord were performed on sabbath days, Matthew 12:10-14; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-12; 13:10-17; 14:1-6; John 5:9-18; 7:22-23; 9:14, 16; for the sicknesses from which the Lord healed people involved spiritual sicknesses which exist as a result of evil, 7337, 8364.

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