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Exodus 38

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1 And he made the altar of burnt-offering of acacia wood: five cubits was the length thereof, and five cubits the breadth thereof, foursquare; and three cubits the height thereof.

2 And he made the horns thereof upon the four corners of it; the horns thereof were of one piece with it: and he overlaid it with brass.

3 And he made all the vessels of the altar, the pots, and the shovels, and the basins, the flesh-hooks, and the firepans: all the vessels thereof made he of brass.

4 And he made for the altar a grating of network of brass, under the ledge round it beneath, reaching halfway up.

5 And he cast four rings for the four ends of the grating of brass, to be places for the staves.

6 And he made the staves of acacia wood, and overlaid them with brass.

7 And he put the staves into the rings on the sides of the altar, wherewith to bear it; he made it hollow with planks.

8 And he made the laver of brass, and the base thereof of brass, of the mirrors of the ministering women that ministered at the door of the tent of meeting.

9 And he made the court: for the south side southward the hangings of the court were of fine twined linen, a hundred cubits;

10 their pillars were twenty, and their sockets twenty, of brass; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver.

11 And for the north side a hundred cubits, their pillars twenty, and their sockets twenty, of brass; the hooks of the pillars, and their fillets, of silver.

12 And for the west side were hangings of fifty cubits, their pillars ten, and their sockets ten; the hooks of the pillars, and their fillets, of silver.

13 And for the east side eastward fifty cubits.

14 The hangings for the one side [of the gate] were fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three;

15 and so for the other side: on this hand and that hand by the gate of the court were hangings of fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three.

16 All the hangings of the court round about were of fine twined linen.

17 And the sockets for the pillars were of brass; the hooks of the pillars, and their fillets, of silver; and the overlaying of their capitals, of silver; and all the pillars of the court were filleted with silver.

18 And the screen for the gate of the court was the work of the embroiderer, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: and twenty cubits was the length, and the height in the breadth was five cubits, answerable to the hangings of the court.

19 And their pillars were four, and their sockets four, of brass; their hooks of silver, and the overlaying of their capitals, and their fillets, of silver.

20 And all the pins of the tabernacle, and of the court round about, were of brass.

21 This is the sum of [the things for] the tabernacle, even the tabernacle of the testimony, as they were counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.

22 And Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that Jehovah commanded Moses.

23 And with him was Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a skilful workman, and an embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen.

24 All the gold that was used for the work in all the work of the sanctuary, even the gold of the offering, was twenty and nine talents, and seven hundred and thirty shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary.

25 And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was a hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and threescore and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary:

26 a beka a head, [that is], half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that passed over to them that were numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men.

27 And the hundred talents of silver were for casting the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the veil; a hundred sockets for the hundred talents, a talent for a socket.

28 And of the thousand seven hundred seventy and five [shekels] he made hooks for the pillars, and overlaid their capitals, and made fillets for them.

29 And the brass of the offering was seventy talents, and two thousand and four hundred shekels.

30 And therewith he made the sockets to the door of the tent of meeting, and the brazen altar, and the brazen grating for it, and all the vessels of the altar,

31 and the sockets of the court round about, and the sockets of the gate of the court, and all the pins of the tabernacle, and all the pins of the court round about.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 8990

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8990. 'And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl' means a representative sign of obedience. This is clear from the meaning of 'ear' as obedience, dealt with in 2542, 3869, 4551, 4652-4660; and from the meaning of 'piercing it with an awl' - that is to say, onto the door or onto the doorpost - as affixing, or at this point pledging forever, since it refers to obedience; and this is why the words follow, 'he shall serve him forever', that is, be obedient to him forever. From this it is evident that his master's piercing his ear with an awl, fixing it to the door or to the doorpost, is representative of obedience.

[2] The implications of all this may become clear from matters stated previously, where it has been shown that those imbued solely with truths and not with complementary good, that is, with faith and not with charity, are not free but slaves. Those whose actions spring from good or charity are free. They act from themselves; for actions that spring from good or charity spring from the heart, that is, from the will, and so from what is a person's own, since what exists in a person's will is his own and a deed springing from the will is said to go out of the heart. But those who are imbued solely with the truths of faith and not with the good of charity are slaves in comparison. They do not act from themselves since they have no good within themselves for actions to spring from; instead good is outside them, and they base their actions on it as often as they call it to mind. Those who stay like this through to the end of their lives remain permanently in this state after death. They cannot be brought to a state in which their actions spring from charitable affection, that is, from good; they can act only in obedience. In the Grand Man, which is heaven, they constitute those parts that serve more internal ones, like membranes and skins, 8977, 8980.

[3] All this shows what the situation is with faith alone, that is, with those who doctrinally place faith first and the good of charity second, indeed last. Those who place them in this order in the actual lives they lead are 'Hebrew slaves' in the representative sense; but those who place charity first, in the actual lives they lead, are free or 'the children of Israel' in the representative sense. From all this one may also conclude what the situation is with those who make salvation rest entirely on the truths of faith and not at all on the good of charity, that is to say, not at all on the actual life they lead. One may conclude that they cannot enter heaven; for good reigns in heaven, not truth without good, and truth is not truth, nor is faith faith, except with those imbued with good

[4] That his master's piercing his ear with an awl, fixing it to the door, is representative of obedience is also evident from the consideration that fixing his ear to the door means causing him to attend to the things commanded by his master who is in the room, that is, to hear him at all times and obey his instructions. At this point the things which good wills and commands are meant in the spiritual sense, for spiritual good is represented by the slave's master, 8981, 8986. Since 'the ear' means the hearing of obedience, there flows into human speech from an origin in the spiritual world the expression to tweak the ear, which stands for causing a person to pay attention and remember, and in like manner the expressions to hear and to hearken to someone, which stands for obeying him. For the inner meaning that very many words possess has sprung from correspondences from the spiritual world, as with expressions such as spiritual light and being enlightened by it which people use when speaking about matters of faith, and also spiritual fire and being animated by it when speaking about matters of love.

[5] The reason why piercing the ear was done with an awl was that 'an awl' has the same meaning as a pin or peg, namely affixing and joining onto, and in the spiritual sense pledging something. But an awl was a tool used by a servant, and therefore it served to represent the pledge of everlasting obedience by a slave. The meaning of 'a pin' or 'a peg' as affixing and joining onto is clear from the places where this object is mentioned, as in Isaiah 22:23; 33:20; 41:7; 54:2; Jeremiah 10:4; Exodus 27:19; 38:31; Numbers 3:37; 4:32.

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