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Exodus 23

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1 Do not let a false statement go further; do not make an agreement with evil-doers to be a false witness.

2 Do not be moved to do wrong by the general opinion, or give the support of your words to a wrong decision:

3 But, on the other hand, do not be turned from what is right in order to give support to a poor man's cause.

4 If you come across the ox or the ass of one who is no friend to you wandering from its way, you are to take it back to him.

5 If you see the ass of one who has no love for you bent down to the earth under the weight which is put on it, you are to come to its help, even against your desire.

6 Let no wrong decisions be given in the poor man's cause.

7 Keep yourselves far from any false business; never let the upright or him who has done no wrong be put to death: for I will make the evil-doer responsible for his sin.

8 Take no rewards in a cause: for rewards make blind those who have eyes to see, and make the decisions of the upright false.

9 Do not be hard on the man from a strange country who is living among you; for you have had experience of the feelings of one who is far from the land of his birth, because you yourselves were living in Egypt, in a strange land.

10 For six years put seed into your fields and get in the increase;

11 But in the seventh year let the land have a rest and be unplanted; so that the poor may have food from it: and let the beasts of the field take the rest. Do the same with your vine-gardens and your olive-trees.

12 For six days do your work, and on the seventh day keep the Sabbath; so that your ox and your ass may have rest, together with the son of your servant and the man from a strange land living among you.

13 Take note of all these things which I have said to you, and let not the names of other gods come into your minds or from your lips.

14 Three times in the year you are to keep a feast to me.

15 You are to keep the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days let your bread be without leaven, as I gave you orders, at the regular time in the month Abib (for in it you came out of Egypt); and let no one come before me without an offering:

16 And the feast of the grain-cutting, the first-fruits of your planted fields: and the feast at the start of the year, when you have got in all the fruit from your fields.

17 Three times in the year let all your males come before the Lord God.

18 Do not give the blood of my offering with leavened bread; and do not let the fat of my feast be kept all night till the morning.

19 The best of the first-fruits of your land are to be taken into the house of the Lord your God. The young goat is not to be cooked in its mother's milk.

20 See, I am sending an angel before you, to keep you on your way and to be your guide into the place which I have made ready for you.

21 Give attention to him and give ear to his voice; do not go against him; for your wrongdoing will not be overlooked by him, because my name is in him.

22 But if you truly give ear to his voice, and do whatever I say, then I will be against those who are against you, fighting those who are fighting you.

23 And my angel will go before you, guiding you into the land of the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, and they will be cut off by my hand.

24 Do not go down on your faces and give worship to their gods, or do as they do; but overcome them completely, and let their pillars be broken down.

25 And give worship to the Lord your God, who will send his blessing on your bread and on your water; and I will take all disease away from among you.

26 All your animals will give birth without loss, not one will be without young in all your land; I will give you a full measure of life.

27 I will send my fear before you, putting to flight all the people to whom you come; all those who are against you will go in flight, turning their backs before you.

28 I will send hornets before you, driving out the Hivite and the Canaanite and the Hittite before your face.

29 I will not send them all out in one year, for fear that their land may become waste, and the beasts of the field be increased overmuch against you.

30 Little by little I will send them away before you, till your numbers are increased and you take up your heritage in the land.

31 I will let the limits of your land be from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the waste land to the river Euphrates: for I will give the people of those lands into your power; and you will send them out before you.

32 Make no agreement with them or with their gods.

33 Let them not go on living in your land, or they will make you do evil against me: for if you give worship to their gods, it will certainly be a cause of sin to you.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 6280

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6280. As regards 'the redeeming angel' - that the Lord's Divine Human is meant - this is clear from the consideration that by His assumption of the Human and making it Divine the Lord redeemed man, that is, delivered him from hell, on account of which, in respect of His Divine Human, the Lord is called the Redeemer. The reason why the Divine Human is called an angel is that the word 'angel' means one who has been sent, and the Lord's Divine Human is called 'the One who has been sent', as is evident from quite a number of places in the Word, in the Gospels. Furthermore the Divine Human that existed before the Lord's Coming into the world was Jehovah Himself flowing in by way of heaven when He was declaring His Word. Jehovah was above the heavens, but what passed from Him through the heavens was the Divine Human at that time; for by means of Jehovah's flowing into heaven a human image was presented, and the Divine itself as present by this inflowing was the Divine Man. This is the Divine Human which has existed from eternity and is called the One who has been sent, by which is meant that which goes forth and which is one and the same as 'the angel' spoken of here.

[2] But because Jehovah was no longer able to reach men by flowing into them through that Divine Human of His, for the reason that they had distanced themselves so far away from that Divine, He took on a human form and made it Divine. Then by flowing in from this into heaven, He could reach right out to those members of the human race who would accept the good of charity and the truth of faith from His Divine Human, which had thus been made visible, and so could deliver them from hell - a deliverance which could not possibly have been accomplished in any other way. This deliverance is what is called Redemption, and the Divine Human itself effecting that deliverance or redemption is what is called 'the redeeming angel'.

[3] But the Lord's Divine Human, it should be recognized, is above heaven - as the Divine itself is - since the Lord is the Sun that gives heaven its light; thus heaven is far below Him. The Divine Human present in heaven is the Divine Truth going forth from Him, which is the light radiating from Him as from the sun. In Essence the Lord is not Divine Truth, for that Truth is what goes forth from Him like light from the sun; rather, His Essence is Divine Goodness itself, which is one with Jehovah.

[4] The Lord's Divine Human is also called 'the angel' in other places in the Word, for example when He appeared to Moses in the bramble-bush, described as follows in Exodus,

When Moses came to the mountain of God, to Horeb, the angel of Jehovah appeared to him in a flame of fire from the middle of a bramble-bush. Jehovah saw that Moses turned aside to see, therefore God called to him from the middle of the bramble-bush. And He went on to say, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Exodus 3:1-2, 4, 6.

It is the Lord's Divine Human that is referred to here by the name 'the angel of Jehovah'. He was really Jehovah, which he is also explicitly called. Jehovah's presence there within His Divine Human may be recognized from the consideration that the Divine itself could not become visible except through the Divine Human, as the Lord's words in John declare,

Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. John 1:18.

And in another place,

You have never heard the Father's voice nor seen His shape. John 5:37.

[5] The Lord's Divine Human is also called 'an angel' where the leading of the people into the land of Canaan is the subject, referred to in Exodus as follows,

Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. Take notice of his face; for he will not tolerate your transgression, since My name is within him. Exodus 23:20-21, 23.

Here 'an angel' is the Divine Human. This is evident from the fact that it says 'since My name is within him', that is, Jehovah Himself is within him. 'My name' means Jehovah's essential nature, present in the Divine Human. For more about the meaning of 'the name of Jehovah' as the Lord's Divine Human, see 2628; and for more about the meaning of 'the name of God' as His essential nature, and so everything in its entirety by which God is worshipped, 1724, 3006.

[6] In Isaiah,

In all their affliction He suffered affliction, and the angel of His face delivered them; because of His love and His compassion He redeemed them, and took them and carried them all the days of eternity. Isaiah 63:9.

'The angel of Jehovah's face' is plainly the Lord's Divine Human, for it says that 'He redeemed them'. In Malachi,

Behold, suddenly there will come to His temple the Lord whom you seek, and the angel of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming, says Jehovah Zebaoth. But who can endure the day of His Coming, and who will stand when He appears? Then the minchah of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to Jehovah, as in the days of eternity, and as in former years. Malachi 3:1-2, 4

'The angel of the covenant' quite clearly means the Lord's Divine Human, for the subject is the Lord's Coming. 'Then the minchah of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to Jehovah' means that worship offered out of love and faith in Him will be acceptable then. It is perfectly plain that 'Judah' is not used in these verses to mean Judah, or 'Jerusalem' to mean Jerusalem, for neither at that time nor any later time was the minchah of Judah and Jerusalem acceptable. 'The days of eternity' are the states of the Most Ancient Church, which was a celestial Church, while 'former years' are the states of the Ancient Church, which was a spiritual one, see 6239. Furthermore 'angel' in the Word does not mean in the internal sense any angel but some Divine attribute within the Lord, 1925, 2319, 2821, 3039, 4085.

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