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Exodus 3

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1 Now Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he took the flock to the back of the waste land and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

2 And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up.

3 And Moses said, I will go and see this strange thing, why the tree is not burned up,

4 And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

5 And he said, Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy.

6 And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God.

7 And God said, Truly, I have seen the grief of my people in Egypt, and their cry because of their cruel masters has come to my ears; for I have knowledge of their sorrows;

8 And I have come down to take them out of the hands of the Egyptians, guiding them out of that land into a good land and wide, into a land flowing with milk and honey; into the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

9 For now, truly, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the cruel behaviour of the Egyptians to them.

10 Come, then, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

11 And Moses said to God, Who am I to go to Pharaoh and take the children of Israel out of Egypt?

12 And he said, Truly I will be with you; and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you have taken the children of Israel out of Egypt, you will give worship to God on this mountain.

13 And Moses said to God, When I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you: and they say to me, What is his name? what am I to say to them?

14 And God said to him, I AM WHAT I AM: and he said, Say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.

15 And God went on to say to Moses, say to the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and this is my sign to all generations.

16 Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt;

17 And I have said, I will take you up out of the sorrows of Egypt into the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, into a land flowing with milk and honey.

18 And they will give ear to your voice: and you, with the chiefs of Israel, will go to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has come to us: let us then go three days' journey into the waste land to make an offering to The Lord our God.

19 And I am certain that the king of Egypt will not let you go without being forced.

20 But I will put out my hand and overcome Egypt with all the wonders which I will do among them: and after that he will let you go.

21 And I will give this people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that when you go out you will go out with your hands full.

22 For every woman will get from her neighbour and from the woman living in her house, ornaments of silver and gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and your daughters; you will take the best of their goods from the Egyptians.

   

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True Christian Religion # 19

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19. (i) THE ONE GOD IS NAMED JEHOVAH FROM HIS BEING, THAT IS, FROM THE FACT THAT HE ALONE IS, [WAS] AND WILL BE, AND BECAUSE HE IS THE FIRST AND THE LAST, THE BEGINNING AND THE END, ALPHA AND OMEGA.

It is well known that Jehovah means 'I am' and 'Being'. It is clear from the Book of Creation, called Genesis, that God was so called from most ancient times; for there He is called God in the first chapter, but in the second and subsequent ones Jehovah God. Later on when the descendants of Abraham, starting with Jacob, forgot the name of God owing to their long stay in Egypt, it was recalled to their memory. About this we read:

Moses said to God, What is your name? God said, I am who I am; thus

shall you say to the Children of Israel, I am has sent me to you; and you shall say, Jehovah the God of your fathers has sent me to you. This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation, Exodus 3:13-15.

Since God alone is I am or Being, that is, Jehovah, therefore there cannot be anything in the created universe which does not owe its being to Him; how this happens will be seen below. The same is meant also by these words:

I am the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, Alpha and Omega, Isaiah 44:6; Revelation 1:8, 11; 22:13.

This means that He is the one single source from beginning to end, from which everything comes.

[2] God is called Alpha and Omega 1 , the Beginning and the End, because alpha is the first and omega the last letter in the Greek alphabet, and they thus mean everything taken together. The reason is that every letter of the alphabet in the spiritual world stands for some thing. Vowels, which allow words to be pronounced, stand for something to do with affection or love. This is the origin of the speech of spirits or angels, and also of their writing-systems. But this is a mystery not previously known: there is a universal language used by all angels and spirits, which has nothing in common with any human language in the world. Everyone comes into possession of this language after death, for it is inborn in everyone from his creation. Therefore everyone throughout the spiritual world can understand everyone else. I have often been permitted to hear that language, and I have compared it with languages in the world, and found that it does not agree in the slightest detail with any natural language on earth. It differs from them in its basic principle, which is that each letter of every word stands for some thing. That can now be seen to be the reason why God is called Alpha and Omega, the one single source from beginning to end, from which everything comes. On this language and its writing-system, which is derived from the spiritual thought of angels, see Conjugial Love 326-329, and also further in this book [280, 365, 386].

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. This passage is repeated with minor changes from Apocalypse Revealed 29.

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