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Exodus 30

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1 And you are to make an altar for the burning of perfume; of hard wood let it be made.

2 The altar is to be square, a cubit long and a cubit wide, and two cubits high, and its horns are to be made of the same.

3 It is to be plated with the best gold, the top of it and the sides and the horns, with an edging of gold all round it.

4 Under the edge on the two opposite sides, you are to make two gold rings, to take the rods for lifting it.

5 And make these rods of the same wood, plating them with gold.

6 And let it be placed in front of the veil before the ark of the law, before the cover which is over the law, where I will come face to face with you.

7 And on this altar sweet spices are to be burned by Aaron every morning when he sees to the lights.

8 And every evening, when he puts the lights up in their places, the spices are to be burned, a sweet-smelling smoke going up before the Lord from generation to generation for ever.

9 No strange perfume, no burned offering or meal offering, and no drink offering is to be offered on it.

10 And once every year Aaron is to make its horns clean: with the blood of the sin-offering he is to make it clean once every year from generation to generation: it is most holy to the Lord.

11 And the Lord said to Moses,

12 When you are taking the number of the children of Israel, let every man who is numbered give to the Lord a price for his life, so that no disease may come on them when they are numbered.

13 And this is what they are to give; let every man who is numbered give half a shekel, by the scale of the holy place: (the shekel being valued at twenty gerahs:) this money is an offering to the Lord.

14 Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, is to give an offering to the Lord.

15 The man of wealth is to give no more and the poor man no less than the half-shekel of silver, when the offering is made to the Lord as the price for your lives.

16 And you are to take this money from the children of Israel to be used for the work of the Tent of meeting, to keep the memory of the children of Israel before the Lord and to be the price of your lives.

17 And the Lord said to Moses,

18 You are to make a brass washing-vessel, with a brass base; and put it between the Tent of meeting and the altar, with water in it;

19 That it may be used by Aaron and his sons for washing their hands and feet;

20 Whenever they go into the Tent of meeting they are to be washed with water, to keep them from death; and whenever they come near to do the work of the altar, or to make an offering by fire to the Lord,

21 Their hands and feet are to be washed. so that they may be safe from death: this is an order to them for ever; to him and his seed from generation to generation.

22 And the Lord said to Moses,

23 Take the best spices, five hundred shekels' weight of liquid myrrh, and of sweet cinnamon half as much, that is, two hundred and fifty shekels, and two hundred and fifty shekels of sweet calamus,

24 And of cassia, five hundred shekels' weight measured by the scale of the holy place, and of olive oil a hin:

25 And make these into a holy oil, a perfume made by the art of the perfume-maker; it is to be a holy oil.

26 This oil is to be put on the Tent of meeting, and on the ark of the law,

27 And on the table and all its vessels, and on the support for the lights, with its vessels, and on the altar for burning spices,

28 And on the altar of burned offerings with its vessels, and on the washing-vessel and its base.

29 And you are to make them most holy; anything touching them will become holy.

30 And put the oil on Aaron and his sons, making them holy to do the work of priests to me.

31 And say to the children of Israel, This is to be the Lord's holy oil, from generation to generation.

32 It is not to be used for man's flesh, and no other is to be made like it: holy it is, and you are to keep it holy.

33 Whoever makes any like it, or puts it on one who is not a priest, will be cut off from his people.

34 And the Lord said to Moses, Take sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, with the best frankincense, in equal weights;

35 And make from them a perfume, such as is made by the art of the perfume-maker, mixed with salt, and clean and holy.

36 And put some of it, crushed very small, in front of the ark in the Tent of meeting, where I will come face to face with you; it is to be most holy.

37 You are not to make any perfume like it for yourselves: it is to be kept holy to the Lord.

38 Whoever makes any like it, for its sweet smell, will be cut off from his people.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 10262

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10262. 'A hin' means how far things are joined together. This is clear from the meaning of 'a hin' - which was a liquid measure, at this point a measure of oil - as the extent to which things are joined together. 'Oil' means the Lord's celestial Divine Good, which is the essential power that binds all things together in heaven; consequently the measure of the oil means how far things are joined together, and the fullness of their being joined together. The reason why the Lord's celestial Divine Good is the essential power that binds all things together is that it is the essential being (ipsum esse) of the life that all things have. For that Divine Good imparts life to all things through the Divine Truth emanating from itself; and it imparts life in accordance with the specific character of whatever receives it. Angels are recipients; so too are people in the world. The truths and forms of good they have form their specific character, and this conditions the reception that takes place within them, and so conditions any joining together.

[2] Two measures which were used for sacred purposes are mentioned in the Word; one was for liquids, which was called the hin, the other was for dry substances, which was called the ephah. The hin served to measure oil and wine, and the ephah to measure flour and fine flour. The hin, used for oil and wine, was divided into four, whereas the ephah was divided into ten. The reason why the hin was divided into four was in order that it might mean that which binds things together; for 'four' means a joining together. But the reason why the ephah was divided into ten was in order that it might mean reception, the nature of which was indicated by the numbers; for 'ten' means much, all, and what is complete.

'Four' means a joining together, see 8877, 9601, 9674, 10136, 10137.

'Ten' means much, all, and what is complete, as 'a hundred' does, 1988, 3107, 4400, 4638, 8468, 8540, 9745, 10253.

[3] The fact that the hin was used for the oil and wine in the sacrifices, and was divided into four, whereas the ephah was used for the flour and fine flour, which were for the minchah in the sacrifices, and that it was divided into ten, becomes clear in Exodus 29:40; Leviticus 5:11; 23:13; Numbers 15:3-10; 28:5, 7, 14. From these verses it is evident that 'a hin' means the extent to which things are joined together, and 'an ephah' the amount of reception. Furthermore the oil served to bind the fine flour together, and the fine flour to receive the oil; for a minchah consisted of oil and fine flour.

[4] In addition there were other measures that were used for ordinary purposes, both for dry substances and for liquids. The measures for dry substances were called the homer and the omer, and the measures for liquids the cor and the bath. A homer contained ten ephahs, and an ephah ten omers, whereas a cor contained ten baths, and a bath ten smaller parts; regarding all these, see Exodus 16:36; Ezekiel 45:11, 13, 24.

[5] But where the new temple is dealt with in Ezekiel a different division of the ephah and the bath occurs. There the ephah and the bath are divided not into ten but into six, and the hin corresponds to the ephah, as is evident in the same prophet, in Ezekiel 45:13-14, 24; 46:5, 7, 11, 14. The reason for this is that in those places the subject is not celestial good and its ability to bind things together, but spiritual good and its ability to do so; and the numbers 'twelve', 'six', and 'three' have their correspondence in the spiritual kingdom, because they mean all and, when used in reference to truths and forms of good, mean all aspects of truth and good in their entirety. The fact that these are meant by 'twelve', see 3272, 3858, 3913, 7973, also by 'six', 3960(end), 7973, 8148, 10217; and in like manner 'three', by which from beginning to end, thus what is complete, is meant, and - in respect of real things - all, 2788, 4495, 5159, 7715, 9825, 10127. The reason why these numbers imply similar things is that larger numbers are similar in meaning to the simple ones which when multiplied produce them, 5291, 5335, 5708, 7973.

[6] Since 'a hin' also means how far something is joined to spiritual truth, a third part of a hin of oil was taken for the minchah in the sacrifices of a ram, and a third part of wine for the drink offering, Numbers 15:6-7; for spiritual good is meant by 'a ram', 2830, 9991. From all this it is again plainly evident that numbers are used in the Word to mean real things. What other reason could there be for the numbers used so often in Moses, Ezekiel, and elsewhere to specify amounts and measures?

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