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Exodus 34

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1 And the Lord said to Moses, Make two other stones like the first two; and I will put on them the words which were on the first stones, which were broken by you.

2 And be ready by the morning, and come up on Mount Sinai, and come before me there in the morning, on the top of the mountain.

3 No one is to come up with you, and let no man be seen anywhere on the mountain; let no flocks or herds come near to get their food at its foot.

4 So Moses got two stones cut like the first; and early in the morning he went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had said, with the two stones in his hand.

5 And the Lord came down in the cloud and took his place by the side of Moses, and Moses gave worship to the name of the Lord.

6 And the Lord went past before his eyes, saying, the Lord, the Lord, a God full of pity and grace, slow to wrath and great in mercy and faith;

7 Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.

8 Then Moses quickly went down on his face in worship.

9 And he said, If now I have grace in your eyes, let the Lord go among us, for this is a stiff-necked people, and give us forgiveness for our wrongdoing and our sin, and take us for your heritage.

10 And the Lord said, See, this is what I will undertake: before the eyes of your people I will do wonders, such as have not been done in all the earth or in any nation: and all your people will See the work of the Lord, for what I am about to do for you is greatly to be feared.

11 Take care to do the orders which I give you today; I will send out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

12 But take care, and do not make any agreement with the people of the land where you are going, for it will be a cause of sin to you.

13 But their altars are to be overturned and their pillars broken and their images cut down:

14 For you are to be worshippers of no other god: for the Lord is a God who will not give his honour to another.

15 So see that you make no agreement with the people of the land, and do not go after their gods, or take part in their offerings, or be guests at their feasts,

16 Or take their daughters for your sons; for when their daughters give worship before their gods, they will make your sons take part with them.

17 Make for yourselves no gods of metal.

18 Keep the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days your food is to be bread without leaven, as I gave you orders, at the regular time in the month Abib; for in that month you came out of Egypt.

19 Every first male child is mine; the first male birth of your cattle, the first male of every ox and sheep.

20 A lamb may be given in payment for the young of an ass, but if you will not make payment for it, its neck will have to be broken. For all the first of your sons you are to make payment. No one is to come before me without an offering.

21 Six days let work be done, but on the seventh day take your rest: at ploughing time and at the grain-cutting you are to have a day for rest.

22 And you are to keep the feast of weeks when you get in the first-fruits of the grain, and the feast at the turn of the year when you take in the produce of your fields.

23 Three times in the year let all your males come before the Lord, the God of Israel.

24 For I will send out the nations before you and make wide the limits of your land; and no man will make an attempt to take your land while you go up to give worship to the Lord, three times in the year.

25 No leaven is to be offered with the blood of my offering, and the offering of the Passover feast may not be kept till the morning.

26 Take the first-fruits of your land as an offering to the house of the Lord your God. Let not the young goat be cooked in its mother's milk

27 And the Lord said to Moses, Put all these words in writing; for on them is based the agreement which I will make with you.

28 And for forty days and forty nights Moses was there with the Lord, and in that time he had no food or drink. And he put in writing on the stones the words of the agreement, the ten rules of the law.

29 Now when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two stones in his hand, he was not conscious that his face was shining because of his talk with God.

30 But when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, and the shining of his face, they would not come near him for fear.

31 Then Moses sent for them; and Aaron, with the chiefs of the people, came to him; and Moses had talk with them.

32 And later, all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them all the orders which the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.

33 And at the end of his talk with them, Moses put a veil over his face.

34 But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to have talk with him, he took off the veil till he came out. And whenever he came out he said to the children of Israel what he had been ordered to say;

35 And the children of Israel saw that the face of Moses was shining: so Moses put the veil over his face again till he went to the Lord.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 4925

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4925. 'That behold, his brother came out' means the truth of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'brother' as that which is kindred, by virtue of good, dealt with in 3815, 4267, and so the truth of good. The truth of good is that truth which is rooted in good, or that faith which is rooted in charity. Dealt with here in the internal sense is the birthright in the case of those who are being born again or regenerated by the Lord, and therefore the birthright within the Church. It has been a matter of argument since most ancient times as to which is the firstborn, whether this is the good of charity or whether it is the truth of faith. Unseen while a person is being born again and becoming a Church, good conceals itself within the interior man and reveals itself solely within some affection which does not pass into the conscious feelings of the external or natural man until he has been born again. But truth reveals itself, for this does enter his conscious feelings and lodges in the memory belonging to the external or natural man. This explains why many have fallen into the error that truth is the firstborn, and at length even thinking that truth is the vital element of the Church, so vital that truth which is called faith can save a person without the good of charity.

[2] From this one error very many others have been derived which have infected not only what is taught but also life, such as the error that no matter what kind of life a person leads he can be saved provided he has faith. A further derivative error is that very wicked people are accepted into heaven provided that in the final hour before they die they declare their belief in those things which are matters of faith; and another such error is that, irrespective of the kind of life one has led, one is accepted into heaven solely by grace. Because people hold to this teaching they fail at length to know what charity is or to have any concern about what it is, till in the end they do not believe in the existence of it, or consequently in the existence of heaven and hell. The reason for this is that faith without charity, or truth without good, teaches a person nothing; and the more it departs from good, the more foolish it makes him. For good is what the Lord flows into and through which He flows, imparting intelligence and wisdom and consequently a superior ability to see, and also perception whether something is really true or not.

[3] From these considerations one may now see the position with regard to the birthright, namely that in actual fact it belongs to good but appears to belong to truth. This is what the birth of Tamar's two sons is used to describe in the internal sense. 'The twice-dyed thread' which the midwife bound on the hand that came out means good, as shown in 4922; 'coming out first' means priority of place, 4923; 'withdrawing the hand' means that good concealed its own power, as stated immediately above [in 4924]; 'his brother came out' means truth; 'you have made a breach upon yourself means this truth's apparent separation from good; 'afterwards his brother came out' means that good is in actual fact first; and 'on whose hand was the twice-dyed thread' means the acknowledgement that good is first. For it is not until after a person has been born again that good is acknowledged to be first, at which point that person's actions spring from good, and his view of truth and what this is like springs from the same.

[4] These are the matters contained within the internal sense, in which teaching is given regarding the good and truth with a person who is being born anew, namely that good in actual fact occupies first place but truth appears to do so, and that good is not seen to occupy the first place while a person is being regenerated but is plainly seen to do so once he has been regenerated. But there is no need to explain these matters any further since they have been explained already - see 3324, 3325, 3494, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3701, 4243, 4244, 4247, 4337; and the fact that controversy has taken place since ancient times over whether the birthright belonged to good or to truth, that is, to charity or to faith, 2435.

[5] Because in the highest sense the Lord is the firstborn, and therefore love to Him and charity towards the neighbour are the firstborn, the law was for that reason laid down in the representative Church that firstborn things were Jehovah's: in Moses,

Sanctify to Me all the firstborn, that which opens the womb among the children of Israel; with man and with beast let them be Mine. Exodus 13:2.

You shall make over to Jehovah all that opens the worm', and every firstling of a beast; however many males you have they shall be Jehovah's. Exodus 13:12.

All that opens the womb is Mine; therefore among all your cattle, you shall give the male. that among oxen and small cattle which opens [the womb]. Exodus 34:19.

All that opens the womb among all flesh which they bring to Jehovah, from men and from beasts, shall be yours. Nevertheless you shall surely redeem all the firstborn of men. Numbers 18:15.

Behold, I Myself have taken the Levites from the midst of the children of Israel, instead of every firstborn, that which opens the womb, from the children of Israel, so that the Levites may be Mine. Numbers 3:12.

[6] Because the firstborn is the one that opens the womb, the expression 'that which opens the womb' is therefore added, when the firstborn is mentioned in these places, so as to mean good. It is evident that this expression means good from the specific details contained in the internal sense, especially from those which are recorded regarding the sons of Tamar: Zerah is said to have opened the womb with his hand, and 'Zerah' represents good, as is also clear from the twice-dyed thread placed on his hand, dealt with in 4922. In addition to this 'the womb', to which the expression 'opened' is applied, means the place where good and truth, consequently the Church, lie, see 4918, while 'opening the womb' means supplying the power which enables truth to be born.

[7] Because the Lord is the only firstborn - He being Good itself, and His Good being the source of all truth - Jacob, who was not the firstborn, was therefore allowed to purchase the birthright from Esau his brother so that he might represent Him. Also, because this was not sufficient, he was called Israel, so that by this name he might represent the good of truth; for 'Israel' in the representative sense means good which comes through truth, 3654, 4286, 4598.

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