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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 # 9294

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9294. 'And the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of [your] labours, which you have sown in the field' means worship of the Lord and thanksgiving on account of the implanting of truth in that good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the feast' as worship of the Lord and thanksgiving, dealt with above in 9286, 9287; from the meaning of 'the harvest' as truth when it becomes fruitful, thus its implantation in good; from the meaning of 'the firstfruits (or the beginnings) of labours' as the things which come at the end of instruction and at the start of life, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'sowing' as giving instruction, dealt with in 9272; and from the meaning of 'the field' as the Church in respect of good, and so the Church's good, dealt with in 2971, 3500, 3766, 7502, 9139, 9141. From these meanings it is evident that 'the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of labours, which you have sown in the field' means worship of the Lord and thanksgiving because truth has been planted in good.

[2] The fact that these things are meant by this second feast is clear from what has been stated above in 9286, namely that three feasts were established on account of people's deliverance from damnation, thus on account of their regeneration since it is through regeneration that a person is delivered from hell and brought to heaven. On this account the first feast, which was called the feast of unleavened bread, means purification from falsities; this second feast therefore means the planting of truth in good; and the third feast the implantation of good. For when a person is being regenerated he is first purified from falsities that arise from the evil of self-love and love of the world. That purification is accomplished by his being taught about evil, hell, and damnation, also about good, heaven, and eternal happiness, as a result of which he allows himself to be held back from evil deeds, intentions, and thoughts. When the ground has been prepared in that way, the truths of faith are sown in it, for they are not received before that. But the truths that are sown must be planted in good, for they have no ground anywhere else nor can they take root anywhere else. They are planted in good when a person wills truth, loves it, and does it. This state of regeneration or deliverance from damnation is meant by this feast, which is called 'the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of labours', for 'the harvest' means truths when productive of good.

[3] When truths have been planted in good a person is no longer led by the Lord by means of truths but by means of good. This comes about when he wills good and does good from love and affection, that is, from charity. This state of regeneration or deliverance from damnation is meant by the third feast, which is called the feast of ingathering.

[4] These three feasts were also called the feast of Passover, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tabernacles; regarding these, see Exodus 34:18-22; Leviticus 23:1-end; Deuteronomy 16:1-end. By these three feasts the same things were represented as by the children of Israel being brought out of the land of Egypt, by their being brought into the land of Canaan, and by their dwelling in it. By the children of Israel being brought out of the land of Egypt the same thing was represented as by the first feast, called the Passover. This may be seen to be so from what has been shown regarding the Passover in 7093(end), 7867, 7995. For the bringing out of the children of Israel, on account of which that feast was established, meant the deliverance of those belonging to the spiritual Church from falsities by which they were molested, 7240, 7317, 9197.

[5] By the children of Israel being brought into the land of Canaan the same thing, namely the planting of truth in good, was represented as by this second feast, which was called 'the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of labours' and also 'the feast of weeks'. For 'the land of Canaan' is the Church in respect of good, and so the Church's good, 1607, 3038, 3481, 3686, 3705, 4240, 4447, 4517, 5136, 6516, and 'the children of Israel' - in the abstract, without envisaging actual persons - are spiritual truths, 5414, 5879, 5951.

[6] By the dwelling of the children of Israel in the land of Canaan the same thing, namely the implantation of good and so life in heaven, was represented as by the third feast, which was called 'the feast of ingathering' of the fruits of the earth, and of ingathering from the threshing-floor and the press, also 'the feast of tabernacles'.

From all this it is now evident why three feasts were established, namely for the reason that the human race, which wishes to receive new life from the Lord, is brought out of hell and into heaven, which is accomplished by the Lord through His Coming into the world.

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