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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. That this signifies the truth of good, is evident from the signification of a “brother,” as being what is kindred from good (n. 3815, 4267), thus the truth of good; the truth of good is that truth which is from good, or that faith which is from charity. The subject treated of here in the internal sense is primogeniture in the case of those who are being reborn or regenerated by the Lord, consequently primogeniture in the church. It has been a matter of dispute from the most ancient times which is the firstborn, whether the good which is of charity, or the truth which is of faith; and as good does not appear while man is being reborn and made a church, but conceals itself in the interior man, and manifests itself only in a certain affection which does not fall clearly into the sensation of the external or natural man, until he has been reborn—whereas truth makes itself manifest, because it enters through the senses and stores itself in the memory of the external or natural man—therefore many persons have fallen into the error of thinking that truth is the firstborn, and at last even into that of thinking that truth is the essential of the church, and so essential that truth, which they call faith, has power to save without the good which is of charity.

[2] From this one error very many others have been derived, which have infected not only doctrine, but also life; as for instance that no matter how a man lives, provided he has faith he is saved; that even the most wicked are received into heaven if in the hour of death they make profession of such things as are of faith; and that everyone can be received into heaven merely from grace, whatever his life has been. In consequence of holding this doctrine they at last do not know what charity is, nor do they care for it; and finally they do not believe there is such a thing, nor consequently that there is a heaven or a hell. The reason is that faith without charity, or truth without good, teaches nothing; and the more it recedes from good, the more foolish it renders a man. For it is good into which and through which the Lord flows and gives intelligence and wisdom, thus a higher mental view, and also perception as to whether a thing be so or not so.

[3] All this shows how the case is in regard to primogeniture—it actually belongs to good, and to truth only apparently. This then is what is described in the internal sense by the birth of Tamar’s two sons, for by the “double-dyed” which the midwife bound upon the hand is signified good (see n. 4922); by “coming out first” is signified priority (n. 4923); by “drawing back his hand” is signified that good concealed its power, as was said just above; by his “brother coming out” is signified truth; by “thou hast broken upon thee a breach” is signified the apparent separation of truth from good; by his “brother coming out afterward” is signified that good is actually prior; and by “that had the double-dyed upon his hand” is signified acknowledgment that it is good; for good is not acknowledged to be prior until after the man has been reborn, for he then acts from good and from it regards truth and its quality.

[4] These are the things which are contained in the internal sense, which teaches how the case is with good and truth in the man who is being born anew, namely, that good is actually in the first place, but truth apparently; and that good does not appear to be in the first place while the man is being regenerated, but becomes manifestly so when he has been regenerated. But these things need not be further explained here, because they have been explained before (see n. 3324, 3325, 3494, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3603, 3701, 4243, 4244, 4247, 4337). That from ancient times it has been a matter of controversy whether primogeniture belongs to good or to truth, or whether to charity or to faith, has also been shown above (n. 2435).

[5] As the Lord in the supreme sense is the “Firstborn,” consequently love to Him and charity toward the neighbor, therefore it was ordained as a law in the representative church that the firstborn should be Jehovah’s, as we read in Moses:

Sanctify to Me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the sons of Israel, in man and in beast, let them be Mine (Exodus 13:2).

Thou shalt cause to pass to Jehovah everything that openeth the womb, and everything that openeth the offspring of a beast, as many as shall be males to thee, shall be Jehovah’s (Exodus 13:12).

Everything that openeth the womb is Mine; therefore as to all thy cattle thou shalt give the male, that openeth of ox and small cattle (Exodus 34:19).

Everything that openeth the womb of all flesh, which they shall bring to Jehovah, of men and of beasts, shall be thine; nevertheless every first born of man shalt thou surely redeem (Numbers 18:15).

Behold I have taken the Levites from the midst of the sons of Israel, instead of every firstborn that openeth the womb of the sons of Israel; that the Levites may be Mine (Numbers 3:12).

[6] As that which opens the womb is the firstborn, therefore where the word “firstborn” is mentioned, it is also said “that which openeth the womb;” in order that good may be signified. That this signifies good is evident from the particulars in the internal sense, especially from what is related of Tamar’s sons-that Zerah opened the womb with his hand, by whom good is represented, as is evident from the double-dyed upon his hand (n. 4922). Moreover, the “womb,” which is said to be “opened,” is where good and truth are, consequently the church (n. 4918); and to “open the womb” is to give power that truth may be born.

[7] As the Lord alone is the Firstborn—for He is good itself, and from His good is all truth—therefore in order that Jacob, who was not the firstborn, might represent Him, he was permitted to buy the primogeniture from Esau his brother; and because this was not sufficient, he was called Israel, in order that by this name he might represent the good of truth; for Israel in the representative sense is the good which comes by means of truth (n. 3654, 4286, 4598).

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