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Exodus 7

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1 And the Lord said to Moses, See I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet.

2 Say whatever I give you orders to Say: and Aaron your brother will give word to Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go out of his land.

3 And I will make Pharaoh's heart hard, and my signs and wonders will be increased in the land of Egypt.

4 But Pharaoh will not give ear to you, and I will put my hand on Egypt, and take my armies, my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, after great punishments.

5 And the Egyptians will see that I am the Lord, when my hand is stretched out over Egypt, and I take the children of Israel out from among them.

6 And Moses and Aaron did so: as the Lord gave them orders, so they did.

7 And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they gave the Lord's word to Pharaoh.

8 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

9 If Pharaoh says to you, Let me see a wonder: then say to Aaron, Take your rod and put it down on the earth before Pharaoh so that it may become a snake.

10 Then Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and they did as the Lord had said: and Aaron put his rod down on the earth before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a snake.

11 Then Pharaoh sent for the wise men and the wonder-workers, and they, the wonder-workers of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.

12 For every one of them put down his rod on the earth, and they became snakes: but Aaron's rod made a meal of their rods.

13 But Pharaoh's heart was made hard, and he did not give ear to them, as the Lord had said.

14 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh's heart is unchanged; he will not let the people go.

15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning; when he goes out to the water, you will be waiting for him by the edge of the Nile, with the rod which was turned into a snake in your hand;

16 And say to him, The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, Let my people go so that they may give me worship in the waste land; but up to now you have not given ear to his words.

17 So the Lord says, By this you may be certain that I am the Lord; see, by the touch of this rod in my hand the waters of the Nile will be turned to blood;

18 And the fish in the Nile will come to destruction, and the river will send up a bad smell, and the Egyptians will not be able, for disgust, to make use of the water of the Nile for drinking.

19 And the Lord said, Say to Aaron, Let the rod in your hand be stretched out over the waters of Egypt, and over the rivers and the streams and the pools, and over every stretch of water, so that they may be turned to blood; and there will be blood through all the land of Egypt, in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.

20 And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had said; and when his rod had been lifted up and stretched out over the waters of the Nile before the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants, all the water in the Nile was turned to blood;

21 And the fish in the Nile came to destruction, and a bad smell went up from the river, and the Egyptians were not able to make use of the water of the Nile for drinking; and there was blood through all the land of Egypt.

22 And the wonder-workers of Egypt did the same with their secret arts: but Pharaoh's heart was made hard, and he would not give ear to them, as the Lord had said.

23 Then Pharaoh went into his house, and did not take even this to heart.

24 And all the Egyptians made holes round about the Nile to get drinking-water, for they were not able to make use of the Nile water.

25 And seven days went past, after the Lord had put his hand on the Nile.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 862

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862. We have said that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people attempted to destroy everything connected with the New Church, both its truths and goods and its fundamental doctrine regarding the Lord and life, as stated in the preceding number. This is the symbolic meaning because the camp of the saints symbolizes all the truths and goods of the church which is the New Jerusalem.

That a camp in the spiritual sense symbolizes everything connected with the church with respect to its truths and goods can be seen from the following passages:

The sun and moon grew dark, and the stars diminished their brightness. Jehovah uttered His voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for numberless are those who obey His Word. (Joel 2:10-11)

I will encamp for My house some of the army... (Zechariah 9:8)

...God has scattered the bones of them who encamp against you..., because God has rejected them. (Psalms 53:5)

The angel of Jehovah encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. (Psalms 34:7)

(An angel of God met Jacob, and said to Jacob,) "This is God's camp." Therefore he called the name of that place Mahanaim (Two Camps). (Genesis 32:1-2)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 29:3, Ezekiel 1:24, Psalms 27:3.

That an army or host in the Word symbolizes the church's truths and goods, and also its falsities and evils, may be seen in nos. 447, 826, 833; and so, too, does a camp.

[2] Since the children of Israel and their twelve tribes symbolize the church in respect to all its truths and goods (nos. 349, 350), they were therefore called the armies or hosts of Jehovah (Exodus 7:4; 12:41, 51), and the places where they stopped and assembled were called camps, as in Leviticus 4:12; 8:17; 13:46; 14:8; 16:26, 28; 24:14, 23; Numbers 1; 2; 3; 4:5 ff., 5:2-4; 9:17-23; 10:1-10, 11-28; 11:31-32; 12:14-15; 21:10-15; 33:1-49; Deuteronomy 23:9-14; Amos 4:10.

It is apparent from this now that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people tried to destroy all the truths and goods of the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, and also its doctrine regarding the Lord and life.

The same symbolism is found in these verses in Luke:

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near... (At length) Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:20, 24)

This is said in reference to the end of the age, which is the final period of the church. Jerusalem here also symbolizes the church.

That Gog and Magog, that is, people who engage in external worship divorced from any internal worship, will then invade the church and try to destroy it, is something we are told also in Ezekiel 38:8-9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 39:2, and that the New Church will then be established by the Lord, Ezekiel 39:17-29.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.