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Leviticus 23

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1 And the Lord said to Moses,

2 Say to the children of Israel, These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, which you will keep for holy meetings: these are my feasts.

3 On six days work may be done; but the seventh day is a special day of rest, a time for worship; you may do no sort of work: it is a Sabbath to the Lord wherever you may be living.

4 These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, the holy days of worship which you will keep at their regular times.

5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at nightfall, is the Lord's Passover;

6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread; for seven days let your food be unleavened bread.

7 On the first day you will have a holy meeting; you may do no sort of field-work.

8 And every day for seven days you will give a burned offering to the Lord; and on the seventh day there will be a holy meeting; you may do no field-work.

9 And the Lord said to Moses,

10 Say to the children of Israel, When you have come to the land which I will give you, and have got in the grain from its fields, take some of the first-fruits of the grain to the priest;

11 And let the grain be waved before the Lord, so that you may be pleasing to him; on the day after the Sabbath let it be waved by the priest.

12 And on the day of the waving of the grain, you are to give a male lamb of the first year, without any mark, for a burned offering to the Lord.

13 And let the meal offering with it be two tenth parts of an ephah of the best meal mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord for a sweet smell; and the drink offering with it is to be of wine, the fourth part of a hin.

14 And you may take no bread or dry grain or new grain for food till the very day on which you have given the offering for your God: this is a rule for ever through all your generations wherever you are living.

15 And let seven full weeks be numbered from the day after the Sabbath, the day when you give the grain for the wave offering;

16 Let fifty days be numbered, to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you are to give a new meal offering to the Lord.

17 Take from your houses two cakes of bread, made of a fifth part of an ephah of the best meal, cooked with leaven, to be waved for first-fruits to the Lord.

18 And with the bread, take seven lambs of the first year, without any marks, and one ox and two male sheep, to be a burned offering to the Lord, with their meal offering and their drink offerings, an offering of a sweet smell made by fire to the Lord.

19 And you are to give one male goat for a sin-offering and two male lambs of the first year for peace-offerings.

20 And these will be waved by the priest, with the bread of the first-fruits, for a wave offering to the Lord, with the two lambs: they will be holy to the Lord for the priest.

21 And on the same day, let it be given out that there will be a holy meeting for you: you may do no field-work on that day: it is a rule for ever through all your generations wherever you are living.

22 And when you get in the grain from your land, do not let all the grain at the edges of the field be cut, and do not take up the grain which has been dropped in the field; let that be for the poor, and for the man from another country: I am the Lord your God.

23 And the Lord said to Moses,

24 Say to the children of Israel, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, let there be a special day of rest for you, a day of memory, marked by the blowing of horns, a meeting for worship.

25 Do no field-work and give to the Lord an offering made by fire.

26 And the Lord said to Moses,

27 The tenth day of this seventh month is the day for the taking away of sin; let it be a holy day of worship; you are to keep from pleasure, and give to the Lord an offering made by fire.

28 And on that day you may do no sort of work, for it is a day of taking away sin, to make you clean before the Lord your God.

29 For any person, whoever he may be, who takes his pleasure on that day will be cut off from his people.

30 And if any person, whoever he may be, on that day does any sort of work, I will send destruction on him from among his people.

31 You may not do any sort of work: this is an order for ever through all your generations wherever you may be living.

32 Let this be a Sabbath of special rest to you, and keep yourselves from all pleasure; on the ninth day of the month at nightfall from evening to evening, let this Sabbath be kept.

33 And the Lord said to Moses,

34 Say to the children of Israel, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month let the feast of tents be kept to the Lord for seven days.

35 On the first day there will be a holy meeting: do no field-work.

36 Every day for seven days give an offering made by fire to the Lord; and on the eighth day there is to be a holy meeting, when you are to give an offering made by fire to the Lord; this is a special holy day: you may do no field-work on that day.

37 These are the fixed feasts of the Lord, to be kept by you as holy days of worship, for making an offering by fire to the Lord; a burned offering, a meal offering, an offering of beasts, and drink offerings; every one on its special day;

38 In addition to the Sabbaths of the Lord, and in addition to the things you give and the oaths you make and the free offerings to the Lord.

39 But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have got in all the fruits of the land, you will keep the feast of the Lord for seven days: the first day will be a Sabbath, and the eighth day the same.

40 On the first day, take the fruit of fair trees, branches of palm-trees, and branches of thick trees and trees from the riverside, and be glad before the Lord for seven days.

41 And let this feast be kept before the Lord for seven days in the year: it is a rule for ever from generation to generation; in the seventh month let it be kept.

42 For seven days you will be living in tents; all those who are Israelites by birth are to make tents their living-places:

43 So that future generations may keep in mind how I gave the children of Israel tents as their living-places when I took them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

44 And Moses made clear to the children of Israel the orders about the fixed feasts of the Lord.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1947

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1947. 'Because Jehovah has hearkened to your affliction' means since it was submitting itself. This is clear from what has been stated above in 1937 about 'humiliating oneself and flinging oneself down' as meaning submitting oneself beneath the controlling power of the internal man, which submission was discussed there and was shown to consist in self-compulsion. It was also shown that in self-compulsion there is freedom, that is, what is willing and spontaneous, and that this distinguishes self-compulsion from being compelled. It was also shown that without this freedom, or willingness and spontaneity, a person cannot possibly be reformed and receive any heavenly proprium; also that though the contrary seems to be the case, there is more freedom in times of temptation than there is outside of them. Indeed at such times freedom increases as assaults are made by evils and falsities and it is consolidated by the Lord in order that a heavenly proprium may be given to the person. For that reason also the Lord is closer in times of temptation. It was shown as well that the Lord in no way compels anybody. No one who is compelled to think that which is true and to do that which is good is reformed, but instead thinks all the more what is false and wills all the more what is evil. This is so with all compulsion, as may also become clear from all the experience and lessons of life, which when learned prove two things - first, that human consciences will not allow themselves to be coerced, and second, that we strive after the forbidden.

[2] Furthermore everyone who is not free desires to become so, for this is his life. From this it is evident that nothing is in any way pleasing to the Lord that is not done in freedom, that is, spontaneously or willingly. For when anyone worships the Lord under circumstances in which he is not free he worships Him with nothing of himself. In his case that which moves the external is the external, that is, it is moved under compulsion - the internal being non-existent, or else incompatible, and even contradictory. When a person is being regenerated he compels himself from the freedom the Lord imparts to him, and humbles, and indeed afflicts, his rational, so that it may submit itself, and in consequence he receives a heavenly proprium. This proprium is then gradually perfected by the Lord and it becomes more and more free, so that as a result it becomes the affection for good and for truth deriving from that good, and possesses delight. And in that affection and delight there is happiness such as the angels experience. This freedom is what the Lord Himself is referring to in John.

The truth makes you free. If the Son makes you free, you are truly free. John 8:32, 36. 1

[3] What this freedom is, is totally unknown to those who do not have conscience, for they identify freedom with feelings of being at liberty and without restraint to think and utter what is false, and to will and do what is evil, and not to control and humble, still less to afflict, those feelings. Yet this is the complete reverse of freedom, as the Lord again teaches in the same place,

Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. John 8:34.

People acquire this slave-like freedom from the hellish spirits who reside with them and who inject it into them. When the life of those hellish spirits takes possession of them so do the loves and desires of those same spirits; for an unclean and utterly disgusting delight blows upon them, and being carried away so to speak in a stream they imagine themselves to be in freedom; but it is hellish freedom. The difference between this hellish freedom and heavenly freedom is that the former spells death and drags them down into hell, while the latter, that is, heavenly freedom, promises life and lifts them up to heaven.

[4] That all true internal worship springs from freedom, not from compulsion, and that unless it springs from freedom it is not internal worship, is clear from the Word, from the sacrifices - free-will, votive, and peace or eucharistic - which were called offerings and oblations, mentioned in Numbers 15:3 and following verses; Deuteronomy 12:6; 16:10-11; 23:23; and elsewhere. In David,

With a free-will offering I will sacrifice to You; I will confess Your name, O Jehovah, for it is good. Psalms 54:6.

From the thruma, 2 or the collection which the people were to contribute towards the Tabernacle and sacred vestments, referred to in Moses,

Speak to the children of Israel and let them receive for Me a collection; from every man whose heart makes him willing you shall receive My collection. Exodus 25:2.

And elsewhere in Moses,

Everyone who is willing in heart shall bring it, Jehovah's collection. Exodus 35:5.

[5] The humbling of the rational man, or affliction of it - as stated, from freedom - was also represented by the affliction souls underwent during festivals, referred to in Moses,

It shall be a statute to you for ever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls. Leviticus 16:29.

And elsewhere in Moses,

On the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall afflict your souls. Every soul who does not afflict himself on that very day shall be cut off from his peoples. Leviticus 23:27, 29.

It is for this reason that unleavened bread in which no fermentation has taken place is called the bread of affliction in Deuteronomy 16:2-3. Affliction is referred to in David in the following way,

O Jehovah, who will sojourn in Your tent? Who will dwell on Your holy mountain? He who walks blameless and performs righteousness, who swears to the affliction of himself and changes not. Psalms 15:1-2, 4.

[6] That 'affliction' is the taming and subduing of evils and falsities rising up from the external man into the rational man may become clear from what has been stated. Thus it is not any reduction of oneself to poverty and misery - not a renunciation of bodily enjoyments - that is meant by affliction. No taming and subduing of evil can result from doing that; indeed it may give rise to an additional evil, namely the desire to receive merit for such a renunciation; and what is more, man's freedom suffers, in which alone, as its ground, the good and truth of faith is able to be sown. Affliction also means temptation; see what has been said already in 1846.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. In 9096, where this verse is quoted, the verbs are future tense, as in the Greek.

2. A Hebrew word meaning an offering

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