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Exodus 2

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1 And a man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi.

2 And the woman conceived, and bore a son. And she saw him that he was fair, and hid him three months.

3 And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of reeds, and plastered it with resin and with pitch, and put the child in it, and laid [it] in the sedge on the bank of the river.

4 And his sister stood afar off to see what would happen to him.

5 And the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the river; and her maids went along by the river's side. And she saw the ark in the midst of the sedge, and sent her handmaid and fetched it.

6 And she opened [it], and saw the child, and behold, the boy wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is [one] of the Hebrews' children.

7 And his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call thee a wet-nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the damsel went and called the child's mother.

9 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give [thee] thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it.

10 And when the child was grown, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, and said, Because I drew him out of the water.

11 And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

12 And he turned this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

13 And he went out on the second day, and behold, two Hebrew men were quarrelling; and he said to him that was in the wrong, Why art thou smiting thy neighbour?

14 And he said, Who made thee ruler and judge over us? dost thou intend to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? Then Moses feared, and said, Surely the matter is known.

15 And Pharaoh heard of this matter, and sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from before Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian. And he sat by the well.

16 And the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew [water], and filled the troughs, to water their father's flock.

17 And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses rose and helped them, and watered their flock.

18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, Why are ye come so soon to-day?

19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew [water] abundantly for us, and watered the flock.

20 And he said to his daughters, And where is he? why then have ye left the man behind? Call him, that he may eat bread.

21 And Moses consented to remain with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

22 And she bore a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

23 And it came to pass during those many days, that the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and cried; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage;

24 and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob;

25 and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged [them].

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 6723

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6723. 'And she took [for him] a box made of rush' means a container which, though crude, was nevertheless derived from truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'a box' or little ark as that which is a container or in which something is enclosed, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'rush' as that which is crude but nevertheless is derived from truth. The fact that 'rush' refers to something crude is self-evident; and the reason why it refers to something derived from truth is that 'rush' has that meaning, as is plain in Isaiah,

Woe to the land overshadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Cush, which sends ambassadors to the sea, and in vessels made of rush on the face of the waters! Isaiah 18:1-2.

'The land overshadowing with wings' stands for the Church which brings darkness to itself through the use of reasonings based on factual knowledge. 'Beyond the rivers of Cush' stands for turning to cognitions that are used to confirm false assumptions, 1164. 'Sending ambassadors to the sea' stands for resorting to factual knowledge, 28. 'In vessels made of rush over the face of the waters' stands for very crude receptacles of truth.

[2] The expression is used in the contrary sense in the same prophet,

The dry place will become a pond and the thirsty ground wellsprings of water; [there will be] grass instead of reed and rush. Isaiah 35:7.

'Grass instead of reed and rush' stands for the fact that there will be factual knowledge containing truth instead of such things as hold no truth within them. The meaning of 'grass' as factual knowledge containing truth is evident from places in the Word in which the expression appears.

[3] Since it had been preordained that Moses should represent the Lord in respect of the law of God or the Word, in particular the historical part of the Word, the incident therefore took place in which, when he was an infant, he was put in a box or little ark, though a crude one because that law was in its very earliest beginnings and because there was merely a representative of it lying there in the ark. But later on the real law of God, after it had flashed from Mount Sinai, was put in an ark, called the Ark of the Testimony. For the fact that the law of God was put inside the ark, see Exodus 40:20; 1 Kings 8:9, also the Books of Moses [placed to the side of it], Deuteronomy 31:24-26.

[4] The ark was therefore most holy because it represented the Lord's Divine Human in respect of the Divine Law; for from the Lord's Divine Human radiates the Divine Law or Divine Truth, which is the same as the Word spoken of in John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father. John 1:1, 14.

And since the ark represented something so very holy, the mercy seat with the cherubim was placed over the ark, and next to the veil concealing it there was the lampstand with lamps and the table of gold with loaves, both of which were signs of the Divine Love. This then is the reason why Moses, because he represented the law of God, was put in a little ark when he was an infant.

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