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Exodus 21

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1 And these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.

2 If thou buy a Hebrew bondman, six years shall he serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

3 If he came in alone, he shall go out alone: if he had a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone.

5 But if the bondman shall say distinctly, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free;

6 then his master shall bring him before the judges, and shall bring him to the door, or to the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall be his bondman for ever.

7 And if a man shall sell his daughter as a handmaid, she shall not go out as the bondmen go out.

8 If she is unacceptable in the eyes of her master, who had taken her for himself, then shall he let her be ransomed: to sell her unto a foreign people he hath no power, after having dealt unfaithfully with her.

9 And if he have appointed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the law of daughters.

10 If he take himself another, her food, her clothing, and her conjugal rights he shall not diminish.

11 And if he do not these three things unto her, then shall she go out free without money.

12 He that striketh a man, so that he die, shall certainly be put to death.

13 But if he have not lain in wait, and God have delivered [him] into his hand, I will appoint thee a place to which he shall flee.

14 But if a man act wantonly toward his neighbour, and slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.

15 And he that striketh his father, or his mother, shall certainly be put to death.

16 And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall certainly be put to death.

17 And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall certainly be put to death.

18 And if men dispute, and one strike the other with a stone, or with the fist, and he die not, but take to [his] bed,

19 -- if he rise, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that struck [him] be guiltless; only he shall pay [for] the loss of his time, and shall cause [him] to be thoroughly healed.

20 And if a man strike his bondman or his handmaid with a staff, and he die under his hand, he shall certainly be avenged.

21 Only, if he continue [to live] a day or two days, he shall not be avenged; for he is his money.

22 And if men strive together, and strike a woman with child, so that she be delivered, and no mischief happen, he shall in any case be fined, according as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and shall give it as the judges estimate.

23 But if mischief happen, then thou shalt give life for life,

24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

25 branding for branding, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

26 And if a man strike the eye of his bondman or the eye of his handmaid, and it be marred, he shall let him go for his eye.

27 And if he knock out his bondman's tooth or his handmaid's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth.

28 And if an ox gore a man or a woman, so that they die, then the ox shall certainly be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be guiltless.

29 But if the ox have gored heretofore, and it have been testified to its owner, and he have not kept it in, and it kill a man or a woman, -- the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.

30 If there be imposed on him a satisfaction, then he shall give the ransom of his life, according to what is imposed on him.

31 Whether it gore a son or gore a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done to him.

32 If the ox gore a bondman or a handmaid, he shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.

33 -- And if a man open a pit, or if a man dig a pit, and do not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall into it,

34 the owner of the pit shall make it good, shall give money to the owner of them; and the dead [ox] shall be his.

35 -- And if one man's ox gore his neighbour's ox, and it die, then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money thereof, and divide the dead also.

36 Or if it be known that the ox have gored heretofore, and its owner have not kept him in, he shall in any case restore ox for ox; and the dead shall be his.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 8945

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8945. 'And you shall not go up to My altar by steps' means not raising themselves to more internal levels, that is, celestial ones. This is clear from the meaning of 'going up by means of steps' as raising oneself to higher or more internal levels (whether you say more internal or higher it amounts to the same thing, since more internal things are seen as higher ones, 2148, 3084, 4210, 4599); and from the meaning of 'altar' as the chief representative of the Lord, dealt with in 921, 2777, 2811. Thus 'going up by steps to My altar' means raising oneself to the Lord, consequently to more internal levels, which are celestial ones; for the Lord's presence is greater on more internal levels. The term 'celestial' is used for things in the inmost heaven, but 'spiritual' for those in the middle heaven. For heaven is divided into two kingdoms - the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom. Those in the celestial kingdom are in the inmost or third heaven, and so are nearest the Lord; for they are governed by love to the Lord, possessing innocence and consequently wisdom in greater measure than all the rest. But those who are in the spiritual kingdom are in the middle or second heaven, and so are more remote from the Lord; and those there am governed by charity towards the neighbour, and through charity dwell with the Lord. Regarding those two kingdoms and the difference between them, see 2048, 2088, 2227, 2507, 2669, 2708, 2715, 2718, 3235, 3246, 3374, 3887, 4448, 4585, 4938, 4939, 5113, 5922, 6367, 6435, 7877.

[2] Let a brief explanation be given of what is implied by raising oneself towards more internal levels, that is, celestial ones, which is meant by 'going up by steps to the altar'. No one in the next life is allowed to be raised into heaven to a level higher than that of the good which governs him. If he is raised to some higher level the foul things about him are revealed, that is, the evils he loves, and the resulting falsities; for the more internal something is, the purer and holier it is in heaven. Those whose state is not so pure are kept in a lower sphere in which impurities go unnoticed or are not apparent; for such people are governed by grosser good and guided by duller truth.

[3] Sometimes it happens that those coming into heaven have a strong desire to go to a more internal heaven, believing that by doing this they will experience greater joy. To the end that this strong desire which clings to them may be removed, they are indeed raised to a more internal heaven. But when they get there they start to feel anguished, on account of those evils they love which are then perceptible to them; they also become visibly disfigured on account of the falsities that spring from the evils residing with them. Having perceived these things they cast themselves down from the more internal heaven, and do not attain a calm and peaceful state until they return to the position they occupied previously. These are the things that are meant by 'you shall not go up to My altar by steps, in order that your nakedness may not be revealed on it'.

[4] The same applies to those below heaven, if they have a strong desire to rise to heaven before they have been prepared for it. When they are raised there they feel torment almost hellish and seem to themselves to be like dead bodies. Their life becomes laboured, like that of those in the throes of death. Therefore they cast themselves down headlong from there, and after that no longer have any desire to rise above the state of life in which they live.

[5] It should be recognized that the Lord refuses heaven to no one in the next life, and that people can be allowed in as often as they wish. Heaven consists of communities of angels, who are governed by the good of love towards the neighbour and of love to the Lord. When introduced into heaven people are let into communities of such angels. But when the sphere of their life, that is, the life of their love, is out of agreement, conflict arises, as a result of which they feel anguished and cast themselves down from there. From this experience they learn about the life of heaven, and about the condition of their own life in comparison. They also learn from it that heaven does not become anyone's simply by his being received or let in, as the common idea is in the world, and also that a person must live in such a way in the world that he becomes fit to be with those in heaven. But see what has already been stated and shown from experience previously regarding these matters, in 3938, 4225, 4226, 4299, 4674, 5057, 5058, 7186, 7519, 8794, 8797. These are the considerations which are meant by the regulation that they must not go up by steps to the altar, in order that their nakedness may not be revealed on it, and also by a similar regulation at Exodus 28:42-43.

[6] The words 'going up by steps' are used because a raising to more internal levels is seen in the world of spirits - where celestial and spiritual realities are presented within forms similar to those in the world - as raising oneself by means of steps. I have often been allowed to see this representative sight. So it was too that in a dream Jacob saw angels going up to the Lord by the steps of a stairway, Genesis 28:12. Therefore also by 'steps' in the Word is meant going up to higher, that is, more internal levels, as in Ezekiel 40:6, 22, 26, 31, 34; and in Amos,

The Lord Jehovih Zebaoth builds His steps in the heavens. Amos 9:6.

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