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Exodus 23

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1 Thou shalt not accept a false report; extend not thy hand to the wicked, to be an unrighteous witness.

2 Thou shalt not follow the multitude for evil; neither shalt thou answer in a cause, to go after the multitude to pervert [judgment].

3 Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause.

4 -- If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt certainly bring it back to him.

5 If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under its burden, beware of leaving [it] to him: thou shalt certainly loosen [it] with him.

6 Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

7 Thou shalt keep far from the cause of falsehood; and the innocent and righteous slay not; for I will not justify the wicked.

8 And thou shalt take no bribe; for the bribe blindeth those whose eyes are open, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

9 And the stranger thou shalt not oppress; for ye know the spirit of the stranger, for ye have been strangers in the land of Egypt.

10 And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in its produce;

11 but in the seventh thou shalt let it rest and lie [fallow], that the poor of thy people may eat [of it]; and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thine olive-tree.

12 -- Six days thou shalt do thy work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger may be refreshed.

13 And ye shall be on your guard as to everything that I have said unto you; and shall make no mention of the name of other gods -- it shall not be heard in thy mouth.

14 Thrice in the year thou shalt celebrate a feast to me.

15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread, (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I have commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt; and none shall appear in my presence empty;)

16 and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labours which thou hast sown in the field, and the feast of in-gathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field.

17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear in the presence of the Lord Jehovah.

18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.

19 The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee to the place that I have prepared.

21 Be careful in his presence, and hearken unto his voice: do not provoke him, for he will not forgive your transgressions; for my name is in him.

22 But if thou shalt diligently hearken unto his voice, and do all that I shall say, then I will be an enemy to thine enemies, and an adversary to thine adversaries.

23 For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off.

24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their deeds; but thou shalt utterly destroy them, and utterly shatter their statues.

25 And ye shall serve Jehovah your God; and he shall bless thy bread and thy water; and I will take sickness away from thy midst.

26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land; the number of thy days will I fulfil.

27 I will send my fear before thee, and confound every people to which thou comest, and will make all thine enemies turn their back to thee.

28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year: lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou art fruitful, and possess the land.

31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the river; for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, that thou mayest dispossess them from before thee.

32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it is sure to be a snare unto thee.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 9316

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9316. 'And brings you to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and I cut them off' means when the Lord provides protection against the evils and falsities molesting the Church, and removes them. This is clear from the meaning of 'the angel', who will bring them to the nations mentioned by name, as the Lord, dealt with in 9303, 9315; from the meaning of 'the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite' as evils and falsities molesting the Church (which evils and which falsities are meant specifically by each nation, see 8054), for when the children of Israel were brought into the land of Canaan, that which served to represent the Church and heaven was established among them, and among the nations that which served to represent the evils and falsities molesting the Church (regarding this, see 3686, 4447, 6306, 6516, 8054, 8317); and from the meaning of 'cutting off' as providing protection, and so as removing. The mere protection of heaven by the Lord causes hell to be removed, that is, the mere protection of those governed by goodness and truth causes those ruled by evil and falsity to be removed, see just above in 9313.

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

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Arcana Coelestia # 2913

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2913. 'And spoke to the sons of Heth, saying' means those with whom a new spiritual Church was to exist. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'Heth' and of Hittite. Many were the nations inhabiting the land of Canaan who are mentioned one by one in various places in the Word, among them the Hittites, see Genesis 15:20; Exodus 3:8, 17; 13:5; 23:23; Deuteronomy 7:1; 20:17; Joshua 3:10; 11:1, 3; 12:8; 24:11; 1 Kings 9:20; and elsewhere. Most of them belonged to the Ancient Church which was spread through many lands, including the land of Canaan, see 1238, 2385. All who belonged to that Church acknowledged charity as the chief thing, and everything they taught was about charity or life. People who cultivated teachings about faith were called Canaanites and were separate from the rest of the inhabitants in the land of Canaan, Numbers 13:29 - see 1062, 1063, 1076.

[2] The Hittites belonged among those in the land of Canaan who were more acceptable. This is also made clear by the fact that Abraham, and subsequently Isaac and Jacob, dwelt among them and had a burial-place there, and also by the fact that they treated Abraham with greatest respect, as is quite clear from what is recorded about them in this chapter, especially verses 5-6, 10-11, 14-15. Since they were an upright nation they therefore represent and mean the spiritual Church, or the truth of the Church. But it happened that like all the others who belonged to the Ancient Church the Hittites fell away in the course of time from charity or good that goes with faith; and this explains why later on they mean the falsity of the Church, as in Ezekiel 16:3, 45, and elsewhere. Yet the Hittites did belong among those who were more honourable, as may be seen from the fact that David had Hittites with him, such as Ahimelech, 1 Samuel 26:6, and Uriah, who was a Hittite, 2 Samuel 11:3, 6, 17, 21 - by whose wife Bathsheba David begot Solomon, 2 Samuel 12:24. 'Heth' means exterior cognitions that have regard to life and which constitute the external truths of the spiritual Church, 1 see 1203.

[3] The subject in the present verse is a new Church which the Lord establishes when the previous one breathes its last, and in the verses which follow the subject is the reception of faith among those people. The subject is not some particular Church among the sons of Heth but in general the re-establishment by the Lord of a spiritual Church after its predecessor fades away and approaches its end. The sons of Heth are simply those who represent and carry a spiritual meaning. Please see what has been stated already about Churches in the following places:

In course of time a Church goes into decline and decay, 494, 501, 1327, 2422.

It departs from charity, and brings forth evils and falsities, 1834, 1835.

At that point the Church is said to be vastated and made desolate, 407-411, 2243.

The Church is established among gentiles; the reason why, 1366.

Within a Church undergoing vastation something of the Church is always preserved as a nucleus, 468, 637, 931, 2422.

If the Church did not exist in the world the human race would perish, ibid.

The Church is like the heart and lungs in that vast body, of which every member of the human race is a part, 637, 931, 2054, 2853.

The nature of the spiritual Church, 765, 2669.

Charity constitutes the Church, not faith separated from charity, 809, 916.

If all possessed charity the Church would be one even though they differ in matters of doctrine and in forms of worship, 1285, 1316, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844, 2385.

All people on earth who belong to the Lord's Church, though they are scattered throughout the entire world, still so to speak make a single whole, as is the case in heaven, 2853.

Every Church is internal and external, and both together constitute a single Church, 409, 1083, 1098, 1100, 1242.

The external Church is valueless if there is no internal Church, 1795.

The Church is compared to the rise and the setting of the sun, to the seasons of the year, and also to the periods of the day, 1837.

The Last Judgement is the final period of the Church, 900, 931, 1850, 2117, 2118.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. Or, reading what Swedenborg has in his rough draft the truths of the external spiritual Church

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