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Exodus 7

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1 And Jehovah said to Moses, See, I have made thee God to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.

2 Thou shalt speak all that I command thee; and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.

3 And I will render Pharaoh's heart obdurate, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

4 And Pharaoh will not hearken unto you; and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.

5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch forth my hand on Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.

6 And Moses and Aaron did as Jehovah had commanded them: so did they.

7 And Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron was eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

8 And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,

9 When Pharaoh shall speak to you, saying, Do a miracle for yourselves, -- then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy staff and cast [it] before Pharaoh -- it will become a serpent.

10 And Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and did so, as Jehovah had commanded; and Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh, and before his bondmen, and it became a serpent.

11 And Pharaoh also called the sages and the sorcerers; and they too, the scribes of Egypt, did so with their enchantments:

12 they cast down every man his staff, and they became serpents; but Aaron's staff swallowed up their staves.

13 And Pharaoh's heart was stubborn, and he hearkened not to them, as Jehovah had said.

14 And Jehovah said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened: he refuseth to let the people go.

15 Go unto Pharaoh in the morning -- behold, he will go out unto the water -- and take thy stand by the bank of the river in front of him; and take in thy hand the staff that was turned into a serpent.

16 And say unto him, Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has sent me to thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness; but behold, hitherto thou hast not hearkened.

17 Thus saith Jehovah: In this shalt thou know that I am Jehovah -- behold, I will smite with the staff that is in my hand upon the water which is in the river, and it shall be turned into blood.

18 And the fish that is in the river shall die; and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink the water out of the river.

19 And Jehovah said to Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy staff, and stretch out thy hand upon the waters of the Egyptians -- upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their reservoirs of water, that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt, both in [vessels of] wood and in [vessels of] stone.

20 And Moses and Aaron did so, as Jehovah had commanded; and he lifted up the staff, and smote the waters that were in the river before the eyes of Pharaoh, and before the eyes of his bondmen; and all the waters that were in the river were turned into blood.

21 And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river; and the blood was throughout the land of Egypt.

22 And the scribes of Egypt did so with their sorceries; and Pharaoh's heart was stubborn, neither did he hearken to them, as Jehovah had said.

23 And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and took not this to heart either.

24 And all the Egyptians dug round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river.

25 And seven days were fulfilled, after Jehovah had smitten the river.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 7293

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7293. It shall become a water-serpent. That this signifies that thereby mere fallacies and the derivative falsities will reign among them, is evident from the signification of a “serpent,” as being the sensuous and bodily (se e n. 6949), thence fallacies, for the sensuous and bodily, separated from the rational, that is, not subordinate to it, is full of fallacies, so that it is scarcely anything but fallacies (see n. 6948, 6949). It is a water-serpent that is here signified, for in the original, “serpent” is here expressed by the same term as “whale,” which is the largest fish of the sea, and a “whale” signifies memory-knowledges in general. As therefore by the “Egyptians” are signified falsities from fallacies, this word signifies a serpent, that is, a water-serpent, because it stands for the whale that is in the waters, and because the waters of Egypt are falsities.

[2] That Pharaoh or Egypt is called a “whale” is evident in Ezekiel:

Speak and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great whale that lieth in the midst of his rivers (Ezekiel 29:3).

Son of man, take up a lamentation upon Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art become like a young lion of the nations; and thou art as whales in the seas; and thou hast come forth with thy streams, thou hast troubled thy streams (Ezekiel 32:2).

In these passages by a “whale” are signified memory-knowledges in general, by which, because they are from the sensuous man, the things that belong to faith are perverted. That a “whale” denotes memory-knowledge in general, is because a “fish” denotes memory-knowledge in particular (see n. 40, 991). And as “whales” signify memory-knowledges perverting the truths of faith, by them are also signified reasonings from fallacies, whence come falsities.

[3] Such things are signified by “whales” in David:

Thou didst break through the sea by thy strength; Thou hast broken the heads of the whales upon the waters (Psalms 74:13).

Like things are signified also by “leviathan” in Isaiah:

In that day Jehovah with His hard and great and strong sword will visit upon leviathan the long serpent, and upon leviathan the crooked serpent, and will slay the whales that are in the sea (Isaiah 27:1).

And in David:

Thou hast broken in pieces the heads of leviathan, Thou gavest him to be meat to the people Ziim (Psalms 74:14).

“Leviathan” in a good sense denotes reason from truths, in Job 41; reason from truths is opposite to reasonings from falsities.

[4] And as by “whales” are signified reasonings from fallacies perverting truths, by “water-serpents,” which are expressed by the same word in the original, are signified the falsities themselves from the fallacies from which come reasonings, and by means of which come perversions. Falsities are signified by these serpents in the following passages, in Isaiah:

Iim shall answer in her palaces, and serpents in the palaces of delights (Isaiah 13:22).

Thorns shall come up in her palaces, the thistle and the brier in the fortresses thereof; that it may be a habitation of serpents, a court for the daughters of the owl (Isaiah 34:13).

In the inhabitation of serpents, her couch, shall be grass for reed and rush (Isaiah 35:7.

I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling-place of serpents (Jeremiah 9:11).

I made the mountains of Esau a waste, and his heritage for the serpents of the wilderness (Malachi 1:3).

[5] In these passages “serpents” denote falsities from which are reasonings. The same are also signified by “dragons;” but “dragons” denote reasonings from the loves of self and of the world, thus from the cupidities of evil, which pervert not only truths, but also goods. These reasonings come forth from those who in heart deny the truths and goods of faith, but in mouth confess them for the sake of the lust of exercising command and of making profit, thus also from those who profane truths and goods. Both are meant by “the dragon, the old serpent, which is called the Devil and Satan, which seduceth the whole world” (Revelation 12:9); and also by the same dragon, which persecuted the woman who brought forth a son that was caught up unto God and unto His throne (Revelation 12:5); and which cast out of his mouth water as a river, that he might swallow up the woman (verse 15).

[6] The “son” that the woman brought forth is the Divine truth at this day unfolded; the “woman” is the church; “the dragon, the serpent,” denotes those who will persecute; “the water as a river which the dragon would cast out,” denotes the falsities from evil and the reasonings thence, by which they will attempt to destroy the woman, that is, the church; but that they will effect nothing, is described by, “the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out” (verse 16).

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