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Genesis 12

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1 And Jehovah had said to Abram, Go out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, to the land that I will shew thee.

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

4 And Abram departed as Jehovah had said to him. And Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran.

5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had acquired, and the souls that they had obtained in Haran, and they went out to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

6 And Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

7 And Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him.

8 And he removed thence towards the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, [having] Bethel toward the west, and Ai toward the east; and there he built an altar to Jehovah, and called on the name of Jehovah.

9 And Abram moved onward, going on still toward the south.

10 And there was a famine in the land. And Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land.

11 And it came to pass when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a woman fair to look upon.

12 And it will come to pass when the Egyptians see thee, that they will say, She is his wife; and they will slay me, and save thee alive.

13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me on thy account, and my soul may live because of thee.

14 And it came to pass when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.

15 And the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

16 And he treated Abram well on her account; and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and bondmen, and bondwomen, and she-asses, and camels.

17 And Jehovah plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.

18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this thou hast done to me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?

19 Why didst thou say, She is my sister, so that I took her as my wife. And now, behold, there is thy wife: take [her], and go away.

20 And Pharaoh commanded [his] men concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1472

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1472. And it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee. That this signifies the memory-knowledge of knowledges, which is described as to what it is when they see celestial knowledges, is evident from the signification of “Egypt,” which is the memory-knowledge of knowledges, as before shown; and from this it is evident what is signified by the words “when the Egyptians see,” namely, that this memory-knowledge is such as is described in this verse. The memory-knowledge of knowledges is attended with this, and it is something natural in it, as is manifested in children when they first begin to learn, namely, that the higher things are, the more they desire them; and still more when they hear that they are celestial and Divine. But this delight is natural, and arises from a desire that is of the external man. With other men this desire causes them to feel delight in the mere memory-knowledge of knowledges, without any further end; when yet the memory-knowledge of knowledges is nothing but an instrumental agency having for its end a use, namely, that the knowledges may serve celestial and spiritual things as vessels; and when they are thus serving, they are then for the first time in their use, and receive from the use their delight. Anyone can see, if he pays attention, that in itself the memory-knowledge of knowledges is nothing but a means whereby a man may become rational, and thence spiritual, and at last celestial; and that by means of the knowledges his external man may be adjoined to his internal; and when this is done, he is in the use itself.

The internal man regards nothing but the use. For the sake of this end also, the Lord insinuates the delight that childhood and youth perceives in memory-knowledges. But when a man begins to make his delight consist in memory-knowledge alone, it is a bodily cupidity which carries him away, and in proportion as he is thus carried away (that is, makes his delight consist in mere memory-knowledge), in the same proportion he removes himself from what is celestial, and in the same proportion do the memory-knowledges close themselves toward the Lord, and become material. But in proportion as the memory-knowledges are learned with the end of use,—as for the sake of human society, for the sake of the Lord’s church on earth, for the sake of the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens, and still more for the Lord’s own sake,—the more are they opened toward Him. On this account also the angels, who are in the memory-knowledge of all knowledges, and indeed to such a degree that scarcely one part in ten thousand can be presented to the full apprehension of man, yet esteem such knowledge as nothing in comparison with use.

From what has been said it may be seen what is signified by the words, “When the Egyptians shall see thee, they will say, This is his wife; and they will kill me, and will make thee to live.” These things were said because the Lord when a child knew this and thought in this way, namely, that if He should be carried away by a mere desire for the memory-knowledge of knowledges, this memory-knowledge is of such a character that it would care no more for celestial things, but only for the knowledges [cognitiones] which the desire for memory-knowledge would carry away. On these subjects more follows.

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