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Genesis 17

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1 And Abram was ninety-nine years old, when Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said to him, I [am] the Almighty ùGod: walk before my face, and be perfect.

2 And I will set my covenant between me and thee, and will very greatly multiply thee.

3 And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying,

4 It is I: behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of a multitude of nations.

5 And thy name shall no more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of a multitude of nations have I made thee.

6 And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.

7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee.

8 And I give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be a God to them.

9 And God said to Abraham, And [as for] thee, thou shalt keep my covenant, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations.

10 This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee -- that every male among you be circumcised.

11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and [that] shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

12 And at eight days old shall every male in your generations be circumcised among you -- he who is born in the house, and he who is bought with money, any stranger who is not of thy seed.

13 He who is born in thy house, and he who is bought with thy money, must be circumcised; and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

14 And the uncircumcised male who hath not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his peoples: he hath broken my covenant.

15 And God said to Abraham, [As to] Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

16 And I will bless her, and I will give thee a son also of her; and I will bless her, and she shall become nations: kings of peoples shall be of her.

17 And Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall [a child] be born to him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear?

18 And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!

19 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall indeed bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him, for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.

20 And for Ishmael I have heard thee: behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful, and will very greatly multiply him; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

21 But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to thee at this appointed time in the next year.

22 And he left off talking with him; and God went up from Abraham.

23 And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all who were born in his house, and all who were bought with his money -- every male among the people of Abraham's house -- and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that same day, as God had said to him.

24 And Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

25 And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

26 In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son;

27 and all the men of his house, born in his house, or bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 2016

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2016. As regards the fact that all good and the derivative truth are from the Lord: this is a constant verity. The angels are in the perception of it to such a degree that they perceive that insofar as anything is from the Lord, it is good and true, and that insofar as it is from themselves, it is evil and false. They also confess this before novitiate souls, and before spirits who are in doubt of it, nay, they go so far as to say that it is by the Lord that they are withheld from the evil and falsity that come from what is their own, and are kept in good and truth. Moreover the very withholding and the very influx are perceptible to them (see n. 1614). But as to man’s supposing that he does good from himself and thinks truth from himself, this is an appearance, because he is in a state of no perception, and in a state of the greatest obscurity in respect to influx; and therefore he infers this from the appearance, nay, from the fallacy, from which he by no means suffers himself to be withdrawn so long as he has belief in nothing but the senses, and so long as he reasons from them whether it be so. But although the case is as stated, man nevertheless ought to do good and to think truth as from himself; for in no other way can he be reformed and regenerated (the reason of which may be seen above, n. 1937, 1947).

[2] The verse now before us treats of the Lord’s Human Essence that was to be united to the Divine Essence; and that all good and truth would thereby come to man from His Divine Essence through His Human Essence, is a Divine arcanum which few believe, because they do not apprehend it, for they suppose that the Divine good is able to reach to man without the Lord’s Human united to the Divine; but that this cannot be done, has been already shown in a few words (n. 1676, 1990), to this effect, that man has removed himself so far from the Supreme Divine, by the cupidities in which he has immersed himself and by the falsities with which he has blinded himself, that there could not possibly be any influx of the Divine into the rational part of his mind except through the Human which the Lord united in Himself to the Divine. Through His Human, communication has been effected; for thereby the Supreme Divine has been able to come to man. This the Lord says openly in many places, for He says that He is “the way,” and that “no one cometh to the Father but by Him.” This then is what is here affirmed: that from Him, namely, from the Human united to the Divine, is all good and all truth.

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