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Genesis 21

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1 And Jehovah visited Sarah as he had said, and Jehovah did to Sarah as he had spoken.

2 And Sarah conceived, and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.

3 And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.

4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him.

5 And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

6 And Sarah said, God has made me laugh: all that hear will laugh with me.

7 And she said, Who would have said to Abraham, Sarah will suckle children? For I have borne [him] a son in his old age.

8 And the child grew, and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.

10 And she said to Abraham, Cast out this handmaid and her son; for the son of this handmaid shall not inherit with my son -- with Isaac.

11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son.

12 And God said to Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad and because of thy handmaid: [in] all that Sarah hath said to thee hearken to her voice, for in Isaac shall a seed be called to thee.

13 But also the son of the handmaid will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.

14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a flask of water, and gave [it] to Hagar, putting [it] on her shoulder -- and the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

15 And the water was exhausted from the flask; and she cast the child under one of the shrubs,

16 and she went and sat down over against [him], a bow-shot off; for she said, Let me not behold the death of the child. And she sat over against [him], and lifted up her voice and wept.

17 And God heard the voice of the lad. And the Angel of God called to Hagar from the heavens, and said to her, What [aileth] thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad there, where he is.

18 Arise, take the lad, and hold him in thy hand; for I will make of him a great nation.

19 And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the flask with water, and gave the lad drink.

20 And God was with the lad, and he grew; and he dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.

21 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran. And his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

22 And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech, and Phichol the captain of his host, spoke to Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest.

23 And now swear to me here by God that thou wilt not deal deceitfully with me, nor with my son, nor with my grandson. According to the kindness that I have done to thee, thou shalt do to me, and to the land in which thou sojournest.

24 And Abraham said, I will swear.

25 And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water that Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.

26 And Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this, neither hast thou told me [of it], neither have I heard [of it] but to-day.

27 And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them to Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant.

28 And Abraham set seven ewe-lambs of the flock by themselves.

29 And Abimelech said to Abraham, What [mean] these seven ewe-lambs, these which thou hast set by themselves?

30 And he said, That thou take the seven ewe-lambs of my hand, that they may be a witness to me that I have dug this well.

31 Therefore he called that place Beer-sheba, because there they had sworn, both of them.

32 And they made a covenant at Beer-sheba. And Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the captain of his host, and returned into the land of the Philistines.

33 And [Abraham] planted a tamarisk in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of Jehovah, the Eternal ùGod.

34 And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 2500

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2500. 'Abraham travelled from there towards the land of the south' means the Lord's advances in goods and truths of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'travelling' as advancing, dealt with in 1457, and from the meaning of 'the land of the south' as the good and truth of faith, dealt with in 1458. Previously in Chapter 12 it was said of Abraham when entering Egypt that 'he travelled, going on and travelling towards the south', verses 9-10, which meant in the internal sense that the Lord, when a boy, made advances into goods and truths as regards knowledge consisting of cognitions, 1456, 1459. Now in the present chapter it is said that he travelled towards the land of the south, which means further and more interior advances, made this time into goods and truths as regards the doctrine of faith. This is why the expression 'the land of the south' is used here, for 'land' in its proper sense means the Church, for whose sake doctrine exists, 566, 662, 1066, 2117, 2118.

[2] As regards the Lord's instruction in general, the nature of it is quite plain from the internal sense of this chapter. From that sense it is plain that He was taught through a whole succession of revelations and so through Divine perceptions and thoughts from Himself, that is, from His Divine. These perceptions and thoughts He implanted in Divine intelligence and wisdom, and continued to do so until the perfect union of His Human and His Divine had been effected. This way of becoming wise is not at all open to anyone else, for it sprang from the Divine itself, which was His inmost, being the Father's, from whom He had been conceived. Thus it sprang from the Divine Love itself which the Lord alone possessed and which constituted His desire to save the entire human race.

[3] It is an arcanum as yet known by scarcely anyone that love itself holds wisdom and intelligence within it, but that the nature of these is determined by that of the love. The reason wisdom and intelligence exist within love is that all influx takes place into the love, or what amounts to the same, into the good, and so into the life itself of man. This is the source of the wisdom and intelligence possessed by angels, which are beyond description. It is the source also of the wisdom and intelligence possessed by men who are governed by love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. Although during their lifetime the latter do not discern at all the presence with them of such wisdom and intelligence, they nevertheless enter into these after death for the reason that they exist within love itself and within charity itself, see 2494. As for the Lord's love however, this was infinitely higher than the love which exists in angels, for it was Divine Love itself, and therefore He had within Himself the acme of all wisdom and intelligence. Yet into the possession of this, because He was born a human being (homo) and advanced as a human being does according to Divine order, He entered by successive degrees so that He might in that way unite His Human to the Divine and make it Divine, doing so by His own power.

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

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Know (sexually)

  

This can, of course, be a wonderful thing: It is essential for our journey to heaven, and is the reason for the holiness of marriage. But when the men represent falsity it can also be horrendously twisted, as in the attempted homosexual rape in Sodom (Genesis 19) and the rape of the concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19). In a general sense, men represent things of the intellect -- facts, ideas, knowledge, everything from the deepest truths to the most pernicious falsities about life and the Lord. Women in general represents things of affection -- desire, passion, caring, everything from the most exalted love for the Lord to the darkest hatred. When a man “knows” a woman in the Bible, then, it represents a joining together of those intellectual and affectionate faculties. “Know" is also often used in connection with virginity. A women who has “not known a man” represents the affection for truth, unsullied by falsity.