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Genesis 8

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1 And God remembered Noah, and all the animals, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

2 And the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed, and the pour of rain from heaven was stopped.

3 And the waters retired from the earth, continually retiring; and in the course of a hundred and fifty days the waters abated.

4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

5 And the waters abated continually until the tenth month: in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.

7 And he sent out the raven, which went forth going to and fro, until the waters were dried from the earth.

8 And he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had become low on the ground.

9 But the dove found no resting-place for the sole of her foot, and returned to him into the ark; for the waters were on the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ark.

10 And he waited yet other seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark.

11 And the dove came to him at eventide; and behold, in her beak was an olive-leaf plucked off; and Noah knew that the waters had become low on the earth.

12 And he waited yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove; but she returned no more to him.

13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first [month], on the first of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground was dried.

14 And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

15 And God spoke to Noah, saying,

16 Go out of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.

17 Bring forth with thee every animal which is with thee, of all flesh, fowl as well as cattle, and all the creeping things which creep on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth, and may be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

18 And Noah went out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him.

19 All the animals, all the creeping things, and all the fowl -- everything that moves on the earth, after their kinds, went out of the ark.

20 And Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every clean animal, and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar.

21 And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour. And Jehovah said in his heart, I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done.

22 Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed [time] and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 922

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922. 'He took from every clean beast, and from every clean bird' means goods that stem from charity, and the truths of faith. This has been shown already; 'beast' means goods that stem from charity, 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 'bird' the truths of faith, 40, 776. Burnt offerings were made from cattle, from lambs and goats, and from turtle doves and young pigeons, Leviticus 1:2-17; Numbers 15:2-15; 28:1-end. These were clean beasts, each one of them meaning some particular heavenly quality. And because they meant these things in the Ancient Church, and in subsequent Churches represented them, it is clear that burnt offerings and sacrifices were nothing else than representatives that go with internal worship, and that when they had been divorced from internal worship they became idolatrous. This any mentally normal person can see, for what is an altar but merely something made of stone? And what is a burnt offering and a sacrifice but the slaughtering of an animal? For worship to be Divine it has to represent some heavenly quality which the worshippers know and acknowledge and from which they worship the One they are representing.

[2] Nobody except the person who does not wish to understand anything at all about the Lord can be ignorant of the fact that these things were representatives of the Lord. It is the internal things, namely charity and faith deriving from charity, through which the One who is being represented has to be seen, acknowledged, and believed, as is quite clear in the Prophets, for example in Jeremiah,

Thus said Jehovah Zebaoth, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings on to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. I did not speak with your fathers and I did not command them on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt on the matters of burnt offering and sacrifice. But this matter I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God. Jeremiah 7:21-23.

Hearing or obeying His voice is obeying the law, the whole of which focuses on the one command that men should love God above everything else and their neighbour as themselves, for on these depend the Law and the Prophets, Matthew 22:37-40; 7:12. In David,

O Jehovah, sacrifice and offering You have not desired; burnt offering and sin-sacrifice You host not sought. I have delighted to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart. 1 Psalms 40:6, 8.

[3] In Samuel, who said to Saul,

Has Jehovah as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Jehovah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22.

What obeying His voice involves is apparent in Micah,

Shall I come before Jehovah with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does Jehovah require of you but to carry out judgement and the love of mercy, and to humble yourself by walking with your God. Micah 6:6-8.

These are the things that burnt offerings and sacrifices of clean beasts and birds mean. In Amos,

Though you offer Me your burnt offerings and gifts, I will not accept them, and the peace offering of your fatted ones I will not look upon. Let judgement flow like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Amos 5:22, 24.

'Judgement' means truth, and 'righteousness' good. Both stem from charity and are the burnt offerings and sacrifices of the internal man. In Hosea,

I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6.

From all these quotations the nature of sacrifices and burnt offerings when charity and faith are not present is clear. It is also clear from them that because 'clean beasts and clean birds' meant the goods that stem from charity and faith they also represented them.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, in the midst of my viscera

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

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313 - A Greater Freedom

Napsal(a) Jonathan S. Rose

Title: A Greater Freedom

Topic: Salvation

Summary: Several stories in the Bible depict a stage of life in which we have reduced freedom and a later stage in which we come into greater freedom.

Use the reference links below to follow along in the Bible as you watch.

References:
Genesis 7:1-5, 11-14, 17-24; 8:1-22; 9:1; 41:14, 39-43; 28:13-14
Joshua 13:1
Revelation 6:9-11

This video is a part of the Spirit and Life Bible Study series, whose purpose is to look at the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible through a Swedenborgian lens.

Přehrát video
Spirit and Life Bible Study broadcast from 8/16/2017. The complete series is available at: www.spiritandlifebiblestudy.com