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Joshua 3

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1 And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.

2 And it came to pass at the end of three days, that the officers went through the camp;

3 and they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then remove from your place, and go after it;

4 yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Ye shall not come near it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go; for ye have not passed this way heretofore.

5 And Joshua said to the people, Hallow yourselves; for to-morrow Jehovah will do wonders in your midst.

6 And Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and go over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people.

7 And Jehovah said to Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee.

8 And thou shalt command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, stand still in the Jordan.

9 And Joshua said to the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of Jehovah your God.

10 And Joshua said, Hereby shall ye know that the living ùGod is in your midst, and [that] he will without fail dispossess from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.

11 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going over before you into the Jordan.

12 And now take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe.

13 And it shall come to pass, when the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan, the waters flowing down from above, shall be cut off, and shall stand up in a heap.

14 And it came to pass when the people removed from their tents, to pass over the Jordan, that the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were before the people;

15 and when they that bore the ark were come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (and the Jordan is full over all its banks throughout the days of harvest),

16 the waters which flowed down from above stood [and] rose up in a heap, very far, by Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan; and those that flowed down towards the sea of the plain, the salt sea, were completely cut off. And the people went over opposite to Jericho.

17 And the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of Jehovah stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan. And all Israel went over on dry ground, until all the nation had completely gone over the Jordan.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 4255

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4255. 'For with just my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I have become two camps' means that from having little He now had much. This is clear from the meaning of 'a staff' as power - a word used in reference to truth, and dealt with in 4013, 4015; from the meaning of 'Jordan' as introduction into cognitions of good and truth, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'two camps' as goods and truths, as above in 4250 - the two camps referred to here consisting of the people, flocks, herds, and camels, which he split into two groups. From this one may see what these words mean in the proximate sense - that when being introduced into cognitions He had only a small amount of truth but subsequently He had many truths and goods; or what amounts to the same, from having little He now had much. From the explanations given up to now it is evident that the subject in the internal sense has been the way in which the Lord made the Human within Him Divine, doing so step by step in keeping with order. So the subject has been His advance into intelligence and wisdom, at length into Divine intelligence and wisdom. This shows what the phrase 'from having little He now had much' is used to mean.

[2] The reason 'the Jordan' means introduction into cognitions of good and truth is that it was a boundary to the land of Canaan. For all the boundaries of that land meant things that are first and last in the Lord's kingdom, and also those that are first and last in the Church, and so those that are first and last in the celestial and spiritual things which constitute the Lord's kingdom and His Church, see 1585, 1866, 4116, 4240. Therefore, being a boundary, 'the Jordan' meant introduction into cognitions of good and truth, for these come first; but when at length a person becomes in himself a Church or the Lord's kingdom they come to be last.

[3] That 'the Jordan' means things that are first and those that are last may be seen from other places in the Word, as in David,

O my God, my soul bows itself down within me; 1 therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan, and the Hermons from the little mountain. Psalms 42:6.

'Remembering from the land of Jordan' stands for doing so from what is last and so from a position of humbleness. In the same author,

Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His dominions. The sea saw and fled; the Jordan turned about backwards. Psalms 114:2-3, 5.

'Judah' stands for the good of celestial love, and 'Israel' for the good of spiritual love, 3654. 'The sea' stands for cognitions of truth, 28, 'the Jordan' stands for cognitions of good which are said 'to turn about backwards' when the good of love gains dominion, for in that case cognitions are viewed from that good, not the good from those cognitions - in accordance with the things that have often been shown already.

[4] In the Book of Judges,

Gilead dwelling at the crossing of the Jordan; and Dan, why will he fear ships? Judges 5:17.

'Gilead' stands for the sensory good or pleasure by means of which a person is first introduced into the path of his regeneration, 4117, 4124. 'Dwelling at the crossing of the Jordan' stands for the things effecting that introduction, and so things that are first and last in the Church and the Lord's kingdom. These introductory things were also represented by 'the Jordan' when the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan, Joshua 3:14-end; 4:1-end; for 'the land of Canaan' represented the Lord's kingdom, 1413, 1437, 1607, 3038, 3481, 3686, 3705.

And the dividing of the Jordan and their passing through on dry ground meant the removal of evils and falsities and the admission into the Lord's kingdom of those who are governed by goods and truths. Similar in meaning is the dividing of the waters of the Jordan by Elijah when he was carried up into heaven, 2 Kings 2:8, and by Elisha when he entered in place of Elijah into the prophetic role, 2 Kings 2:14.

[5] The cure of Naaman's leprosy, effected by his having washed himself seven times in the Jordan according to Elisha's command, 2 Kings 5:1-14, represented baptism, for baptism means introduction into the Church and into the things that belong to the Church, and so into regeneration and the things that belong to regeneration. Not that anyone is regenerated by baptism; rather it is the sign of it, which he should call to mind. And because the things which constitute the Church are meant by baptism, and baptism is meant by 'the Jordan', as mentioned above, it was the Jordan therefore in which people were baptized by John, Matthew 3:6; Mark 1:5. And the Lord too was willing to be baptized in it by John, Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9.

[6] Because 'the Jordan' means things that are first and last in the Lord's kingdom and in the Church - such as the cognitions of good and truth, since these serve to introduce a person into His kingdom and Church - the Jordan is also for that reason referred to as a boundary of the new earth or holy land, in Ezekiel 47:18. The new earth or holy land means the Lord's kingdom and also the new Church which is the Lord's kingdom on earth, see 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 3355 (end).

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, upon me

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