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Deuteronomy 25

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1 If there be a controversy between men, and they call upon the judges: they shall give the prize of justice to him whom they perceive to be just: and him whom they find to be wicked, they shall condemn of wickedness.

2 And if they see that the offender be worthy of stripes: they shall lay him down, and shall cause him to be beaten before them. According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be:

3 Yet so, that they exceed not the number of forty: lest thy brother depart shamefully torn before thy eyes.

4 Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out thy corn on the floor.

5 When brethren dwell together, and one of them dieth without children, the wife of the deceased shall not marry to another: but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother:

6 And the first son he shall have of her he shall call by his name, that his name be not abolished out of Israel.

7 But if he will not take his brother's wife, who by law belongeth to him, the woman shall go to the gate of the city, and call upon the ancients, and say: My husband's brother refuseth to raise up his brother's name in Israel: and will not take me to wife.

8 And they shall cause him to be sent for forthwith, and shall ask him. If he answer: I will not take her to wife:

9 The woman shall come to him before the ancients, and shall take off his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and say: So shall it be done to the man that will not build up his brother's house:

10 And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of the unshod.

11 If two men have words together, and one begin to fight against the other, and the other's wife willing to deliver her husband out of the hand of the stronger, shall put forth her hand, and take him by the secrets,

12 Thou shalt cut off her hand, neither shalt thou be moved with any pity in her regard.

13 Thou shalt not have divers weights in thy bag, a greater and a less:

14 Neither shall there be in thy house a greater bushel and a less.

15 Thou shalt have a just and a true weight, and thy bushel shall be equal and true: that thou mayest live a long time upon the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee.

16 For the Lord thy God abhorreth him that doth these things, and he hateth all injustice.

17 Remember what Amalec did to thee in the way when thou camest out of Egypt:

18 How he met thee: and slew the hindmost of the army, who sat down, being weary, when thou wast spent with hunger and labour, and he feared not God.

19 Therefore when the Lord thy God shall give thee rest, and shall have subdued all the nations round about in the land which he hath promised thee: thou shalt blot out his name from under heaven. See thou forget it not.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 4335

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4335. In the Word 'those who are grinding' means those within the Church who are led to know the truth by an affection for good, and in the contrary sense those within the Church who are led to know it by an affection for evil, as may be seen from the following places: In Isaiah,

Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babel; sit on the ground, without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. Take a mill and grind flour; uncover your hair, bare your feet, uncover your thigh, pass through the rivers. Isaiah 47:1-2.

'The daughter of Babel' stands for those among whom externally things give the appearance of being holy and good but interiorly they are unholy and evil, 1182, 1326. 'The daughter of the Chaldeans' stands for those among whom externally things give the appearance of being holy and true, but interiorly they are unholy and false, 1368, 1816. 'Taking a mill and grinding flour' stands for producing teachings out of the truths which they pervert; for 'flour', being the product of wheat or of barley, means truths which are products of good, but in the contrary sense truths which they pervert so as to lead people astray. In Jeremiah,

I will banish from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of mills, and the light of the lamp. And this whole land will be a waste and desolation. Jeremiah 25:10-11.

[2] In John,

No craftsman of any craft will be found in Babylon any more; no sound of a mill will be heard in it any more; and the light of a lamp will not shine in it any more, and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride will not be heard in it any more. Revelation 18:21-23.

'No sound of a mill will be heard in Babylon any more' means that there will not be any truth. 'The light of the lamp will not shine any more' means that neither will there be any understanding of truth. In Lamentations,

They have ravished women in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah. Princes have been hung up by their hands, the faces of the old men have not been honoured. The young men have been led away to grind at the mill, and the boys collapse under the wood. Lamentations 5:11-14.

'The young men have been led away to grind at the mill' stands for being led away to produce falsities by the use of truths, and so by the power of persuasion.

[3] In Moses,

Ah the firstborn in the land of Egypt will die, from Pharaoh's firstborn seated upon his throne, even to the servant-girl's firstborn who is behind the mill. Exodus 11:5.

'The firstborn of Egypt' stands for truths of faith which have been separated from the good of charity and therefore become falsities, 3325.

'The servant-girl's firstborn who is behind the mill' stands for the affection for such truth from which falsities are obtained. These were the things represented by such historical events.

[4] In the same author,

He shall not take as a pledge the mill or the milling stone, for they are the livelihood 1 of him who pledges them. Deuteronomy 24:6.

This law was laid down because 'the mill' meant matters of doctrine and 'the milling stone' the truths that were an integral part of them and are called 'the livelihood of him who pledges them'. But for the spiritual meaning which 'mill' and 'milling stone' possess that law would obviously not have been given; nor would it have been said that they were 'his livelihood'.

[5] I have been shown that 'grinding' derives its spiritual meaning from the representatives which manifest themselves in the world of spirits. For I have seen people there who seemed to be grinding; these spirits, I have been told, mean those who gather large numbers of truths together not with any use in view, other than for the sake of their own pleasure. Because truths in that case are devoid of their own affection which originates in good, they do indeed look like truths to external appearance; but because there is no inner substance to them they are sheer fancies. But if evil is present within them truths are used to support that evil, and so are made falsities through that use of them.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, the soul

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