Bible

 

Deuteronomy 7

Studie

   

1 When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, which thou art going in to possess, and shall have destroyed many nations before thee, the Hethite, and the Gergezite, and the Amorrhite, and the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than thou art, and stronger than thou:

2 And the Lord thy God shall have delivered them to thee, thou shalt utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no league with them, nor shew mercy to them:

3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thou shalt not give thy daughter to his son, nor take his daughter for thy son:

4 For she will turn away thy son from following me, that he may rather serve strange gods, and the wrath of the Lord will be kindled, and will quickly destroy thee.

5 But thus rather shall you deal with them: Destroy their altars, and break their statues, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven things.

6 Because thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God. the Lord thy God hath chosen thee, to be his peculiar people of all peoples that are upon the earth.

7 Not because you surpass all nations in number, is the Lord joined unto you, and hath chosen you, for you are the fewest of any people:

8 But because the Lord hath loved you, and hath kept his oath, which he swore to your fathers: and hath brought you out with a strong hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, out of the hand of Pharao the king of Egypt.

9 And thou shalt know that the Lord thy God, he is a strong and faithful God, keeping his covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments, unto a thousand generations:

10 And repaying forthwith them that hate him, so as to destroy them, without further delay immediately rendering to them what they deserve.

11 11Keep therefore the precepts and ceremonies and judgments, which I command thee this day to do.

12 If after thou hast heard these judgments, thou keep and do them, the Lord thy God will also keep his covenant to thee, and the mercy which he swore to thy fathers:

13 And he will love thee and multiply thee, and will bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy vintage, thy oil, and thy herds, and the flocks of thy sheep upon the land, for which he swore to thy fathers that he would give it thee.

14 Blessed shalt thou be among all people. No one shall be barren among you of either sex, neither of men nor cattle.

15 The Lord will take away from thee all sickness: and the grievous infirmities of Egypt, which thou knowest, he will not bring upon thee, but upon thy enemies.

16 Thou shalt consume all the people, which the Lord thy God will deliver to thee. Thy eye shall not spare them, neither shalt thou serve their gods, lest they be thy ruin.

17 If thou say in thy heart: These nations are more than I, how shall I be able to destroy them?

18 Fear not, but remember what the Lord thy God did to Pharao and to all the Egyptians,

19 The exceeding great plagues, which thy eyes saw, and the signs and wonders, and the strong hand, and the stretched out arm, with which the Lord thy God brought thee out: so will he do to all the people, whom thou fearest.

20 Moreover the Lord thy God will send also hornets among them, until he destroy and consume all that have escaped thee, and could hide themselves.

21 Thou shalt not fear them, because the Lord thy God is in the midst of thee, a God mighty and terrible:

22 He will consume these nations in thy sight by little and little and by degrees. Thou wilt not be able to destroy them altogether: lest perhaps the beasts of the earth should increase upon thee.

23 But the Lord thy God shall deliver them in thy sight: and shall slay them until they be utterly destroyed.

24 And he shall deliver their kings into thy hands, and thou shalt destroy their names from under Heaven: no man shall be able to resist thee, until thou destroy them.

25 Their graven things thou shalt burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver and gold of which they are made, neither shalt thou take to thee any thing thereof, lest thou offend, because it is an abomination to the Lord thy God.

26 Neither shalt thou bring any thing of the idol into thy house, lest thou become an anathema, like it. Thou shalt detest it as dung, and shalt utterly abhor it as uncleanness and filth, because it is an anathema.

   

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 9193

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 10837  
  

9193. 'Shall be utterly destroyed' means being cast out. This is clear from the meaning of 'being utterly destroyed', when it refers to people whose worship is that of falsities arising from evil, as being cast out, that is to say, cast out of the Church. The fact that casting such falsities out of the Church, and so rooting them out, is meant by their being 'utterly destroyed', is evident in Moses,

If men of belial 1 have gone out of your midst, and have urged the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, whom you have not known - if it is true and certain, 2 that [this] abomination has been committed in the midst of you - you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword. You shall utterly destroy it and everyone who is in it, and also the beasts in it, with the edge of the sword. You shall bring together all the spoil from it into the middle of the street, and shall burn the city with fire, and all the spoil from it, the whole of it, to Jehovah your God, so that it may be a heap forever and not be built ever again. Do it so thoroughly that nothing of what is given to utter destruction sticks in your hand. Deuteronomy 13:13-17.

[2] The fact that falsity arising from evil is what 'that which is given to utter destruction' means is evident from the details of these verses in the internal sense. 'Cities' which were to be utterly destroyed are religious teachings, in this instance false teachings, 2712, 2943, 3216. 'The edge of the sword' with which they were to strike man and beast is truth fighting against and destroying falsity that arises from evil, 2799, 4499, 7102, 8294. 'The street' into the middle of which the spoil was to be brought is truth presented by religious teachings and in the contrary sense falsity presented by them, 2336. 'Fire' with which the spoil was to be burned along with the city is the evil of self-love, 1297, 2446, 5071, 5215, 6314, 6832, 7324. From all this it is evident that 'utter destruction' means being cast out of the Church and being rooted out. Therefore also it was commanded that the nations in the land of Canaan should be utterly destroyed, Deuteronomy 7:2, 24-26. For the nations had originally constituted the Church in that land, which also was why they had altars and in addition offered sacrifices, 3686, 4447, 4516, 4517, 5136, 6306, 6516, 8054. But when they turned representative worship - the worship of the Ancient Church - into idolatrous worship, and in so doing falsified truths and adulterated forms of good, 8317, the command came for them to be given to utter destruction, not only people but also cities and what was in them.

[3] The command came because everything there represented falsities arising from evil. The cities represented the actual teachings presenting falsity; the beasts represented evil affections; the gold and silver of those people represented evils and falsities; and so on with everything else. The worship of the Ancient Church had consisted first and foremost in worshipping God in human form, that is, in worshipping the Lord. But then they turned aside from good to evil and began to worship the actual objects that had served to represent Him, such as the sun, moon, and stars, also groves and pillars, and God in the form of various kinds of idols. Thus they worshipped external objects separated from anything of an internal nature; and this is brought about when the internal man has been closed. What closes the internal man is a life of evil; for good is that through which the Lord flows in and opens the internal man, and therefore evil is that which closes this. Once the internal man has been closed truths are turned into falsities; and when they remain they serve solely the evils of self-love and love of the world. Internal worship consists first and foremost in acknowledging the Lord, the one and only God, and in acknowledging that He is the source of everything good and true. People in the Church who do not acknowledge Him cannot be governed by good, nor thus by truth; and the ones to acknowledge Him are those who possess faith and at the same time lead a good life, but not those who lead a bad life, 8878. Acknowledging and worshipping the Lord consists in living according to His commandments, that is, leading the life of faith and of charity, see 8252-8257. The life of faith lies in doing His commandments in a spirit of obedience, and the life of charity lies in doing them out of love.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. A Hebrew word implying those who are worthless

2. literally, if [it is] truth, and the thing certain

  
/ 10837  
  

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