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Exodus 33

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1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: God, get thee up from this place, thou and thy people which thou has brought out of the land of Egypt, into the land concerning which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: To thy seed I will give it.

2 And I will send an angel before thee, that I may cast out the Chanaanite, and the Amorrhite, and the Hethite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite.

3 That thou mayst enter into the land that floweth with milk and honey. For I will not go up with thee, because thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I destroy thee in the way.

4 And the people hearing these very bad tidings, mourned: and no man put on his ornaments according to custom.

5 And the Lord said to Moses: Say to the children of Israel: Thou are a stiffnecked people; once I shall come up in the midst of thee, and shall destroy thee. Now presently lay aside thy ornaments, that I may know what to do with thee.

6 So the children of Israel laid aside their ornaments by mount Horeb.

7 Moses also taking the tabernacle, pitched it without the camp afar off, and called the name thereof, The tabernacle of the covenant. And all the people that had any question, went forth to the tabernacle of the covenant, without the camp.

8 And when Moses went forth to the tabernacle, all the people rose up, and every one stood in the door of his pavilion, and they beheld the back of Moses, till he went into the tabernacle.

9 And when he was gone into the tabernacle of the covenant, the pillar of the cloud came down, and stood at the door, and he spoke with Moses.

10 And all saw that the pillar of the cloud stood at the door of the tabernacle. And they stood, and worshipped at the doors of their tents.

11 And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend. And when he returned into the camp, his servant Josue the son of Nun, a young man, departed not from the tabernacle.

12 And Moses said to the Lord; Thou commandest me to lead forth this people: and thou dost not let me know whom thou wilt send with me, especially whereas thou hast said: I know thee by name, and thou hast found favour in my sight.

13 If therefore I have found favour in thy sight, show me thy face, that I may know thee, and may find grace before thy eyes: look upon thy people this nation.

14 And the Lord said: My face shall go before thee, and I will give thee rest.

15 And Moses said: If thou thyself dost not go before, bring us not out of this place.

16 For how shall we be able to know, I and thy people, that we have found grace in thy sight, unless thou walk with us, that we may be glorified by all people that dwell upon the earth?

17 And the Lord said to Moses: This word also, which thou hast spoken, will I do: for thou hast found grace before me, and thee I have known by name.

18 And he said: Shew me thy glory.

19 He answered: I will shew thee all good, and I will proclaim in the name of the Lord before thee: and I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me.

20 And again he said: Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live.

21 And again he said: Behold there is a place with me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock.

22 And when my glory shall pass, I will set thee in a hole of the rock, and protect thee with my right hand, till I pass:

23 And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face thou canst not see.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 10584

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10584. 'And I will take My palm away, and you will see My back parts; and My face will not be seen' means that they would see the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship, but not the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'Jehovah's back parts' as the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'Jehovah's face' as the internal ones, dealt with above in 10578. Consequently 'seeing Jehovah's back parts and not His face' means seeing the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship, and not the internal. The fact that the Israelite and Jewish nation was like this, and still is at the present day, has been shown in all that has gone before in the present chapter and the one before it.

[2] The reason why the external things of the Word, the Church, and worship are meant by 'Jehovah's back parts' is that internal things are meant by 'the face', 10578. And people are said 'to see Jehovah's back parts and not His face' when they believe and revere the Word, yet no more than what is external, that is, the literal sense. They do not go more deeply into it in the way that those who have been enlightened do, deriving religious teachings from the Word which enable them to see its true meaning, thus its inner one.

The Word cannot be understood without religious teachings, and teachings drawn from the Word by one who has been enlightened must serve the understanding as a lamp, see 9382, 9409, 9410, 9424, 9430, 10105, 10324, 10400, 10431. The internal sense of the Word provides those teachings, 9430.

From all this it may be recognized what 'seeing Jehovah's back parts and not His face' means.

[3] But those who have no belief in the Word do not even see Jehovah's back parts; instead they turn themselves around, away from Jehovah, and see only themselves and the world. These are the ones who are meant in the Word by those who are said to turn their back parts towards the temple and worship the sun, of whom Ezekiel says,

I was brought into the court of Jehovah's house, and behold, twenty-five men, whose back parts were towards Jehovah's temple, and their faces towards the east; and the same bowed down towards the rising of the sun. Ezekiel 8:16.

By 'the sun and its rising' one should understand the sun in the world and its rising there, and by that sun self-love is meant, which is the complete opposite of love to the Lord. This is why in angels' ways of thinking the sun of the world is presented as something in complete obscurity, behind the back, whereas the Lord, who is the Sun of heaven, is before the face, see 7078. Regarding these people it is said that they turn their back parts towards the temple, and also - in Jeremiah - that they go backwards,

You have forsaken Jehovah, you have gone backwards. Jeremiah 15:6.

And elsewhere in the same prophet,

They went away in the obstinacy of their evil heart, and went 1 backwards but not forwards. Jeremiah 7:24.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, became

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