Bible

 

Leviticus 16

Studie

   

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they were slain upon their offering strange fire:

2 And he commanded him, saying, Speak to Aaron thy brother, that he enter not at all into the sanctuary, which is within the veil before the propitiatory, with which the ark is covered, lest he die, (for I will appear in a cloud over the oracle,)

3 Unless he first do these things: He shall offer a calf for sin, and a ram for a holocaust.

4 He shall be vested with a linen tunick, he shall cover his nakedness with linen breeches: he shall be girded with a linen girdle, and he shall put a linen mitre upon his head: for these are holy vestments: all which he shall put on, after he is washed.

5 And he shall receive from the whole multitude of the children of Israel two buck goats for sin, and one ram for a holocaust.

6 And when he hath offered the calf and prayed for himself, and for his own house,

7 He shall make the two buck goats to stand before the Lord in the door of the tabernacle of the testimony:

8 And casting lots upon them both, one to be offered to the Lord, and the other to be the emissary goat:

9 That whose lot fell to be offered to the Lord, he shall offer for sin:

10 But that whose lot was to be the emissary goat, he shall present alive before the Lord, that he may pour out prayers upon him, and let him go into the wilderness.

11 After these things are duly celebrated, he shall offer the calf, and praying for himself and for his own house, he shall immolate it:

12 And taking the censer, which he hath filled with the burning coals of the altar, and taking up with his hand the compounded perfume for incense, he shall go in within the veil into the holy place:

13 That when the perfumes are put upon the fire, the cloud and vapour thereof may cover the oracle, which is over the testimony, and he may not die.

14 He shall take also of the blood of the calf, and sprinkle with his finger seven times towards the propitiatory to the east.

15 And when he hath killed the buck goat for the sin of the people, he shall carry in the blood thereof within the veil, as he was commanded to do with the blood of the calf, that he may sprinkle it over against the oracle,

16 And may expiate the sanctuary from the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and from their transgressions, and all their sins. According to this rite shall he do to the tabernacle of the testimony, which is fixed among them in the midst of the filth of their habitation.

17 Let no man be in the tabernacle when the high priest goeth into the sanctuary, to pray for himself and his house, and for the whole congregation of Israel, until he come out.

18 And when he is come out to the altar that is before the Lord, let him pray for himself, and taking the blood of the calf, and of the buck goat, let him pour it upon the horns thereof round about:

19 And sprinkling with his finger seven times, let him expiate, and sanctify it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.

20 After he hath cleansed the sanctuary, and the tabernacle, and the altar, then let him offer the living goat:

21 And putting both hands upon his head, let him confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their offences and sins: and praying that they may light on his head, he shall turn him out by a man ready for it, into the desert.

22 And when the goat hath carried all their iniquities into an uninhabited land, and shall be let go into the desert,

23 Aaron shall return into the tabernacle of the testimony, and putting off the vestments, which he had on him before when he entered into the sanctuary, and leaving them there,

24 He shall wash his flesh in the holy place, and shall put on his own garments. And after that he has come out and hath offered his own holocaust, and that of the people, he shall pray both for himself, and for the people:

25 And the fat that is offered for sins, he shall burn upon the altar.

26 But he that hath let go the emissary goat, shall wash his clothes, and his body with water, and so shall enter into the camp.

27 But the calf and the buck goat, that were sacrificed for sin, and whose blood was carried into the sanctuary, to accomplish the atonement, they shall carry forth without the camp, e and shall burn with fire, their skins and their flesh, and their dung:

28 And whosoever burneth them shall wash his clothes, and flesh with water, and so shall enter into the camp.

29 And this shall be to you an everlasting ordinance: The seventh month, the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no work, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you.

30 Upon this day shall be the expiation for you, and the cleansing from all your sins: you shall be cleansed before the Lord.

31 For it is a sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls by a perpetual religion.

32 And the priest that is anointed, and whose hands are consecrated to do the office of the priesthood in his father's stead, shall make atonement; and he shall be vested with the linen robe and the holy vestments,

33 And he shall expiate the sanctuary and the tabernacle of the testimony and the altar, the priest also and all the people.

34 And this shall be an ordinance for ever, that you pray for the children of Israel, and for all their sins once in a year. He did therefore as the Lord had commanded Moses.

   

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 10208

Prostudujte si tuto pasáž

  
/ 10837  
  

10208. 'And Aaron shall make expiation on its horns' means purification from evils by means of the truths of faith which spring from the good of love. This is clear from the meaning of 'making expiation' as purifying from evils, dealt with in 9506; from the representation of 'Aaron' as the Lord in respect of Divine Good, and in respect of the work of salvation, dealt with in 9806, 9946, 10017; and from the meaning of 'horns' as powers, dealt with in 10182, and also outer levels, 10186. The reason why purification by means of the truths of faith which spring from the good of love is meant is that expiation was made by means of blood, and 'blood' means the truth of faith emanating from the good of love, 4735, 7317, 7326, 7846, 7850, 7877, 9127, 9393, 10026, 10033, 10047; and all purification from evils is accomplished by means of the truths of faith that spring from the good of love, 2799, 5954(end), 7044, 7918, 9088. The fact that expiations were made by the blood on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and the altar of incense is clear in Leviticus 4:3, 7, 18, 25, 30, 34; 16:18.

[2] The altars were expiated in this way because holy things were polluted by the sins of the people. The people represented the Church; therefore those places which were the Church's, called its sanctuaries, such as the altar and the tent, together with their contents, were defiled whenever those people were guilty of sin; for those sanctuaries were places belonging to the Church. This is also made clear in Moses,

You shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, in order that they may not die in their uncleanness when they pollute My dwelling-place which is in their midst. Leviticus 15:31.

And in another place,

Aaron shall expiate the holy place from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. Thus shall he expiate the holy sanctuary, and the tent of meeting, and the altar. Leviticus 16:16, 33.

[3] The implications of all this are that those things which are called the holy things of the Church are not holy unless they are received with holy respect; for unless they are received with that respect what is Divine does not flow into them. Anything holy that exists with people is holy only by virtue of what is Divine flowing into it; sacred shrines for example, the altars there, and the bread and wine for the Holy Supper are made holy solely by the presence of the Lord. Therefore if the Lord is unable to be present there on account of the people's sins, those things have no holiness because they lack what is Divine. Furthermore the holy things of the Church are rendered unholy by sins because sins take what is Divine away from them.

[4] This then is the reason why sanctuaries are said to have been polluted by the uncleanness of the people and why those places therefore had to be expiated annually. The reason why the expiations were made with blood on the horns of the altars and not on the altars themselves was that the horns were the extremities of them, and nothing of a person has been purified unless the extremities or what is outermost has been purified. For inner things flow into those that are outermost, but the state of the outermost conditions the inflow. Consequently if what is outermost has been perverted the things within become perverted; for when those inner things flow into outermost ones, the recipient forms into which they descend are conditioned by the state in which the outermost things exist. The situation is like that when the eye is in bad condition; the power of sight which comes from within sees things only as that eye-condition will allow. Or it is like that when the arms are in bad shape; the powers which come from within exert themselves only as that condition will allow. Consequently if the natural man has been perverted the spiritual lacks the opportunity to function properly within the natural man, and this is why the spiritual or internal man is closed.

[5] But see what has been shown already on these matters, namely the following;

If a person is to be purified the natural or external man must be purified, see the places referred to in 9325(end).

This is because the path that all influx takes is from the internal to the external, and not vice versa, 5119, 6322.

For it is on the natural level within a person that influx from the spiritual world reaches its destination, 5651.

The outward aspects of a person have been formed to serve the inward, 5947, 9216, 9828.

Thus the external man must be altogether subject to the internal, 5786, 6275, 6284, 6299.

This is because the internal man is in heaven and the external man is in the world, 3167, 10156.

And the external man by himself or left to himself alone acts contrary to the internal, 3913, 3928.

In addition to all this, see 9701-9709 stating what the internal man is and what the external man is.

  
/ 10837  
  

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