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Exodus 22:11

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11 Zo zal des HEEREN eed tussen hen beiden zijn, of hij niet zijn hand aan zijns naasten have geslagen heeft; en derzelver heer zal dien aannemen; en hij zal het niet wedergeven.

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Arcana Coelestia # 9220

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9220. Verses 28-31 You shall not revile God, and you shall not curse a governor of your people. You shall not be slow [to offer] the firstfruits of your grain and the firstfruits of your wine. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. You shall do the same with your oxen, [and] with your flock. Seven days it shall be with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me. And men of holiness shall you be to Me. And you shall not eat flesh torn in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs. 1

'You shall not revile God' means that God's truths are not to be blasphemed. 'And you shall not curse a governor of your people' means that teachings presenting the truth are not to be, either. 'And you shall not be slow [to offer] the firstfruits of your grain and the firstfruits of your wine' means that since all the good and the truth of faith come from the Lord they are to be ascribed to Him, not to self. 'The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me' means all the matters of faith that [are acquired] through them. 'You shall do the same with your oxen, [and] with your flock' means extending to exterior good and interior good. 'Seven days it shall be with its mother' means their first state with truths. 'On the eighth day you shall give it to Me' means that in the initial phase of the following state when they lead a life of good they dwell with the Lord. 'And men of holiness shall you be to Me' means a state of life then composed of good. 'And you shall not eat flesh torn in the field' means that falsified good of faith must not be joined [to oneself]. 'You shall throw it to the dogs' means that these things are unclean.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, a dog

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

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Arcana Coelestia # 5786

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5786. 'behold, we are my lord's slaves' means that they are to be deprived for ever of their own freedom. This is clear from the meaning of slaves' as being without any freedom of their own, dealt with in 5760, 5763. What is meant by being deprived of the freedom of one's own has also been stated in the paragraphs that have just been mentioned; however, since it is an extremely important matter, let it be restated. A person has both an external man and an internal man. The external man is the means through which the internal man acts; for the external man is merely the organ or instrument of the internal. This being so, the external man must be made wholly subservient and subject to the internal; and when the external man is subject to the internal, heaven acts on the external man by means of the internal man and makes the external man conform to things such as are of heaven.

[2] The opposite occurs when the external man is not the servant but the master. The external man is the master when a person has the pleasure of the body and the senses as his end in view, especially when the objects of his selfish and worldly love and not the things of heaven are his end - to have as his end in view being to love one and not the other. For when a person has those objects as his end he no longer believes that there is any such thing as an internal man or that within himself there is anything that will be living when his body dies. In his case the internal, since it does not hold the position of the master, is merely the servant of the external, employed to enable thought and reasoning against what is good and true to take place; for in this person's case no other kind of influx by way of the internal is available. This is also the reason why people like this utterly despise, indeed recoil from the things of heaven. From all this it is plain that the external man, which is the same as the natural man, ought to be wholly subject to the internal or spiritual man, and consequently should exist without any freedom of its own.

[3] Freedom of one's own consists in giving oneself up to every kind of base pleasure, despising others in comparison with oneself, and making them subject like slaves to oneself. Or else it consists in persecuting others, hating them, being delighted when bad things happen to them - especially things done to them by one's own designs or by the use of deceit - and wishing to see them dead. These are the kinds of things that come from indulging one's own freedom. From this one may see what a person is like when he exercises this type of freedom, namely a devil in human form. But when he loses this freedom he receives a heavenly freedom from the Lord, the nature of which is completely unknown to those exercising the freedom of their own. They imagine that if the freedom of their own were taken away from them no life at all would remain. But in actual fact this is when true life has its beginning and when true delight, blessing, happiness, and wisdom arrive, because this freedom comes from the Lord.

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