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Kohtunikud 16

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1 Siis Simson läks Assasse, nägi seal ühte hooranaist ja läks selle juurde.

2 Kui assalastele öeldi: 'Simson on siia tulnud', siis nad piirasid ja varitsesid teda kogu öö linna väravas. Aga nad olid kogu öö rahulikud, öeldes: 'Kui hommik valgeneb, siis me tapame tema.'

3 Ja Simson magas keskööni. Aga keskööl tõusis ta üles, haaras kinni linna värava tiibadest ja mõlemast piidast, tõmbas need välja ühes poomiga, tõstis enesele õlgadele ja viis need üles mäetippu, mis on Hebroni kohal.

4 Ja pärast seda armastas ta Soreki jõe ääres Deliila-nimelist naist.

5 Siis vilistite vürstid tulid naise juurde ja ütlesid temale: 'Meelita teda ja vaata, kus tal see suur jõud on ja kuidas me saaksime temast jagu ja teda kinni siduda, et teda alistada, siis anname igamees sulle tuhat ükssada hõbeseeklit!'

6 Ja Deliila ütles Simsonile: 'Räägi mulle, kus sul see suur jõud on ja millega tuleks sind siduda, et sind saaks alistada?'

7 Simson vastas temale: 'Kui mind seotakse seitsme toore loomakõõlusega, mis ei ole kuivanud, siis jään ma jõuetuks ja olen nagu iga muu inimene.'

8 Siis vilistite vürstid tõid naisele seitse toorest loomakõõlust, mis ei olnud kuivanud, ja ta sidus teda nendega.

9 Ja naise juures kambris istus varitseja. Kui naine ütles Simsonile: 'Vilistid tulevad sulle kallale, Simson!', siis ta rebis loomakõõlused katki, otsekui rebeneks takulõng, kui see nuusutab tuld; ja tema jõudu ei saadud teada.

10 Ja Deliila ütles Simsonile: 'Vaata, sa oled mind narrinud ja rääkinud mulle valet. Räägi nüüd ometi mulle, millega saab sind siduda!'

11 Ta ütles siis temale: 'Kui mind seotakse uute köitega, millega ei ole tööd tehtud, siis jään ma jõuetuks ja olen nagu muud inimesed.'

12 Siis Deliila võttis uued köied ja sidus teda nendega ning ütles temale: 'Vilistid tulevad sulle kallale, Simson!' Ja kambris istus varitseja; aga Simson kiskus köied oma käsivartelt katki nagu niidid.

13 Ja Deliila ütles Simsonile: 'Senini oled sa mind narrinud ja mulle valet rääkinud; avalda mulle, millega saab sind siduda!' Ja ta vastas temale: 'Kui sa kood mu peast seitse juuksekiharat lõimedesse.'

14 Siis ta lõi need lõksutiga kinni ja ütles temale: 'Vilistid tulevad sulle kallale, Simson!' Kui Simson ärkas unest, siis kiskus ta välja soa ühes koe ja lõimedega.

15 Ja Deliila ütles temale: 'Kuidas sa võid öelda: Ma armastan sind, kui su süda ei ole minu juures? Juba kolm korda oled sa mind narrinud ega ole mulle avaldanud, kus su suur jõud on.'

16 Ja sündis, kui ta iga päev teda oma kõnedega kitsikusse ajas ja temale peale käis, et ta hing tüdines surmani

17 ja ta avas temale kogu oma südame ning ütles: 'Habemenuga ei ole saanud mu pea ligi, sest ma olen emaihust alates eraldatud Jumalale. Kui mind pöetakse, siis mu jõud lahkub minust ja ma muutun jõuetuks ning olen nagu kõik muud inimesed.'

18 Kui Deliila nägi, et Simson oli temale avanud kogu oma südame, siis läkitas ta vilistite vürstidele teate, öeldes: 'Tulge nüüd, sest ta on mulle avanud kogu oma südame!' Ja vilistite vürstid tulid ta juurde ning tõid raha kaasa.

19 Ta uinutas Simsonit oma põlvedel ja kutsus ühe mehe, kes pügas tema seitse juuksekiharat; ta nõrgestas Simsonit ja selle jõud lahkus temast.

20 Ja Deliila ütles: 'Vilistid tulevad sulle kallale, Simson!' Simson ärkas unest ja mõtles: 'Ma lähen välja nagu ennegi ja raputan enese lahti!' Aga ta ei teadnud, et Issand oli temast lahkunud.

21 Ja vilistid võtsid ta kinni ja torkasid tal silmad välja; ja nad viisid ta Assasse, aheldasid vaskahelatega ja ta pidi vangikojas jahvatama.

22 Aga ta juuksed hakkasid jälle kasvama, pärast seda kui need olid pöetud.

23 Ja vilistite vürstid kogunesid, et ohverdada suurt ohvrit oma jumalale Daagonile ja et olla rõõmsad, ja nad ütlesid: 'Meie jumal on meie kätte andnud Simsoni, meie vaenlase.'

24 Kui rahvas teda nägi, siis nad kiitsid oma jumalat, sest nad ütlesid: 'Meie jumal on Meie kätte andnud Meie vaenlase, Meie maa laastaja, kes lõi meist paljud maha.'

25 Ja et nende süda oli rõõmus, siis nad ütlesid: 'Kutsuge Simson, et ta meid lõbustaks!' Ja nad kutsusid Simsoni vangikojast ja ta tegi nalja nende ees; nad panid ta seisma sammaste vahele.

26 Siis Simson ütles poisile, kes tal käest kinni hoidis: 'Jäta mind, lase ma puudutan sambaid, millele hoone tugineb, et ma nende vastu saaksin nõjatuda!'

27 Aga hoone oli täis mehi ja naisi, ja seal olid kõik vilistite vürstid; ja katusel oli Simsoni naljategemist vaatamas ligi kolm tuhat meest ja naist.

28 Siis Simson hüüdis Issandat ja ütles: 'Issand Jumal! Mõtle ometi minu peale ja tee mind tugevaks ainult veel selleks korraks, oh Jumal, et saaksin vilistitele ühe korraga kätte maksta oma mõlema silma eest!'

29 Ja Simson haaras kinni kahest keskmisest sambast, millele hoone tugines, ja toetus neile, ühele parema ja teisele vasaku käega.

30 Ja Simson ütles: 'Surgu mu hing koos vilistitega!' Siis ta tõmbas enese võimsasti kummargile ja hoone langes vürstide ja kogu sees oleva rahva peale; ja nii oli surnuid, keda ta surres surmas, rohkem kui neid, keda ta oma elus oli surmanud.

31 Siis tulid ta vennad ja kogu ta isa pere ja nad võtsid ta kaasa ning viisid ta Sora ja Estaoli vahele ja matsid ta seal tema isa Maanoahi hauda; ta oli Iisraelile kohut mõistnud kakskümmend aastat.

   

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Exploring the Meaning of Judges 16

Napsal(a) New Christian Bible Study Staff, Julian Duckworth

Judges 16: Samson and Delilah; Samson dies with the Philistines.

In this final chapter about Samson, he becomes involved with two women, and both episodes lead him to fight for his life.

The first woman was a prostitute from Gaza, a Philistine town. When the men of Gaza heard that Samson was visiting this woman, they lay in wait for him all night, so that they could kill him in the morning. Samson foiled their plot by sneaking out at midnight. As he was leaving, he took the gates of the city and its two posts, put them upon his shoulders, and took them to the top of a hill facing Hebron, a town in Israel.

Some time later, Samson began to love an Israelite woman called Delilah, whose name means “lustful pining”. The lords of the Philistines bribed her to find out the source of Samson’s strength, so that they could take him prisoner. After deceiving her three times and evading her almost-daily questions, Samson finally admitted that his strength lay in his hair; if it were cut, he would be like any other man.

Delilah told this to the the lords of the Philistines, and they paid her the bribe. She lulled Samson to sleep, and had a man shave off all of Samson’s hair. She called out as she had the first three times: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He awoke, but he was as weak as a normal man. The Philistines took him captive, gouged out his eyes, and forced him to work as a mill grinder in prison. However, while he was in prison, his hair began to grow back.

When the Philistines gathered to make a great sacrifice in the temple of their god, Dagon, to celebrate the capture of Samson, 3000 Philistine men and women were there, plus all of their kings. Samson was brought in as a spectacle to be mocked. He could feel his strength returning, and asked the boy leading him to let him lean against the two central columns of the temple. Samson prayed to the Lord, and pushed the columns until the temple collapsed, killing everyone there. That day, Samson brought about the death of more Philistines than he had in his life. His family took his body, and buried him between Zorah (“stricken”) and Eshtaol (“supplication”) in his father’s tomb.

*****

This chapter demonstrates the temptations and potential pitfalls of faith-alone spirituality, specifically through the women that Samson was involved with. Both of these episodes - the first with the prostitute from Gaza, and the second with Delilah - highlight Samson’s brazen passions and his apparent faults and weaknesses. Samson represents our determination to overcome the draw of faith alone, which the hells employ in order to ensnare us, and then rule us. The Lord’s teachings through the Word often precipitate a struggle within us between our lusts from the hells and our spiritual intentions (see Swedenborg’s work, Apocalypse Revealed 678[2] and Apocalypse Revealed 798[2]).

Seizing the gates and gateposts stands for changing the focus of our spiritual view. Gates represent the entry and exit points to our hearts and minds, through which we receive the Lord and the Word, but also the influences of hell (see Swedenborg’s work, Divine Providence 119). The top of the hill stands for a mind raised up toward God, and ‘facing Hebron’ is representative of a new focus on the unity between us and the Word, for Hebron means ‘joined, brotherhood, unity’.

After three failed attempts, Delilah discovered that Samson’s strength lay in his hair, which had never been cut. Hair stands for the power and beauty of the Word in its literal sense, and our faithfulness in abiding by its truths (see Swedenborg’s works, Arcana Caelestia 9836[2] and Doctrine of the Lord 15[8]).

Samson’s imprisonment and abuse by the Philistines symbolize a period of spiritual turmoil, during which we are misled by the hells. Blindness corresponds to our inability to see or recognize truths; ‘grinding grain at the mill’ is like molding truths from the Word to support our own purposes - in this case, faith alone spirituality (Arcana Caelestia 10303[5] and Arcana Caelestia 10303[6]). Yet all the while, our ability to follow the Lord will gradually restrengthen, represented by Samson’s hair growing back.

In the last moments of his life, Samson brought down the temple of Dagon, killing three thousand of the Philistines at once. The two supporting columns of the Philistine temple stand for what is evil and what is false; when evil and falsity are toppled, the whole system of belief collapses. In sacrificing his life, Samson demonstrated the highest of all divine and heavenly loves (see Arcana Caelestia 2077[2]).

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Arcana Coelestia # 10303

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10303. 'And you shall beat some of it very fine' means the arrangement of truths into their own series. This is clear from the meaning of 'beating very small' - when it refers to the frankincense and spices, by which levels of truth are meant - as the arrangement of truths into their own series; for much the same is meant by 'beating' as by 'grinding', though 'grinding' is used in reference to wheat, barley, and spelt, whereas 'beating' is used in reference to oil, frankincense, and spices.

[2] What is meant specifically by 'beating' and 'grinding' no one can know without knowledge of what a person is like when the different kinds of good and truth meant by wheat, barley, flour, fine flour, oil, frankincense, and spices have been arranged into order for the uses they are to serve. For 'grinding' and 'beating' mean arranging them so that they may serve a use. When 'grinding' has reference to different kinds of good, which are meant by 'wheat' or 'barley', it means the way that good is arranged and brought forward in the form of truths, and its application in this form to one use or another. Good furthermore never presents itself within useful services except through truths; for good is arranged into order in the form of truths and in this way acquires specific quality. Unless it has been arranged in the form of truths good has no specific quality; and when it is arranged in the form of truths it is arranged into series, depending on the item under discussion, in accord with the use that item serves. The good enters those items as an affection belonging to love, and this gives rise to what is enjoyable, lovely, and pleasing. Something similar is meant here by 'beating very fine', for 'pure frankincense' means spiritual good, 10296, and the kinds of truth that are arranged into order by the good are the spices stacte, onycha, and galbanum, 10292-10294.

[3] What being arranged into series is must also be stated briefly. Truths are said to have been arranged into series when they have been arranged in accordance with the form of heaven, which consists of angelic communities. The character of that form is clear from the correspondence of all the members, internal organs, and other organs of the human being with the Grand Man, which is heaven. Regarding that correspondence, see in the places referred to in 10030(end). Within those members and organs all the individual parts are arranged into series and into series of series. Fibres and vessels form them, as is well known to those who are acquainted from anatomy with the weavings and interweavings of the more internal constituents of the body. The truths from good present in a person are arranged into similar series.

[4] So it is that a person who has been regenerated is heaven in its smallest form, corresponding to the Grand Man; and that the person's truth and good make him wholly and completely what he is.

A person who has been regenerated is heaven in its smallest form, see in the places referred to 9279.

His truth and his good constitute a person, 10298 above.

The truths with regenerate people have been arranged into series in accord with the arrangement in which angelic communities exist, 5339, 5343, 5530.

The series into which the truths with those who are good have been arranged, and the series into which the falsities with those who are evil have been arranged are meant in the Word by 'sheafs' and 'bundles', as in Leviticus 23:9-15; Psalms 126:6; 129:7; Amos 2:13; Micah 4:12; Jeremiah 9:22; Zechariah 12:6; Matthew 13:30.

[5] When therefore it is evident what 'beating' and 'grinding' mean one can know the meaning in the internal sense of the description stating that the children of Israel ground the manna in mills or beat it in mortars, and made it into cakes, Numbers 11:8. 'The manna' was a sign of celestial and spiritual good, 8464, and 'grinding' and 'beating' arranging it to serve useful purposes; for whatever is mentioned in the Word is a sign of the kinds of realities that exist in heaven and in the Church. Every detail there has an inner meaning. One can also know the meaning when it says that they should not take as a pledge the mill or the milling stone, for anyone who does so takes the [person's] soul as a pledge, Deuteronomy 24:6. 'The mill' and 'the milling stone' mean that which prepares good so that it may be applicable to one use or another. 'Barley' too and 'wheat' mean good, and 'flour' and 'fine flour' truths; and its own truths are the means by which good is applied to any such use, as stated above.

[6] From all this it may be seen what 'mill', 'millstone', and 'sitting at the mill' mean in the following places: In Matthew,

At that time two women will be grinding; one will be taken, the other left. Matthew 24:41.

In the same gospel,

Whoever causes one of these little ones believing in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if an ass's millstone 1 were hung onto his neck and he were plunged into the depth of the sea. Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:42.

In the Book of Revelation,

A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus will Babylon be thrown down with violence; no sound of a mill will be heard in it any more. Revelation 18:21-22.

In Jeremiah,

I will take away from them the voice of joy, the sound of mills, and the light of the lamp. Jeremiah 25:10.

And in Isaiah,

O daughter of Babel, sit on the ground; without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. Take a mill and grind flour. Isaiah 47:1-2.

Even as 'mill' and 'grinding' in the good sense mean application to good purposes, so in the contrary sense they mean application to evil ones. Consequently when Babel and Chaldea are the subject they mean the application [of what is good and true] in favour of their own loves, which are self-love and love of the world; for with them 'barley' and 'wheat' mean adulterated good, and 'flour' the resulting falsified truth. The profanation of goodness and truth through applying them to those loves is also meant by the action of Moses when he ground up the golden calf into tiny pieces, sprinkled them on the water coming down from Mount Sinai, and made the children of Israel drink it, Exodus 32:20; Deuteronomy 9:21.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. i.e. the upper, rotating stone of an ass-driven mill

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