Bible

 

maastamuutto 11

Studie

   

1 Sitten Herra sanoi Moosekselle: "Vielä yhden vitsauksen minä annan tulla faraolle ja Egyptiin; sen jälkeen hän päästää teidät täältä. Ja kun hän todella päästää teidät, niin hän ajamalla ajaa teidät täältä.

2 Puhu siis nyt kansalle, että he, jokainen mies ja jokainen vaimo, pyytävät lähimmäisiltänsä hopea-ja kultakaluja."

3 Ja Herra antoi kansan päästä egyptiläisten suosioon. Myöskin Mooses oli hyvin arvossapidetty mies Egyptin maassa, sekä faraon palvelijain että kansan silmissä.

4 Ja Mooses sanoi: "Näin sanoo Herra: Puoliyön aikana minä lähden kulkemaan kautta Egyptin maan.

5 Ja kaikki esikoiset Egyptin maassa kuolevat, valtaistuimellansa istuvan faraon esikoisesta käsikiveä vääntävän orjattaren esikoiseen asti, ynnä kaikki karjan esikoiset.

6 Ja koko Egyptin maassa on oleva kova valitus, jonka kaltaista ei ole ollut eikä koskaan tule.

7 Mutta kenellekään israelilaiselle ei koirakaan ole muriseva, ei ihmiselle eikä eläimelle, tietääksesi, että Herra tekee erotuksen egyptiläisten ja Israelin välillä.

8 Ja kaikki nämä sinun palvelijasi tulevat minun luokseni, kumartavat minua ja sanovat: 'Mene pois, sinä ja kaikki kansa, joka sinua seuraa'. Ja sen jälkeen minä menen." Ja niin hän lähti faraon luota vihasta hehkuen.

9 Mutta Herra sanoi Moosekselle: "Farao ei kuule teitä, että paljon minun ihmeitäni tapahtuisi Egyptin maassa".

10 Ja Mooses ja Aaron tekivät kaikki nämä ihmeet faraon edessä; mutta Herra paadutti faraon sydämen, niin ettei hän päästänyt israelilaisia maastansa.

   

Komentář

 

Moses

  

At the inmost level, the story of Moses -- like all of the Bible -- is about the Lord and his spiritual development during his human life as Jesus. Moses's role represents establishing forms of worship and to make the people obedient. As such, his primary representation is "the Law of God," the rules God gave the people of Israel to follow in order to represent spiritual things. This can be interpreted narrowly as the Ten Commandments, more broadly as the books of Moses, or most broadly as the entire Bible. Fittingly, his spiritual meaning is complex and important, and evolves throughout the course of his life. To understand it, it helps to understand the meaning of the events in which he was involved. At a more basic level, Moses's story deals with the establishment of the third church to serve as a container of knowledge of the Lord. The first such church -- the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam and centered on love of the Lord -- had fallen prey to human pride and was destroyed. The second -- the Ancient Church, represented by Noah and the generations that followed him -- was centered on love of the neighbor, wisdom from the Lord and knowledge of the correspondences between natural and spiritual things. It fell prey to the pride of intelligence, however -- represented by the Tower of Babel -- and at the time of Moses was in scattered pockets that were sliding into idolatry. On an external level, of course, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through 40 years in the wilderness to the border of the homeland God had promised them. Along the way, he established and codified their religious system, and oversaw the creation of its most holy objects. Those rules and the forms of worship they created were given as containers for deeper ideas about the Lord, deeper truth, and at some points -- especially when he was first leading his people away from Egypt, a time before the rules had been written down -- Moses takes on the deeper representation of Divine Truth itself, truth from the Lord. At other times -- especially after Mount Sinai -- he has a less exalted meaning, representing the people of Israel themselves due to his position as their leader. Through Moses the Lord established a third church, one more external than its predecessors but one that could preserve knowledge of the Lord and could, through worship that represented spiritual things, make it possible for the Bible to be written and passed to future generations.