Esodo 13:17
To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.
Arcana Coelestia # 8042
8042. 'Sanctify to Me all the firstborn' means faith - that it comes from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'sanctifying' to Jehovah or the Lord, as ascribing something to Him, that is, confessing or acknowledging that it comes from Him; and from the meaning of 'the firstborn' as faith, dealt with in 352, 2435, 6344, 7035. When the term faith is used all the truth that the spiritual Church possesses is meant; and since all the truth that the Church possesses is meant, the spiritual Church itself is also meant, for truth is the essential element of this Church. Good is, it is true, the essential element of a Church, and really is the firstborn, 2435, 3325, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930; but good as it exists among those belonging to the spiritual Church is in itself truth. For when these people act in accordance with the truth they have been taught, that truth is called good; for it has then passed from their understanding into their will, and from their will into action, and anything done which springs from the will is called good. In itself, in essence, this good is still truth, and this is because for those people things taught by the Church are truths; and since teachings within Churches are diverse, so too are truths. But in spite of that, though they vary so much, such truths become good, as has just been stated, when people will them and act them out.
[2] While a person is being regenerated he is led by means of faith in the understanding, or doctrine, to faith in the will, or life; that is, he is led through the truth of faith to the good of charity. When the good of charity resides with a person he has been regenerated; and from that good he now gives birth to truths which are called the truths of good. These are the truths which are the most authentic truths of faith; and they are meant by the firstborn. For the generations or births of truths from good are like the generations or births of sons and daughters from a parent, later on of grandsons and granddaughters, then of great-grandsons and great granddaughters, and so on. The first generation or those born from the actual parent, the generation of sons and daughters, is what is meant by 'the firstborn', however many they may be; the second and third generations are not meant, except when considered in relation to their own parents. The reason why the firstborn were consecrated to Jehovah or the Lord is that all secondary or descending generations of truths and forms of good derive their essential nature from the primary ones. This spiritual reality is at the root of the right of the firstborn spoken of in the Word.
Exodus 11:4-7
4
Moses said, "This is what Yahweh says: 'About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt,
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and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of livestock.
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There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been, nor shall be any more.
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But against any of the children of Israel a dog won't even bark or move its tongue, against man or animal; that you may know that Yahweh makes a distinction between the Egyptians and Israel.
