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Exodus 2

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1 And there went a man from the house of Levi, and took a daughter of Levi.

2 And the woman conceived, and gave·​·birth to a son; and she saw him, that he was good, and she kept· him ·secret three months.

3 And she was· not ·able to keep· him ·secret any·​·more; and she took for him an ark of bulrush, and tarred it with tar and with pitch; and she set the child in it, and set it in the seaweed on the lip of the river.

4 And his sister stood·​·forth afar·​·off, to know what would be done to him.

5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came·​·down to bathe by the Nile; and her damsels were walking by the side* of the Nile; and she saw the ark in the midst of the seaweed, and sent her maidservant, and she took it.

6 And she opened it, and saw him, the child; and behold the lad was weeping. And she had·​·pity on him, and said, This is from the children of the Hebrews.

7 And his sister said to the daughter of Pharaoh, Shall I go and call for thee a woman, one nursing, from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?

8 And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, Go. And the maiden went, and called the mother of the child.

9 And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, Take* this child to thee, and nurse him for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed him.

10 And the child grew·​·up, and she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he was to her as a son. And she called his name Moses, and said, Because I drew him out of the waters.

11 And it was, in those days, and Moses grew·​·up, and he went·​·out to his brothers, and saw their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian man smiting a Hebrew man, one of his brothers.

12 And he turned· his ·face hither and thither, and saw that there was no man, and he smote the Egyptian, and concealed him in the sand.

13 And he went·​·out the second day, and behold, two Hebrew men quarreling; and he said to the wicked one, Why smitest thou thy companion?

14 And he said, Who set thee for a man, a prince, and a judge over us? Sayest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely the word is·​·known.

15 And Pharaoh heard this word, and he sought to kill Moses. And Moses ran·​·away from before Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he dwelt by a well.

16 And the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came, and drew·​·up, and filled the troughs*, to water the flock of their father.

17 And the shepherds came, and drove· them ·away; and Moses arose, and saved them; and he watered their flock.

18 And they came to Reuel their father, and he said, Wherefore hastened you to come today?

19 And they said, An Egyptian man rescued us out of the hand of the shepherds; and also drawing he drew for us, and gave drink to the flock.

20 And he said to his daughters, And where is he? Why is this that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.

21 And Moses was·​·content to dwell with the man; and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses.

22 And she gave·​·birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom*; for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

23 And it was in these many days that the king of Egypt died; and the sons of Israel sighed from the servitude, and they cried, and their outcry went·​·up to God from the servitude.

24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

25 And God saw the sons of Israel, and God knew.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Arcana Coelestia # 6767

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6767. 'Do you intend to kill me . . .' means, Do you wish to destroy my faith ... This is clear from the meaning of 'killing' as destroying, dealt with below; and from the meaning of a Hebrew man, to whom 'me' refers here, as one who belongs to the Church. Faith too is accordingly meant, for faith goes together with the Church, and the two are so bound up with each other that a person who destroys the faith present with someone destroys the Church with him. This is also 'to kill him', for by taking faith away he takes spiritual life away, the life that remains being a life that is called death. From this it is evident that 'Do you intend to kill me?' means, Do you wish to destroy my faith?

[2] The fact that 'killing' is taking away spiritual life is evident from many places in the Word, as in Jeremiah,

Drag them away like sheep for the slaughter, and destine them to the day of killing. How long will the land mourn and the plant of every field wither, on account of the wickedness of those who dwell in it? The beasts and the birds will be devoured. Jeremiah 12:3-4.

'The day of killing' stands for the time that the Church is laid waste, when there is no longer any faith because there is no charity. 'The land which will mourn' stands for the Church; 'the plant of every field' stands for all the facts known to the Church that hold truth within them; 'the beasts and the birds will be devoured' stands for the fact that forms of good and truths will be destroyed. For the meaning of 'the land' as the Church, see 566, 662, 1067, 1262, 1413, 1607, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 2928, 3755, 4447, 4535, 5577. The meaning of 'the plant' as factual knowledge holding truth within it is clear from places in the Word where plant is mentioned. And for the meaning of 'the field' as that which is of the Church, see 2971, 3710, 3766, of 'the beasts' as affections for good, thus forms of good, 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 714, 715, 719, 1823, 2179, 2180, 3218, 3519, 5198, and of 'the birds' as affections for truth, 5149. From all this one may recognize what the meaning of these words is, and also that the spiritual sense is present in every detail there. Anyone can see that without the inner meaning there could be no understanding of what 'the day of killing' is, or of what is described by the details 'will the land mourn', 'the plant of every field wither, on account of the wickedness of those who dwell in it', and 'the beasts and the birds will be devoured'.

[3] In Zechariah,

Thus said Jehovah my God, Feed the sheep for killing, whose owners kill them. Zechariah 11:4-5.

'The sheep for killing' plainly stands for people whose faith is destroyed by those who are their owners. In Ezekiel,

You have desecrated Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for crusts of bread, to kill souls that ought not to die, and to keep alive souls that ought not to live. Ezekiel 13:19.

Here also 'killing' plainly stands for destroying spiritual life, that is, charity and faith. In Isaiah,

What will you do on the day of visitation and vastation? They will fall beneath the bound and beneath the killed. Isaiah 10:3-4.

Here 'the killed' stands for those who are in hell, thus for those immersed in evils and falsities.

[4] In the same prophet,

You are cast out from your sepulchre like an abominable branch, [like] a garment of the killed, [like] those pierced with the sword. You will not be united with them in the sepulchre, for you have destroyed your land, you have killed your people. Isaiah 14:19-20.

'The killed' stands for those who have been deprived of spiritual life; 'you have killed your people' stands for his destruction of forms of the truth and good of faith. In John,

The thief does not come except in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come in order that they may have life. John 10:10.

'Killing' stands for destroying the life of faith, and therefore it says, 'I have come in order that they may have life'. In Mark,

Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his children, and the children will rise up against parents and kill them. Mark 13:12.

This refers to the last days of the Church when there is no longer any charity and therefore no faith either. 'Brother', 'children', and 'parents' in the internal sense are the Church's forms of good and its truths; and 'killing' is destroying them.

[5] Because one who had been 'killed' meant a person who had been deprived of spiritual life, and 'the field' meant the Church, it had therefore been decreed in the representative church that if anyone on the surface of the field touched somebody who had been pierced with the sword, or who had been killed, he would be unclean for seven days, Numbers 19:16. 'Slain with the sword' means truth wiped out by falsity, see 4507; for 'the sword' is falsity that wipes out truth, 2799, 4499, 653. It was likewise decreed that if anyone was found killed in the land which was their inheritance, lying on the field, and it was not known who had killed him, the elders and judges were to measure the distances to the cities which were round about. Having found out by doing this which was the nearest city, they were to take a heifer and break its neck at a fast-flowing river, and to do many other things, Deuteronomy 21:1-10.

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