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Exodus 33

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1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, Go, go·​·up from hence, thou and the people which thou hast made to come·​·up out of the land of Egypt, to the land which I promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, To thy seed will I give it;

2 and I will send before thee an angel; and I will drive·​·out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite;

3 to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go·​·up in the midst of thee; for a stiff necked people art thou; lest I should consume· thee ·all in the way.

4 And the people heard this evil word, and they mourned; and they put not any man his decoration upon him.

5 And Jehovah said to Moses, Say to the sons of Israel, You are a stiff necked people; I will come·​·up into the midst of thee in one moment, and will consume· thee ·all; and now bring·​·down thine decorations from on thee, and I shall know what I will do to thee.

6 And the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their decoration, by Mount Horeb*.

7 And Moses took the tent, and stretched it for himself outside the camp, to be·​·far·​·away from the camp; and he called it the tent of the congregation. And it was, that everyone seeking Jehovah went·​·out to the tent of the congregation that was outside the camp.

8 And it was, as Moses went·​·out to the tent, all the people rose·​·up, and each·​·man stood·​·up at the entrance of his tent, and looked behind Moses, until he came·​·into the tent.

9 And it was, as Moses came·​·into the tent, the pillar of cloud went·​·down, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and spoke with Moses.

10 And all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent; and all the people rose·​·up and bowed· themselves ·down, each·​·man at the entrance of his tent.

11 And Jehovah spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his companion. And he returned to the camp; and his minister Joshua the son of Nun, a lad, departed not from the midst of the tent.

12 And Moses said to Jehovah, See, Thou sayest to me, Make this people come up; and Thou hast· not ·made·​·known to me whom Thou wilt send with me. And Thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast· also ·found grace in My eyes.

13 And now, I pray, if I have found grace in Thine eyes, make·​·known to me, I pray, Thy way, that I may know Thee, because I have found grace in Thine eyes; and see that this nation is Thy people.

14 And He said, My faces shall go, and I will give thee rest.

15 And he said to Him, If Thy faces go not, do not make us go up from hence.

16 And in what shall it then become·​·known that I have·​·found grace in Thine eyes, I and Thy people? is it not in Thy going with us? And we shall be set·​·apart, I and Thy people, above all the people that are on the faces of the ground.

17 And Jehovah said to Moses, I will do this word also that thou hast spoken; because thou hast·​·found grace in My eyes, and I know thee by name.

18 And he said, Make me see, I pray, Thy glory.

19 And He said, I will make all My goodness to pass upon thy faces, and will proclaim in the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be·​·gracious to whom I am·​·gracious, and I will have·​·compassion with whom I have·​·compassion.

20 And He said, Thou art· not ·able to see My faces; for man shall not see Me and live.

21 And Jehovah said, Behold, a place with Me, and thou shalt stand·​·up on the rock;

22 and it shall be when My glory passes·​·by, that I will set thee in a cleft of the rock, and will shelter with My palm over thee, until I have passed·​·by.

23 And I will remove the palm of My hand, and thou shalt see My back; and My faces shall not be seen.

   


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

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Abraham

  
Représentation d'Abraham, by Joseph Villiet

Abraham (or Abram, as he was named in the beginning of his story) was the ancestor of all the Children of Israel, through his son Isaac, and of the Arabs, through his son Ishmael.

Abraham represents the Divine good or love. His story foreshadows the life of Jesus, and our spiritual lives, too.

His life can be usefully seen as being divided into three periods. The first period includes the unknown early years from his birth in Ur, and his later move to Haran with his father Terah. The second section starts with Abram's being called by Jehovah to go to Canaan. It includes the adventures he had there, and continues until the events of the 17th chapter of Genesis where he is said to be 99 years old, rich, and powerful - but without a son by his wife Sarai. Once again the Lord appears to him, promises that his progeny will become a great nation, institutes the rite of circumcision, and changes his name to Abraham, adding the "ah" sound from Jehovah. The third and last period of his life sees the birth of Isaac, the death of Sarah (whose name was also changed), and the finding of a wife for Isaac from among Abraham's relatives back in Mesopotamia. Abraham is said to be 175 years old when he dies, as recorded in the 25th chapter of Genesis.

What we are here interested in is the deep representation of Abraham because he prophesies or foreshadows the inmost part of Jesus' life after He is born to Mary centuries after the man Abraham lived on the earth. Abraham represents the Divine good or love. The internal sense of the Word tells us that God himself provided the life into an ovum within Mary, so she could provide a natural body and a natural heredity from the Jewish religion, while the soul of Jesus was kept as a direct possessor of divine life. During Jesus' early life, probably up to adolescence, Jesus lived out those representative actions of Abraham in the innermost parts of his mind and spirit. Abraham as he pastured his sheep and ran his large household had no idea at all that this was true, and early in Jesus' life He didn't realize it either. There must have been perceptions as Jesus grew up, witness his visit to the temple when He was 12, but not a complete understanding until He was fully grown. And further, it isn't only Abraham. When Abraham dies, the representation attaches to Isaac, who represents the rational level of the mind, and then to both Jacob and Esau who represent the natural mind as to truth and good in the mind respectively. And then the trials of the twelve tribes, the kings, and all the sayings of the prophets become that same representation. So Jesus could say to the two disciples that He met on the road to Emmaus, "O fools and slow of heart... and beginning at Moses and all the Prophets He expounded to them in all the scriptures all the things concerning Himself." (The following references are chronologic as Abraham gets older, and are in biblical sequence.) And furthermore, the progress of mental and spiritual life in each one of us is a dim and finite image of that represented by Abraham's life if, that is, we are trying to follow the Lord's laws and precepts to love one another. We too have within us a journey to the land of Canaan, a hardworking sojourn in Egypt, a struggle in the wilderness, and a Saul, a David, and an Ahab. We have our home-grown Amalekites and Philistines. The whole of the Old Testament is a picture of how our spiritual life works.

In Genesis 20:7, Abraham signifies celestial truth, or doctrine from a celestial origin. (Arcana Coelestia 2533)

In Genesis 12:4, As ABRAHAM he represents the Lord as to His Human and Divine Essence; as ABRAM he represents the Lord as to His human essence only. (Arcana Coelestia 1426)

In Genesis 17:5, The name was changed by adding the letter H, so that the Divine Human could he represented, for H is the only letter which involves the Divine: it means I AM, or BEING. (Arcana Coelestia 1416[2])

(Odkazy: Genesis 17, 25)