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Exodus 4

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1 And Moses answered, and said, And behold, they will not believe me, and will not hear my voice; for they will say, Jehovah has not been seen by thee.

2 And Jehovah said to him, What is this in thy hand? And he said, A rod.

3 And He said, Cast it to the earth. And he cast it to the earth, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.

4 And Jehovah said to Moses, Put·​·forth thy hand, and seize its tail; and he Put·​·forth his hand, and held· it ·firmly, and it became a rod in the palm of his hand;

5 in order that they may believe that Jehovah has been seen by thee, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

6 And Jehovah said more to him, Bring now thy hand into thy bosom. And he brought his hand into his bosom, and brought· it ·out, and behold his hand was leprous as snow.

7 And He said, Return thy hand to thy bosom; and he returned his hand to his bosom; and brought· it ·out from his bosom, and behold it was returned again as his flesh.

8 And it shall be, if they do not believe thee, and hear the voice of the former sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

9 And it shall be, if they do not believe also these two signs, and do not hearken to thy voice, then thou shalt take from the waters of the Nile, and spill on the dry land, and it shall be that the waters, which thou hast taken from the Nile, shall become blood on the dry land.

10 And Moses said to Jehovah, In·​·me*, Lord, I am not a man of words, even from yesterday, even from the day before*, even from this·​·time, in Thy speaking to Thy servant, for heavy of mouth, and heavy of tongue am I.

11 And Jehovah said to him, Who makes* the mouth for man? Or who makes him dumb, or deaf, or his eyes opened, or blind? Is it not I, Jehovah?

12 And now go, and I will be with thy mouth, and I will instruct thee in what thou shalt speak.

13 And he said, In·​·me, my Lord, send, I pray, by the hand of another whom* Thou wilt send.

14 And the anger of Jehovah was·​·fierce against Moses, and He said, Is there not Aaron, thy brother, the Levite? I know that speaking he will speak. And also behold he goes out to meet thee; and he will see thee, and he will be·​·glad in his heart.

15 And thou shalt speak to him, and shalt put the words in his mouth; and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.

16 And he shall speak for thee to the people; and it shall be that he shall be to thee for a mouth, and thou shalt be to him for God.

17 And thou shalt take in thy hand this rod, with which thou shalt do the signs.

18 And Moses went, and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, Let me go, I pray, and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and I shall see whether they yet live. And Jethro said to Moses, go in peace.

19 And Jehovah said to Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt; because all the men seeking thy soul are·​·dead.

20 And Moses took his wife and his sons, and made them ride upon the donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt; and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.

21 And Jehovah said to Moses, When thou goest to return to Egypt, see all the miracles which I have set in thy hand, and thou shalt do them before Pharaoh; and I will make· his heart ·firm, and he will not send· the people ·away.

22 And thou shalt say to Pharaoh, Thus said Jehovah, My son, My firstborn, is Israel.

23 And I say to thee, Send· My son ·away, and he will serve Me; and if thou refuse to Send· him ·away, behold I will kill thy son, thy firstborn.

24 And it was on the way, in the inn, that Jehovah encountered him, and sought to·​·put· him ·to·​·death.*

25 And Zipporah took a rock, and cut·​·off the foreskin of her son, and made it touch his feet; and she said, Because a bridegroom of bloods* art thou to me.

26 And He let· him ·go. Then she said, A bridegroom of bloods to circumcisions.

27 And Jehovah said to Aaron, Go to meet Moses, into the wilderness. And he went, and encountered him in the mountain of God, and kissed him.

28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of Jehovah, with which He had sent him, and all the signs which He had commanded him.

29 And Moses went, and Aaron, and gathered all the elders of the sons of Israel.

30 And Aaron spoke all the words which Jehovah had spoken to Moses, and did the signs before the eyes of the people.

31 And the people believed; and they heard that Jehovah had visited the sons of Israel, and that He had seen their affliction, and they bent·​·themselves, and bowed· themselves ·down.

   


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.

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Joshua 5:13-14

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13 It happened, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood in front of him with his sword drawn in his hand. Joshua went to him, and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?"

14 He said, "No; but I have come now as commander of Yahweh's army." Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshipped, and said to him, "What does my lord say to his servant?"