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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 # 6971

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6971. 'And do not hear the voice of the former sign' means that if they did not obey what was declared by the Word, then instead of being spiritual and rational they would become people who were not spiritual or rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'hearing' as obeying, dealt with in 2542, 3869, 5017; from the meaning of 'the voice' as what is declared by the Word, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the former sign' as an indication that instead of being spiritual and rational they would become people who were not spiritual or rational. The truth of this may be seen from the meaning of 'the serpent' that was made out of Moses' rod when it was thrown onto the earth - the event to which 'the first sign' refers here - as a person who thinks on a sensory and bodily level, 6949, and so is not spiritual or rational. For a person who is sensory- and bodily-minded is not rational, and so is not spiritual either, because he thinks things that are false and desires those that are evil. One who behaves like this is not rational, still less spiritual, for an acceptance of and belief in what is true, together with a life of goodness, since these two come from the Divine, constitute true spirituality within rationality, whereas an acceptance of and belief in what is false, together with a life of evil, are the opposite. For the fact that wholly sensory- and bodily-minded people are like this, see 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949.

[2] Those people become wholly sensory- and bodily-minded who have first had a knowledge of things that belong to the spiritual world but after that have rejected them, and then have adopted fundamental ideas of falsity that are contrary to truths and focused their lives solely on worldly, bodily, and earthly values. They have consequently come to believe that life is meant to be filled with pleasures of every kind, saying, 'What more does a person have while he is alive? When we die, we die; as for the possibility of life after death, has anyone ever come back to talk about it? We have no knowledge of anything that will go on living when the life goes out of a person.' If anyone using rational arguments induces those people to give any thought to eternal life, they think that nothing worse will happen to them than to anyone else, and they immediately go back to living in the way they had done previously. With such people the passageway for the light of heaven to flow in is closed, and at the natural level of their minds the light of heaven is turned into thick darkness, while the light of the world there becomes brightness, 6907, a brightness that shines ever more brilliantly, the more that the light of heaven is darkened. This is why such people do not see the evil in their lives as anything other than goodness, or consequently the false ideas as anything other than true. Here then is the reason why a person becomes sensory- and bodily-minded. In short, once the way is opened for the light of heaven to flow in and then closed, a person is impelled to look downwards, and not upwards. This is done in keeping with Divine order so as to prevent truths once accepted and remaining in a person's inner self from being contaminated by falsities and thereby rendered profane.

[3] The same applies to gentiles who fall away from their religion, though their lot is better than that of people within the Church since what they possess are not truths from the Word, not genuine truths therefore but truths coupled with many misconceptions, which cannot be profaned in the way genuine ones can.

As regards the meaning of 'the voice' as that which is declared by the Word, it should be recognized that frequent use is made of the expression 'the voice'. It is also linked to other things that have nothing to do with a voice, such as the linking of it here to 'the sign' - 'If they do not hear the voice of the former sign they will believe the voice of the latter sign' - and also elsewhere, for example in Nahum,

The voice of the whip and the voice of the sound of the wheel. Nahum 3:2.

And in David,

The rivers have lifted up their voice, more than the voices of many mighty waters. Psalms 93:3-4.

[4] The fact that 'the voice' means a declaration, in the good sense a declaration by the Word, when it is called 'the voice of Jehovah', is clear in David,

The voice of Jehovah is powerful; the voice of Jehovah is glorious; the voice of Jehovah breaks the cedars; the voice of Jehovah flashes forth flames of fire; the voice of Jehovah causes the wilderness to shake; the voice of Jehovah causes the hinds to calve, and strips the forests bare. Psalms 29:3-5; Psalms 7-9.

And elsewhere in the same author,

. . . to Him who rides above the heavens of heavens of old. Behold, He will put forth His voice, a mighty voice. Psalms 68:33.

Here 'voice' stands for Divine Truth, and so for the Word and a declaration made by it. For what more is meant by 'voice', see 219; and for its use in reference to truth, 3563.

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