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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 # 7041

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7041. 'And he was on the way in the lodging-place' means that the attention of the descendants of Jacob was focused on outward forms without their inner meaning. This becomes clear from the representation of 'Moses' here. In what has gone before and in what will follow the subject in the internal sense is the spiritual Church, meant by 'the children of Israel'; but the three verses here deal with how the Church was to have been established among Jacob's descendants but could not in fact be established among them because their attention was focused on outward forms without their inner meaning. Here therefore Moses does not represent the Law or the Word; instead he represents that nation, descendants of Jacob, whose leader he was to become, and so represents that nation's worship as well. For everywhere in the Word a leader, judge, or else king represents the nation or people whose leader, judge, or king he is since he is its head, see 4789. This explains why Moses is not referred to here by name, though he is meant by the one who 'was on the way in the lodging-place', and why Jehovah at this point 'came to meet him and sought to kill him', when yet previously He had commanded him so clearly to go and return to Egypt. His being 'on the way means what is established, while 'the lodging-place' means the external natural or that which exists on the level of the senses, 5495. And since, as has been stated, the subject is the Church that was to have been established among Jacob's descendants, the level on which that nation focused is meant, namely an external level without any internal level, and so an external natural level or that of the senses, separated from any inner level. When separated from any inner level the sensory level is full of illusions and consequently falsities, and it stands in opposition to forms of the truth and good of faith, see 6948, 6949.

[2] Before the things that come next are explained, see what has been shown already regarding the descendants of Jacob:

Among them there was a representative of the Church, but no real Church, 4281, 4288, 6304.

Divine worship among them was wholly external without anything internal, and they were driven to that worship by external means, 4281, 4433, 4844, 4847, 4865, 4899, 4903.

They were not chosen, yet they stubbornly insisted that they should be the Church, 4290, 4293.

They were such that they could represent holy things even though they were governed by bodily and worldly kinds of love, 4293, 4307.

That nation was like this right from the start, 4314, 4316, 4317.

Very many other things which have been shown concerning that nation, 4444, 4459 (end), 4503, 4750, 4815, 4818, 4820, 4825, 4832, 4837, 4868, 4874, 4911, 4913, 5057, 6877.

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