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Genesis 22

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1 And it was, after these words*, that God tempted Abraham, and said to him, Abraham; and he said, Behold me.

2 And He said, Take, I pray, thy son, thine only·​·one, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer· him ·up there for a burnt·​·offering upon one of the mountains of which I will speak to thee.

3 And Abraham got·​·up·​·early in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and took two of his lads with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood of the burnt·​·offering, and rose·​·up, and went to the place of which God said to him.

4 And on the third day Abraham lifted·​·up his eyes, and saw the place afar·​·off.

5 And Abraham said to his lads, Sit ye here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go thither, and we will bow· ourselves ·down, and will return to you.

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt·​·offering, and set it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and the two of them went together.

7 And Isaac said to Abraham his father; and he said, My father; and he said, Behold me, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood; and where is the lamb for a burnt·​·offering?

8 And Abraham said, God will see for Himself the lamb for a burnt·​·offering, my son; and they went the two of them together.

9 And they came to the place which God said to him; and Abraham built there the altar, and arranged the wood, and bound Isaac his son, and set him on the altar on the wood.

10 And Abraham put·​·forth his hand, and took the knife to slaughter his son.

11 And the angel of Jehovah called to him out·​·of the heavens, and said, Abraham, Abraham; and he said, Behold me.

12 And He said, Put· not ·forth thy hand to the lad, and do not anything to him; for now I know that thou fearest God, and thou hast not kept·​·back thy son, thine only·​·one, from Me.

13 And Abraham lifted his eyes, and saw, and behold a ram behind him, seized in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went, and took the ram, and offered· it ·up for a burnt·​·offering instead of his son.

14 And Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah-will-see, as it is said today, In the mountain Jehovah will see.

15 And the angel of Jehovah called to Abraham a second time out·​·of the heavens,

16 and said, By Myself have I promised, says Jehovah, for because of this thing which thou hast done, and hast not kept·​·back thy son, thine only·​·one,

17 that blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying, I will multiply thy seed, as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the lip of the sea; and thy seed shall possess the gate of thine enemies.

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because of that in which thou hast obeyed My voice.

19 And Abraham returned to his lads; and they rose·​·up, and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt in Beer-sheba.

20 And it was, after these words, that it was·​·told to Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she also has given·​·birth to sons for Nahor thy brother:

21 Uz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram;

22 and Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel.

23 And Bethuel begot Rebekah; these eight did Milcah bring·​·forth for Nahor, Abraham’s brother.

24 And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she also gave·​·birth to Tebah, and Gaham, and Tahash, and Maachah.

   


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)