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Deuteronomy 15

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1 At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.

2 And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it;he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD's release.

3 Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release;

4 Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it:

5 Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.

6 For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations,but they shall not reign over thee.

7 If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother:

8 But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.

9 Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee.

10 Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.

11 For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

12 And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman , be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

13 And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:

14 Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.

15 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.

16 And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee;

17 Then thou shalt take an aul, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise.

18 It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.

19 All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.

20 Thou shalt eat it before the LORD thy God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, thou and thy household.

21 And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God.

22 Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart.

23 Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 922

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922. 'He took from every clean beast, and from every clean bird' means goods that stem from charity, and the truths of faith. This has been shown already; 'beast' means goods that stem from charity, 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 'bird' the truths of faith, 40, 776. Burnt offerings were made from cattle, from lambs and goats, and from turtle doves and young pigeons, Leviticus 1:2-17; Numbers 15:2-15; 28:1-end. These were clean beasts, each one of them meaning some particular heavenly quality. And because they meant these things in the Ancient Church, and in subsequent Churches represented them, it is clear that burnt offerings and sacrifices were nothing else than representatives that go with internal worship, and that when they had been divorced from internal worship they became idolatrous. This any mentally normal person can see, for what is an altar but merely something made of stone? And what is a burnt offering and a sacrifice but the slaughtering of an animal? For worship to be Divine it has to represent some heavenly quality which the worshippers know and acknowledge and from which they worship the One they are representing.

[2] Nobody except the person who does not wish to understand anything at all about the Lord can be ignorant of the fact that these things were representatives of the Lord. It is the internal things, namely charity and faith deriving from charity, through which the One who is being represented has to be seen, acknowledged, and believed, as is quite clear in the Prophets, for example in Jeremiah,

Thus said Jehovah Zebaoth, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings on to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. I did not speak with your fathers and I did not command them on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt on the matters of burnt offering and sacrifice. But this matter I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God. Jeremiah 7:21-23.

Hearing or obeying His voice is obeying the law, the whole of which focuses on the one command that men should love God above everything else and their neighbour as themselves, for on these depend the Law and the Prophets, Matthew 22:37-40; 7:12. In David,

O Jehovah, sacrifice and offering You have not desired; burnt offering and sin-sacrifice You host not sought. I have delighted to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart. 1 Psalms 40:6, 8.

[3] In Samuel, who said to Saul,

Has Jehovah as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Jehovah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22.

What obeying His voice involves is apparent in Micah,

Shall I come before Jehovah with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does Jehovah require of you but to carry out judgement and the love of mercy, and to humble yourself by walking with your God. Micah 6:6-8.

These are the things that burnt offerings and sacrifices of clean beasts and birds mean. In Amos,

Though you offer Me your burnt offerings and gifts, I will not accept them, and the peace offering of your fatted ones I will not look upon. Let judgement flow like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Amos 5:22, 24.

'Judgement' means truth, and 'righteousness' good. Both stem from charity and are the burnt offerings and sacrifices of the internal man. In Hosea,

I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6.

From all these quotations the nature of sacrifices and burnt offerings when charity and faith are not present is clear. It is also clear from them that because 'clean beasts and clean birds' meant the goods that stem from charity and faith they also represented them.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, in the midst of my viscera

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