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Deuteronomy 9

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1 Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fortified up to heaven,

2 A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard it said, Who can stand before the children of Anak!

3 Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he who goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said to thee.

4 Speak not thou in thy heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.

5 Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations, the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD swore to thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

6 Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people.

7 Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart from the land of Egypt, until ye came to this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD.

8 Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.

9 When I ascended the mount, to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither ate bread, nor drank water:

10 And the LORD delivered to me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words which the LORD spoke with you in the mount, from the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly.

11 And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.

12 And the LORD said to me, Arise, go down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.

13 Furthermore, the LORD spoke to me, saying, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people:

14 Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.

15 So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.

16 And I looked, and behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded you.

17 And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.

18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I neither ate bread, nor drank water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

19 (For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you.) But the LORD hearkened to me at that time also.

20 And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

21 And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust of it into the brook that descended from the mount.

22 And at Taberah, and at Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath.

23 Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

24 Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.

25 Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.

26 I prayed therefore to the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thy inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

27 Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not to the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:

28 Lest the land from which thou hast brought us should say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

29 Yet they are thy people and thy inheritance which thou hast brought out by thy mighty power and by thy out-stretched arm.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 529

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529. Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. (11:19) This symbolizes the New Heaven, in which the Lord is worshiped in His Divine humanity, and where people live in accordance with the Ten Commandments, which constitute the two essential elements of the New Church that are the means of conjunction.

The temple of God symbolizes the Lord's Divine humanity, also heaven where angels dwell, and likewise the church on earth. To be shown that the temple of God has these three symbolic meanings, and that the three cannot be separated, see no. 191. Here, however, the temple of God symbolizes the Lord in His Divine humanity in heaven where angels dwell, because it is said to be the temple of God in heaven. The ark in the temple means the Ten Commandments, for the ark had as its sole contents the two tables on which the Ten Commandments were written. 1 The temple's being opened means, symbolically, that these two, the Divine humanity and the Ten Commandments, which are the two essential elements of the New Church, are now visible, and that they became visible after the evil were cast into hell (no. 528). The ark is called the ark of His covenant in His temple because a covenant symbolizes conjunction, as we will see below. But first we must say something about the Ten Commandments.

[2] What nation in the entire world does not know that it is evil to kill, commit adultery, steal, and bear false witness? If nations did not know this and enact laws to keep people from doing these things, it would be all over with them. For society, the republic, or kingdom would collapse without these laws.

Who can suppose that the Israelite nation was so stupid in comparison to all other nations as not to know that such actions are evil? One may wonder, therefore, why these laws, being so universally known throughout the whole world, were promulgated by Jehovah Himself from Mount Sinai, attended by the great miracle they were, and written, moreover, with His finger.

But listen, they were promulgated by Jehovah with such a great miracle and written with His finger in order that people might know that these laws are not only civil and moral laws, but also spiritual laws, and that to disobey them is not only to do evil to one's fellow citizen and to society, but is also to sin against God. Their promulgation by Jehovah from Mount Sinai made them therefore laws of religion. For it is evident that whatever Jehovah God commands, He commands to make it a matter of religion, so that it must be obeyed for His sake, and for a person's own sake, that he may be saved.

[3] Because these laws were the first elements of the church to be established by the Lord with the Israelite nation, and because they embrace in brief summary everything having to do with religion which makes possible a conjunction of the Lord with a person and of a person with the Lord, therefore they were so holy that nothing was more holy.

That they were so very holy can be seen from the following: That Jehovah Himself, that is to say, the Lord, descended in fire; that the mountain then smoked and quaked; and that this was attended by thunderings, lightnings, a thick cloud, and the sound of a trumpet (Exodus 19:16, 18, Deuteronomy 5:22-26). That before Jehovah descended, the people readied themselves and sanctified themselves for three days (Exodus 19:10-11, 15). That in the Temple at Jerusalem the Ark constituted the inner sanctuary (1 Kings 6:19ff., 8:3-9). That the tablets on which the Law was written were called the tablets of the covenant, and because of them the Ark was called the ark of the covenant, with the Law itself being called the covenant (Numbers 10:33, Deuteronomy 4:13, 23; 5:2-3; 9:9, Joshua 3:11, 1 Kings 8:19, 21, and elsewhere).

The Law's being called a covenant symbolizes conjunction. The reason is that covenants are made for the sake of love, friendship, and association, thus for the sake of conjunction. That is why we find it said of the Lord that He will be "a covenant to the people" (Isaiah 42:6; 49:8), and He is called "the Messenger of the covenant" (Malachi 3:1). His blood also is called "the blood of the covenant" (Matthew 26:28, cf. Zechariah 9:11, Exodus 24:4-10). And therefore the Word is called the Old and New Testaments or Covenants.

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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.