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Exodus 32

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1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, the people assembled themselves to Aaron, and said to him, Arise, make us gods which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.

2 And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden ear-rings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.

3 And all the people broke off the golden ear-rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.

4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt.

5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To-morrow is a feast to the LORD.

6 And they rose early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings: and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

7 And the LORD said to Moses, Go, go down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:

8 They have turned aside quickly from the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, These are thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.

9 And the LORD said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people:

10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why [doth] thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast [brought] forth from the land of Egypt, with great power, and with [a] mighty hand?

12 Why should the Egyptians speak and say, For evil did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.

13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel thy servants, to whom thou sworest by thine own self, and saidst to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give to your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.

14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.

15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.

16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.

17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.

18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.

19 And it came to pass as soon as he came nigh to the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses's anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables from his hands, and broke them beneath the mount.

20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.

21 And Moses said to Aaron, What did this people to thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?

22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people that they are set on mischief.

23 For they said to me, Make us gods which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.

24 And I said to them, Whoever hath any gold, let them break it off: So they gave it to me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.

25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked (for Aaron had made them naked to their shame, among their enemies:)

26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD'S side? let him come to me. And all the sons of Levi assembled themselves to him.

27 And he said to them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.

28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.

29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to-day to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.

30 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said to the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up to the LORD; it may be I shall make an atonement for your sin.

31 And Moses returned to the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.

32 Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin: and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

33 And the LORD said to Moses, Whoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.

34 Therefore now go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to thee: Behold, my angel shall go before thee: Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.

35 And the LORD afflicted the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 10492

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10492. 'And there fell of the people on that day up to three thousand men' means a complete shutting off of what is internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'falling' or being killed as being shut off, dealt with above in 10490; and from the meaning of 'three thousand' as that which is complete. For 'three' means what is full and complete, see 2788, 4495, 7715, 8347, 9198, 9488, 9489, and 'three thousand' likewise, because every large number has a similar meaning to the smaller ones of which it is the product when they are multiplied together, 5291, 5335, 5708, 7973. All numbers in the Word mean spiritual realities or real things, see in the places referred to in 9488, and in 10127, 10217, 10253.

[2] Since then the subject here has been the shutting off of what was internal among the Israelite and Jewish nation, let something further be stated here regarding the shutting off of what is internal. Evils and falsities are what shut off the internal man, or what amounts to the same thing, worldly, earthly, and bodily kinds of love do so when they are predominant; for they are the source of all evils and falsities. The reason why what is internal is shut off by them is that those kinds of love are the opposites of heavenly kinds; or what amounts to the same thing, evils and falsities are the opposites of forms of good and truths. Therefore when opposites act against each other that which has been injured holds itself in, just as a fibre does when it is pricked, or as any other part of the human body does from pain. It is well known that injury or a depressed state of mind can put creases on a person's face, cramp the abdomen, and restrict the lungs and their breathing. So it is also with the internal man when evils and falsities enter thought and will. There is a feeling of detestation then, and a consequent holding in, which also reveal themselves in the face and in the body.

[3] This is the general reason why the internal is closed. But the specific reason is to prevent forms of good and truths from passing from heaven by way of the internal man into the external, and from their being defiled and rendered profane there. To prevent this from happening with the Israelite nation among whom the Word and the holy things of the Church existed, their internal was completely shut off. Its being completely shut off is plainly evident from the fact that although they now live among Christians, and although prophecies plainly refer to the Lord, they still do not at all acknowledge Him. Indeed they are such that they are not even able to entertain any thought that strengthens [belief in the Lord]. There is inward repudiation and revulsion, because their internal has been closed.

[4] In addition it should be recognized that in the Christian world as well the internal is closed in the case of those who know the truths of faith from the Word and do not lead a life in keeping with them. An actual life in keeping with them opens the internal man; without it those truths reside merely in the external man's memory. With those however who repudiate these truths the internal is completely closed. And astonishing though it may seem to be, the internal is closed more in the case of intelligent than in that of simple people. The reason for this is that the intelligent are ruled by desires for high position and monetary gain, and consequently by self-love and love of the world, more than the simple are. They also have a greater ability to justify evils and falsities resulting from those loves by the use of factual knowledge, which the intelligent possess more abundantly than the simple do. Added to this, the majority of them think of the soul on the basis of some hypothesis in the learned world, from which they gain no other idea than that of a breath of air or a puff of wind which perhaps contains some spark of life. The thought of simple but good people on the other hand is not based on such an idea, only on the idea that the soul is the person living after death. So it is that the internal of these simple people is open, whereas that of those intelligent ones is closed. Whether you speak of the internal being opened or closed, or you speak of heaven being so, it amounts to the same thing.

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