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Numbers 18

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1 And the LORD said to Aaron, Thou and thy sons and thy father's house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.

2 And thy brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy father, bring thou with thee, that they may be joined to thee, and minister to thee: but thou and thy sons with thee shall minister before the tabernacle of witness.

3 And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die.

4 And they shall be joined to thee, and keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, for all the service of the tabernacle: and a stranger shall not come nigh to you.

5 And ye shall keep the charge of the sanctuary, and the charge of the altar: that there be no wrath any more upon the children of Israel.

6 And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the LORD, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

7 Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest's office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest's office to you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.

8 And the LORD spoke to Aaron, Behold, I also have given thee the charge of my heave-offerings of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel; to thee have I given them by reason of the anointing, and to thy sons, by an ordinance for ever.

9 This shall be thine of the most holy things reserved from the fire: every oblation of theirs, every meat-offering of theirs, and every sin-offering of theirs, and every trespass-offering of theirs, which they shall render to me, shall be most holy for thee and for thy sons.

10 In the most holy place shalt thou eat it; every male shall eat it: it shall be holy to thee.

11 And this is thine; the heave-offering of their gift, with all the wave-offerings of the children of Israel: I have given them to thee, and to thy sons, and to thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: every one that is clean in thy house shall eat of it.

12 All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the first-fruits of them which they shall offer to the LORD, them have I given to thee.

13 And whatever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring to the LORD, shall be thine; every one that is clean in thy house shall eat of it.

14 Every thing devoted in Israel shall be thine.

15 Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring to the LORD, whether of men or beast, shall be thine: nevertheless, the first born of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem.

16 And those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thy estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

17 But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem; they are holy: thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savor to the LORD.

18 And the flesh of them shall be thine, as the wave-breast and as the right shoulder are thine

19 All the heave-offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer to the LORD, have I given to thee, and to thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD to thee and to thy seed with thee.

20 And the LORD spoke to Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them: I am thy part and thy inheritance among the children of Israel.

21 And behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

22 Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin, and die.

23 But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: It shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance.

24 But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as a heave-offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites to inherit: therefore I have said to them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.

25 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

26 Thus speak to the Levites, and say to them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up a heave-offering of it for the LORD, even a tenth part of the tithe.

27 And this your heave-offering shall be reckoned to you, as though it were the corn of the threshing-floor, and as the fullness of the wine-press.

28 Thus ye also shall offer a heave-offering to the LORD of all your tithes which ye receive of the children of Israel; and ye shall give of them the LORD'S heave-offering to Aaron the priest.

29 Out of all your gifts ye shall offer every heave-offering of the LORD, of all the best of it, even its hallowed part out of it.

30 Therefore thou shalt say to them, When ye have heaved from it the best of it, then it shall be counted to the Levites as the increase of the threshing-floor, and as the increase of the wine-press.

31 And ye shall eat it in every place, ye and your households: for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation.

32 And ye shall bear no sin by reason of it, when ye have heaved from it the best of it: neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die.

   

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Explanation of Numbers 18

Napsal(a) Henry MacLagan

Verses 1-7. On the power given to those inmostly in good to fight against evil; the conjunction of those in charity with those in celestial love; and the functions of the latter and the former; also that no one in selfish love inmostly can truly perform those functions.

Verses 8-16. The celestial man alone has perception, and through him is all illustration with the spiritual man; to the Lord through the celestial man is to be ascribed all that the spiritual man acknowledges to be from the Divine Love; and faith, which at first is separated, must be conjoined with charity, while impure natural affection must be purified.

Verses 17-20. The good of faith in its three degrees is holy and must be ascribed to the Lord through celestial love; and all illustration which the spiritual man receives from the Lord must be ascribed to Him through the celestial heavens; but the celestial man has perception; and the celestial and spiritual heavens are distinguished as love to the Lord is distinguished from love to the neighbour.

Verses 21-32. Concerning the distinction between the celestial-natural and the spiritual-natural.

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Arcana Coelestia # 1823

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1823. 'Take a three year old heifer, and a three year old she-goat, and a three year old ram' means things that are the representatives of the celestial things of the Church. This is clear from the meaning of these same animals in sacrifices. Nobody in his right mind can believe that the various animals that used to be sacrificed meant nothing but sacrifices, or that an ox and a young bull or a calf had the same meaning as a sheep, kid, and she-goat, and these the same as a lamb, and that a turtle dove and fledgling pigeons had similar meanings; for in fact each creature had its own specific meaning. This becomes quite clear from the fact that under no circumstances was one kind of animal offered instead of another, and from the fact that it was explicitly stated which creatures were to be used in the daily burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and which on the sabbath and at festivals; which creatures were to be used in free-will, votive, and communion offerings; which ones were to be used in expiations of guilt and sin; and which in purifications. This would never have been the case if some specific thing had not been represented and meant by each animal.

[2] But as to the specific meaning of each kind, this would take too long to explain here. Here it is enough if one knows that celestial things are meant by the animals and spiritual things by the birds, and that some specific celestial or spiritual thing is meant by each kind of animal or bird. The Church itself, and everything to do with the Jewish Church, was representative of such things as constitute the Lord's kingdom, where nothing but that which is celestial or spiritual exists, that is, nothing but that which belongs to love and faith, as also becomes quite clear from the meaning of clean and useful beasts, dealt with in 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 714, 715, 776. And because in the Most Ancient Churches beasts meant celestial goods, in the Church existing at a later time when purely external, though representative, worship was highly esteemed and approved of, those beasts became representatives.

[3] Because the state of the Church is the subject here and because the nature of its state in the future is foretold, Abram was shown the same visually by means of similar representatives, exactly as recorded here. Yet quite apart from this, such things are nevertheless meant in the internal sense, as anyone may know and contemplate. For what would have been the need to take a three year old heifer, a three year old she-goat, a three year old ram, a turtle dove and a fledgling, and to divide them in two parts and to lay them out so, unless each single thing had carried a spiritual meaning? But what these details mean becomes clear from what follows below.

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