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Exodus 16

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1 They took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.

2 The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness;

3 and the children of Israel said to them, "We wish that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

4 Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law, or not.

5 It shall come to pass on the sixth day, that they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily."

6 Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, "At evening, then you shall know that Yahweh has brought you out from the land of Egypt;

7 and in the morning, then you shall see the glory of Yahweh; because he hears your murmurings against Yahweh. Who are we, that you murmur against us?"

8 Moses said, "Now Yahweh shall give you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to satisfy you; because Yahweh hears your murmurings which you murmur against him. And who are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against Yahweh."

9 Moses said to Aaron, "Tell all the congregation of the children of Israel, 'Come near before Yahweh, for he has heard your murmurings.'"

10 It happened, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of Yahweh appeared in the cloud.

11 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

12 "I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, 'At evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread: and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God.'"

13 It happened at evening that quail came up and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay around the camp.

14 When the dew that lay had gone, behold, on the surface of the wilderness was a small round thing, small as the frost on the ground.

15 When the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, "What is it?" For they didn't know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread which Yahweh has given you to eat."

16 This is the thing which Yahweh has commanded: "Gather of it everyone according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, you shall take it, every man for those who are in his tent."

17 The children of Israel did so, and gathered some more, some less.

18 When they measured it with an omer, he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according to his eating.

19 Moses said to them, "Let no one leave of it until the morning."

20 Notwithstanding they didn't listen to Moses, but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and became foul: and Moses was angry with them.

21 They gathered it morning by morning, everyone according to his eating. When the sun grew hot, it melted.

22 It happened that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.

23 He said to them, "This is that which Yahweh has spoken, 'Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to Yahweh. Bake that which you want to Bake, and boil that which you want to boil; and all that remains over lay up for yourselves to be kept until the morning.'"

24 They laid it up until the morning, as Moses asked, and it didn't become foul, neither was there any worm in it.

25 Moses said, "Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to Yahweh. today you shall not find it in the field.

26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath. In it there shall be none."

27 It happened on the seventh day, that some of the people went out to gather, and they found none.

28 Yahweh said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?

29 Behold, because Yahweh has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Everyone stay in his place. Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day."

30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

31 The house of Israel called its name Manna, and it was like coriander seed, white; and its taste was like wafers with honey.

32 Moses said, "This is the thing which Yahweh has commanded, 'Let an omer-full of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.'"

33 Moses said to Aaron, "Take a pot, and put an omer-full of manna in it, and lay it up before Yahweh, to be kept throughout your generations."

34 As Yahweh commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.

35 The children of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land. They ate the manna until they came to the borders of the land of Canaan.

36 Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 8616

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8616. 'And Joshua decimated Amalek and his people' means lessening the power of those steeped in falsity arising from interior evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'decimating' as lessening the power; and from the representation of 'Amalek and his people' as those steeped in falsity arising from interior evil, dealt with above in 8593.

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

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Arcana Coelestia # 8593

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8593. 'And Amalek came' means falsity arising from interior evil. This is clear from the representation of 'Amalek' as falsity arising from interior evil, dealt with below. Who exactly are steeped in falsity arising from interior evil, and what they are like, must be stated first. Interior evil is that which resides with a person, hidden inwardly. It is concealed in his will and consequently in his thinking, not a trace of it being apparent outwardly, in his actions, speech, or face. People ruled by this kind of evil strive by every method and skill to hide it away, to conceal it under an outward show of being honourable and righteous, and an outward show of love of the neighbour. Nevertheless their only thought is how to inflict harm, and so far as possible to use others to inflict it, taking care to prevent anyone from seeing that they are the instigators. They also disguise actual evil so that it does not look like evil. The greatest delight of their life is to contemplate such things and secretly try to carry them out. This is called interior evil. Those ruled by this evil are called evil genii and in the next life they have been completely separated from those who are ruled by exterior evil and are called spirits. The former - the evil genii - have their hell behind a person, that is, behind his back, where they live in various caverns. But the evil spirits have their hell in front of a person, and also to the sides. The genii belong in the Grand Man to the province of the cerebellum, and also to that part of the spinal cord which sends out the fibres and nerves that control involuntary actions.

[2] One may say further of the falsity arising from this interior evil that it is not like the falsity arising from evil that the evil spirits possess, because it is in itself evil. Those ruled by this evil do not attack the truths of faith but forms of the good of faith. They act through corrupt affections; through these they pervert good thoughts, doing so in a way almost inconceivable. Because they are like this their hells are completely separated from the hells of evil spirits, so completely that they have scarcely any contact with them; and they are separated in order that they may also be separated from members of the spiritual Church. For if they were to flow in from their hells, the member of that Church would be destroyed because they would act very secretly on his conscience and would pervert it, which they would do by inflating his corrupt affections. Those hellish genii never attack a person openly, or when he can offer strong resistance, but when it is seen that the person is slipping and may therefore give in. At this point they are suddenly at hand, and give him a shove so that he falls completely. This is also represented by Amalek's coming up to attack Israel now, as well as at a later time when the children of Israel set themselves against Jehovah and were afraid of the nations in the land of Canaan,

Then also Amalek came down with the Canaanite from the mountain, and struck down the children of Israel as far as Hormah. Numbers 14:43, 45.

[3] From all this one may recognize what those people are like who are represented by Amalek, and the reason for the judgement pronounced over him by Jehovah that war will be waged against them forever and that the memory of them will be wiped out from under heaven, in accordance with the following words in the final verse of the present chapter,

Because the hand of the evil ones is against the throne of Jah, the war of Jehovah will be against Amalek from generation to generation.

And in Deuteronomy,

Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt, that he met you on the way, and cut off at your rear all the weak, when you were tired and weary; he did not fear God. When Jehovah your God has given you rest, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget. Deuteronomy 25:17-19.

Also in the first book of Samuel,

Jehovah declared to Saul through Samuel, I have resolved to punish 1 what Amalek did to Israel, how he set [himself] against him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Therefore go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that he has; do not spare him, but kill man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. But Saul spared Agag the king, and the best of the flock and the oxen, and of the fatlings, 2 and the rams, and all that was good. Therefore it was declared to Saul that because of this he would no longer be king over Israel. 1 Samuel 15:2-3, 9, 23.

The declaration that the memory of Amalek should be wiped out and that everything there should be utterly destroyed meant that evil genii should have no contact whatever with those belonging to the spiritual Church; for they are in contact with those who are not governed by truths but from an evil affection uphold falsities.

[4] Who can fail to see that except for some more deeply hidden reason Jehovah would never have said that war was to be waged forever against Amalek, that the memory of him was to be wiped out from under heaven, and that everything there was to be utterly destroyed, though all this was not in fact carried out? That more deeply hidden reason why these things were said and done is embodied in Samuel's words to Agag the king of the Amalekites, whom Saul had spared,

Agag the king of Amalek went to Samuel delicately. 3 But Samuel said, As your sword has bereaved women, so shall your mother become the most bereaved of women. And Samuel cut him in pieces before Jehovah. 1 Samuel 15:32-33.

'Going delicately' means the outwardly charming ways that such people have in the presence of others. 'Your sword has bereaved women' means that their falsity does violence to good affections; 'your mother shall become the most bereaved of women' means that evil affection which originates in the will, not in the understanding, will hold sway among them; 'and Samuel cut him in pieces before Jehovah' means that they were separated from those ruled by falsity arising from evil that originated in the understanding, that is, genii were separated from spirits, as stated above. For the meaning of 'women' as affections, see 568, 6014, 8337; and for 'sword' as falsity engaged in conflict and laying waste, 2799, 4499, 7102.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. literally, visit

2. literally, of the second sort

3. literally, In delights

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