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Exodus 23

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1 `Thou dost not lift up a vain report; thou dost not put thy hand with a wicked man to be a violent witness.

2 `Thou art not after many to evil, nor dost thou testify concerning a strife, to turn aside after many to cause [others] to turn aside;

3 and a poor man thou dost not honour in his strife.

4 `When thou meetest thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou dost certainly turn it back to him;

5 when thou seest the ass of him who is hating thee crouching under its burden, then thou hast ceased from leaving [it] to it -- thou dost certainly leave [it] with him.

6 `Thou dost not turn aside the judgment of thy needy one in his strife;

7 from a false matter thou dost keep far off, and an innocent and righteous man thou dost not slay; for I do not justify a wicked man.

8 `And a bribe thou dost not take; for the bribe bindeth the open-[eyed], and perverteth the words of the righteous.

9 `And a sojourner thou dost not oppress, and ye -- ye have known the soul of the sojourner, for sojourners ye have been in the land of Egypt.

10 `And six years thou dost sow thy land, and hast gathered its increase;

11 and the seventh thou dost release it, and hast left it, and the needy of thy people have eaten, and their leaving doth the beast of the field eat; so dost thou to thy vineyard -- to thine olive-yard.

12 `Six days thou dost do thy work, and on the seventh day thou dost rest, so that thine ox and thine ass doth rest, and the son of thine handmaid and the sojourner is refreshed;

13 and in all that which I have said unto you ye do take heed; and the name of other gods ye do not mention; it is not heard on thy mouth.

14 `Three times thou dost keep a feast to Me in a year;

15 the Feast of Unleavened things thou dost keep; seven days thou dost eat Unleavened things, as I have commanded thee, at the time appointed [in] the month of Abib; for in it thou hast come forth out of Egypt, and ye do not appear [in] My presence empty;

16 and the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of thy works which thou sowest in the field; and the Feast of the In-Gathering, in the outgoing of the year, in thy gathering thy works out of the field.

17 `Three times in a year do all thy males appear before the face of the Lord Jehovah.

18 `Thou dost not sacrifice on a fermented thing the blood of My sacrifice, and the fat of My festival doth not remain till morning;

19 the beginning of the first-fruits of thy ground thou dost bring into the house of Jehovah thy God; thou dost not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

20 `Lo, I am sending a messenger before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee in unto the place which I have prepared;

21 be watchful because of his presence, and hearken to his voice, rebel not against him, for he beareth not with your transgression, for My name [is] in his heart;

22 for, if thou diligently hearken to his voice, and hast done all that which I speak, then I have been at enmity with thine enemies, and have distressed those distressing thee.

23 `For My messenger goeth before thee, and hath brought thee in unto the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and I have cut them off.

24 `Thou dost not bow thyself to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their doings, but dost utterly devote them, and thoroughly break their standing pillars.

25 `And ye have served Jehovah your God, and He hath blessed thy bread and thy water, and I have turned aside sickness from thine heart;

26 there is not a miscarrying and barren one in thy land; the number of thy days I fulfil:

27 My terror I send before thee, and I have put to death all the people among whom thou comest, and I have given the neck of all thine enemies unto thee.

28 `And I have sent the hornet before thee, and it hath cast out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee;

29 I cast them not out from before thee in one year, lest the land be a desolation, and the beast of the field hath multiplied against thee;

30 little [by] little I cast them out from before thee, till thou art fruitful, and hast inherited the land.

31 `And I have set thy border from the Red Sea, even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I give into your hand the inhabitants of the land, and thou hast cast them out from before thee;

32 thou dost not make a covenant with them, and with their gods;

33 they do not dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to sin against Me when thou servest their gods, when it becometh a snare to thee.'

   

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Ox, young

  

'The son of a cow' signifies the celestial natural level and natural exterior good.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 2184 [1-7], 4244)

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 10634

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10634. 'Which have not been created in all the earth nor in all nations' means that never before has a Divine Word such as this been present in the world, either where the Church exists or where it does not exist. This is clear from the meaning of 'marvellous things' as the Divine things present in the Word, dealt with immediately above in 10633, which are referred to as 'created' ones when they are Divine from inmost to outermost levels or first to last; from the meaning of 'in all the earth' as wherever the Church exists, for 'the earth' in the Word means the Church, see in the places referred to in 9325; and from the meaning of 'in all nations' as where the Church does not exist, for 'nations' in the Word means those who are outside the Church, because they do not dwell in the light of truth derived from the Word.

[2] The reason why it says that Jehovah is about to do marvels 'which have not been created in all the earth' is that 'creation' means that which is Divine from inmost to outermost levels or first to last. For everything that comes from the Divine begins in Him and continues in accord with true order right through to the lowest and final level. That is, it passes through the heavens right on into the world, which serves as the lowest level, the level on which it comes to rest; for the natural world constitutes the lowest level of Divine order. That which has origins such as these is what the word 'created' is used to refer to. Every created thing in the world is both brought into being and kept in being in accord with that true order; and also the member of the Church who has been regenerated by the Lord by means of truths from the Word is fashioned in accord with it. All this explains why in the Word the Lord is referred to as the Creator, while the person who has been regenerated is referred to as one created anew, see 10373, 10545. The Word too is fashioned in accord with that true order, and since the nature of it is such the word 'created' is used in reference to its marvels.

[3] The same words - 'Before all your people I will do marvels which have not been created in all the earth nor in all nations' - mean in the historical sense that Jehovah was about to perform miracles among the Israelite people which were unheard of in all the earth. In the internal sense however not miracles should be understood but marvels which the Lord was about to do, in that He was about to provide a Word which would be such that by means of it heaven would be joined to the Church, and, to take a universal view, the Lord would be joined to the human race. The idea that the Word is a marvel such as this is unintelligible to those who know nothing at all about the correspondence of natural things with spiritual ones. And people who know nothing at all about the spiritual level on which angels think are also unaware of the inner presence of anything within all the details of the Word, which hold heaven and so Divine life within them. But in fact through correspondence angels perceive every single expression in the Word on a spiritual level when people in the world do so on a natural level. This and nothing else is what makes the Word Divine, so marvellous that there is nothing more marvellous.

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