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Exodus 30

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1 `And thou hast made an altar [for] making perfume; [of] shittim wood thou dost make it;

2 a cubit its length, and a cubit its breadth, (it is square), and two cubits its height; its horns [are] of the same.

3 `And thou hast overlaid it with pure gold, its top, and its sides round about, and its horns; and thou hast made to it a crown of gold round about;

4 and two rings of gold thou dost make to it under its crown; on its two ribs thou dost make [them], on its two sides, and they have become places for staves, to bear it with them.

5 `And thou hast made the staves of shittim wood, and hast overlaid them with gold;

6 and thou hast put it before the vail, which [is] by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy-seat which [is] over the testimony, whither I am met with thee.

7 `And Aaron hath made perfume on it, perfume of spices, morning by morning; in his making the lamps right he doth perfume it,

8 and in Aaron's causing the lamps to go up between the evenings, he doth perfume it; a continual perfume before Jehovah to your generations.

9 `Ye do not cause strange perfume to go up upon it, and burnt-offering, and present, and libation ye do not pour out on it;

10 and Aaron hath made atonement on its horns, once in a year, by the blood of the sin-offering of atonements; once in a year doth he make atonement for it, to your generations; it [is] most holy to Jehovah.'

11 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying,

12 `When thou takest up the sum of the sons of Israel for their numbers, then they have given each an atonement [for] his soul to Jehovah in their being numbered, and there is no plague among them in their being numbered.

13 `This they do give, every one passing over unto those numbered, half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel [is] twenty gerahs); half a shekel [is] the heave-offering to Jehovah;

14 every one passing over unto those numbered, from a son of twenty years and upwards, doth give the heave-offering of Jehovah;

15 the rich doth not multiply, and the poor doth not diminish from the half-shekel, to give the heave-offering of Jehovah, to make atonement for your souls.

16 `And thou hast taken the atonement-money from the sons of Israel, and hast given it for the service of the tent of meeting; and it hath been to the sons of Israel for a memorial before Jehovah, to make atonement for your souls.'

17 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying,

18 `And thou hast made a laver of brass (and its base of brass), for washing; and thou hast put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and hast put water there;

19 and Aaron and his sons have washed at it their hands and their feet,

20 in their going in unto the tent of meeting they wash [with] water, and die not; or in their drawing nigh unto the altar to minister, to perfume a fire-offering to Jehovah,

21 then they have washed their hands and their feet, and they die not, and it hath been to them a statute age-during, to him and to his seed to their generations.'

22 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying,

23 `And thou, take to thyself principal spices, wild honey five hundred [shekels]; and spice-cinnamon, the half of that, two hundred and fifty; and spice-cane two hundred and fifty;

24 and cassia five hundred, by the shekel of the sanctuary, and olive oil a hin;

25 and thou hast made it a holy anointing oil, a compound mixture, work of a compounder; it is a holy anointing oil.

26 `And thou hast anointed with it the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony,

27 and the table and all its vessels, and the candlestick and its vessels, and the altar of perfume,

28 and the altar of burnt-offering and all its vessels, and the laver and its base;

29 and thou hast sanctified them, and they have been most holy; all that is coming against them is holy;

30 and Aaron and his sons thou dost anoint, and hast sanctified them for being priests to Me.

31 `And unto the sons of Israel thou dost speak, saying, A holy anointing oil is this to Me, to your generations;

32 on flesh of man it is not poured, and with its proper proportion ye make none like it; it [is] holy; it is holy to you;

33 a man who compoundeth [any] like it, or who putteth of it on a stranger -- hath even been cut off from his people.'

34 And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Take to thee spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, spices and pure frankincense; they are part for part;

35 and thou hast made it a perfume, a compound, work of a compounder, salted, pure, holy;

36 and thou hast beaten [some] of it small, and hast put of it before the testimony, in the tent of meeting, whither I am met with thee; most holy it is to you.

37 `As to the perfume which thou makest, with its proper proportion ye do not make to yourselves, holy it is to thee to Jehovah;

38 a man who maketh [any] like it -- to be refreshed by it -- hath even been cut off from his people.'

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 10208

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10208. 'And Aaron shall make expiation on its horns' means purification from evils by means of the truths of faith which spring from the good of love. This is clear from the meaning of 'making expiation' as purifying from evils, dealt with in 9506; from the representation of 'Aaron' as the Lord in respect of Divine Good, and in respect of the work of salvation, dealt with in 9806, 9946, 10017; and from the meaning of 'horns' as powers, dealt with in 10182, and also outer levels, 10186. The reason why purification by means of the truths of faith which spring from the good of love is meant is that expiation was made by means of blood, and 'blood' means the truth of faith emanating from the good of love, 4735, 7317, 7326, 7846, 7850, 7877, 9127, 9393, 10026, 10033, 10047; and all purification from evils is accomplished by means of the truths of faith that spring from the good of love, 2799, 5954(end), 7044, 7918, 9088. The fact that expiations were made by the blood on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and the altar of incense is clear in Leviticus 4:3, 7, 18, 25, 30, 34; 16:18.

[2] The altars were expiated in this way because holy things were polluted by the sins of the people. The people represented the Church; therefore those places which were the Church's, called its sanctuaries, such as the altar and the tent, together with their contents, were defiled whenever those people were guilty of sin; for those sanctuaries were places belonging to the Church. This is also made clear in Moses,

You shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, in order that they may not die in their uncleanness when they pollute My dwelling-place which is in their midst. Leviticus 15:31.

And in another place,

Aaron shall expiate the holy place from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. Thus shall he expiate the holy sanctuary, and the tent of meeting, and the altar. Leviticus 16:16, 33.

[3] The implications of all this are that those things which are called the holy things of the Church are not holy unless they are received with holy respect; for unless they are received with that respect what is Divine does not flow into them. Anything holy that exists with people is holy only by virtue of what is Divine flowing into it; sacred shrines for example, the altars there, and the bread and wine for the Holy Supper are made holy solely by the presence of the Lord. Therefore if the Lord is unable to be present there on account of the people's sins, those things have no holiness because they lack what is Divine. Furthermore the holy things of the Church are rendered unholy by sins because sins take what is Divine away from them.

[4] This then is the reason why sanctuaries are said to have been polluted by the uncleanness of the people and why those places therefore had to be expiated annually. The reason why the expiations were made with blood on the horns of the altars and not on the altars themselves was that the horns were the extremities of them, and nothing of a person has been purified unless the extremities or what is outermost has been purified. For inner things flow into those that are outermost, but the state of the outermost conditions the inflow. Consequently if what is outermost has been perverted the things within become perverted; for when those inner things flow into outermost ones, the recipient forms into which they descend are conditioned by the state in which the outermost things exist. The situation is like that when the eye is in bad condition; the power of sight which comes from within sees things only as that eye-condition will allow. Or it is like that when the arms are in bad shape; the powers which come from within exert themselves only as that condition will allow. Consequently if the natural man has been perverted the spiritual lacks the opportunity to function properly within the natural man, and this is why the spiritual or internal man is closed.

[5] But see what has been shown already on these matters, namely the following;

If a person is to be purified the natural or external man must be purified, see the places referred to in 9325(end).

This is because the path that all influx takes is from the internal to the external, and not vice versa, 5119, 6322.

For it is on the natural level within a person that influx from the spiritual world reaches its destination, 5651.

The outward aspects of a person have been formed to serve the inward, 5947, 9216, 9828.

Thus the external man must be altogether subject to the internal, 5786, 6275, 6284, 6299.

This is because the internal man is in heaven and the external man is in the world, 3167, 10156.

And the external man by himself or left to himself alone acts contrary to the internal, 3913, 3928.

In addition to all this, see 9701-9709 stating what the internal man is and what the external man is.

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