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Exodus 38

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1 And he maketh the altar of burnt-offering of shittim wood, five cubits its length, and five cubits its breadth (square), and three cubits its height;

2 and he maketh its horns on its four corners; its horns have been of the same; and he overlayeth it with brass;

3 and he maketh all the vessels of the altar, the pots, and the shovels, and the sprinkling-pans, the forks, and the fire-pans; all its vessels he hath made of brass.

4 And he maketh for the altar a brazen grate of net-work, under its border beneath, unto its midst;

5 and he casteth four rings for the four ends of the brazen grate -- places for bars;

6 and he maketh the staves of shittim wood, and overlayeth them with brass;

7 and he bringeth in the staves into the rings on the sides of the altar, to bear it with them; hollow [with] boards he made it.

8 And he maketh the laver of brass, and its base of brass, with the looking-glasses of the women assembling, who have assembled at the opening of the tent of meeting.

9 And he maketh the court; at the south side southward, the hangings of the court of twined linen, a hundred by the cubit,

10 their pillars [are] twenty, and their brazen sockets twenty, the pegs of the pillars and their fillets [are] silver;

11 and at the north side, a hundred by the cubit, their pillars [are] twenty, and their sockets of brass twenty; the pegs of the pillars and their fillets [are] silver;

12 and at the west side [are] hangings, fifty by the cubit; their pillars [are] ten, and their sockets ten; the pegs of the pillars and their fillets [are] silver;

13 and at the east side eastward fifty cubits.

14 The hangings on the side [are] fifteen cubits, their pillars three, and their sockets three,

15 and at the second side at the gate of the court, on this and on that, [are] hangings, fifteen cubits, their pillars three, and their sockets three;

16 all the hangings of the court round about [are] of twined linen,

17 and the sockets for the pillars of brass, the pegs of the pillars and their fillets of silver, and the overlaying of their tops of silver, and all the pillars of the court are filleted with silver.

18 And the covering of the gate of the court [is] the work of an embroiderer, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and twined linen; and twenty cubits [is] the length, and the height with the breadth five cubits, over-against the hangings of the court;

19 and their pillars [are] four, and their sockets of brass four, their pegs [are] of silver, and the overlaying of their tops and their fillets [are] of silver;

20 and all the pins for the tabernacle, and for the court round about, [are] of brass.

21 These are the numberings of the tabernacle (the tabernacle of testimony), which hath been numbered by the command of Moses, the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.

22 And Bezaleel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, hath made all that Jehovah commanded Moses;

23 and with him [is] Aholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and designer, and embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and in linen.

24 All the gold which is prepared for the work in all the work of the sanctuary (and it is the gold of the wave-offering) [is] twenty and nine talents, and seven hundred and thirty shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary.

25 And the silver of those numbered of the company [is] a hundred talents, and a thousand and seven hundred and five and seventy shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary;

26 a bekah for a poll (half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary,) for every one who is passing over unto those numbered, from a son of twenty years and upwards, for six hundred thousand, and three thousand, and five hundred and fifty.

27 And a hundred talents of silver are to cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the vail; a hundred sockets for the hundred talents, a talent for a socket;

28 and the thousand and seven hundred and five and seventy he hath made pegs for the pillars, and overlaid their tops, and filleted them.

29 And the brass of the wave-offering [is] seventy talents, and two thousand and four hundred shekels;

30 and he maketh with it the sockets of the opening of the tent of meeting, and the brazen altar, and the brazen grate which it hath, and all the vessels of the altar,

31 and the sockets of the court round about, and the sockets of the gate of the court, and all the pins of the tabernacle, and all the pins of the court round about.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 8990

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8990. 'And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl' means a representative sign of obedience. This is clear from the meaning of 'ear' as obedience, dealt with in 2542, 3869, 4551, 4652-4660; and from the meaning of 'piercing it with an awl' - that is to say, onto the door or onto the doorpost - as affixing, or at this point pledging forever, since it refers to obedience; and this is why the words follow, 'he shall serve him forever', that is, be obedient to him forever. From this it is evident that his master's piercing his ear with an awl, fixing it to the door or to the doorpost, is representative of obedience.

[2] The implications of all this may become clear from matters stated previously, where it has been shown that those imbued solely with truths and not with complementary good, that is, with faith and not with charity, are not free but slaves. Those whose actions spring from good or charity are free. They act from themselves; for actions that spring from good or charity spring from the heart, that is, from the will, and so from what is a person's own, since what exists in a person's will is his own and a deed springing from the will is said to go out of the heart. But those who are imbued solely with the truths of faith and not with the good of charity are slaves in comparison. They do not act from themselves since they have no good within themselves for actions to spring from; instead good is outside them, and they base their actions on it as often as they call it to mind. Those who stay like this through to the end of their lives remain permanently in this state after death. They cannot be brought to a state in which their actions spring from charitable affection, that is, from good; they can act only in obedience. In the Grand Man, which is heaven, they constitute those parts that serve more internal ones, like membranes and skins, 8977, 8980.

[3] All this shows what the situation is with faith alone, that is, with those who doctrinally place faith first and the good of charity second, indeed last. Those who place them in this order in the actual lives they lead are 'Hebrew slaves' in the representative sense; but those who place charity first, in the actual lives they lead, are free or 'the children of Israel' in the representative sense. From all this one may also conclude what the situation is with those who make salvation rest entirely on the truths of faith and not at all on the good of charity, that is to say, not at all on the actual life they lead. One may conclude that they cannot enter heaven; for good reigns in heaven, not truth without good, and truth is not truth, nor is faith faith, except with those imbued with good

[4] That his master's piercing his ear with an awl, fixing it to the door, is representative of obedience is also evident from the consideration that fixing his ear to the door means causing him to attend to the things commanded by his master who is in the room, that is, to hear him at all times and obey his instructions. At this point the things which good wills and commands are meant in the spiritual sense, for spiritual good is represented by the slave's master, 8981, 8986. Since 'the ear' means the hearing of obedience, there flows into human speech from an origin in the spiritual world the expression to tweak the ear, which stands for causing a person to pay attention and remember, and in like manner the expressions to hear and to hearken to someone, which stands for obeying him. For the inner meaning that very many words possess has sprung from correspondences from the spiritual world, as with expressions such as spiritual light and being enlightened by it which people use when speaking about matters of faith, and also spiritual fire and being animated by it when speaking about matters of love.

[5] The reason why piercing the ear was done with an awl was that 'an awl' has the same meaning as a pin or peg, namely affixing and joining onto, and in the spiritual sense pledging something. But an awl was a tool used by a servant, and therefore it served to represent the pledge of everlasting obedience by a slave. The meaning of 'a pin' or 'a peg' as affixing and joining onto is clear from the places where this object is mentioned, as in Isaiah 22:23; 33:20; 41:7; 54:2; Jeremiah 10:4; Exodus 27:19; 38:31; Numbers 3:37; 4:32.

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