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Genesis 13

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1 And Abram goeth up from Egypt (he and his wife, and all that he hath, and Lot with him) towards the south;

2 and Abram [is] exceedingly wealthy in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

3 And he goeth on his journeyings from the south, even unto Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the commencement, between Bethel and Hai --

4 unto the place of the altar which he made there at the first, and there doth Abram preach in the name of Jehovah.

5 And also to Lot, who is going with Abram, there hath been sheep and oxen and tents;

6 and the land hath not suffered them to dwell together, for their substance hath been much, and they have not been able to dwell together;

7 and there is a strife between those feeding Abram's cattle and those feeding Lot's cattle; and the Canaanite and the Perizzite [are] then dwelling in the land.

8 And Abram saith unto Lot, `Let there not, I pray thee, be strife between me and thee, and between my shepherds and thy shepherds, for we [are] men -- brethren.

9 Is not all the land before thee? be parted, I pray thee, from me; if to the left, then I to the right; and if to the right, then I to the left.'

10 And Lot lifteth up his eyes, and seeth the whole circuit of the Jordan that it [is] all a watered country (before Jehovah's destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, as Jehovah's garden, as the land of Egypt,) in thy coming toward Zoar,

11 and Lot chooseth for himself the whole circuit of the Jordan; and Lot journeyeth from the east, and they are parted -- a man from his companion;

12 Abram hath dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot hath dwelt in the cities of the circuit, and tenteth unto Sodom;

13 and the men of Sodom [are] evil, and sinners before Jehovah exceedingly.

14 And Jehovah said unto Abram, after Lot's being parted from him, `Lift up, I pray thee, thine eyes, and look from the place where thou [art], northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward;

15 for the whole of the land which thou are seeing, to thee I give it, and to thy seed -- to the age.

16 And I have set thy seed as dust of the earth, so that, if one is able to number the dust of the earth, even thy seed is numbered;

17 rise, go up and down through the land, to its length, and to its breadth, for to thee I give it.'

18 And Abram tenteth, and cometh, and dwelleth among the oaks of Mamre, which [are] in Hebron, and buildeth there an altar to Jehovah.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1587

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1587. 'Before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah' means before the external man was destroyed by desires for evil and by persuasions of falsity. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'Sodom' as desires for evil, and from the meaning of 'Gomorrah' as persuasions of falsity. These two are indeed what destroy the external man and separate it from the internal, and it was these two that destroyed the Most Ancient Church prior to the Flood. Desires for evil belong to the will, and persuasions of falsity to the understanding. And when these two are in control, the whole of the external man is destroyed, a destroying which also entails its separation from the internal man. It is not that the soul or spirit is separated from the body but that good and truth have been separated from the person's soul or spirit so that their influx is felt only from a distance. That influx will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with elsewhere. Because among the human race the external man had been so destroyed and its link with the internal, that is, with good and truth, had been severed, the Lord came into the world to join together and unite the External Man to the Internal Man, that is, the Human Essence to the Divine Essence. This verse describes the nature of the external man when joined to the internal, that is to say, by the words 'before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt as you come to Zoar'.

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