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Genesis 15

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1 After these things hath the word of Jehovah been unto Abram in a vision, saying, `Fear not, Abram, I [am] a shield to thee, thy reward [is] exceeding great.'

2 And Abram saith, `Lord Jehovah, what dost Thou give to me, and I am going childless? and an acquired son in my house is Demmesek Eliezer.'

3 And Abram saith, `Lo, to me Thou hast not given seed, and lo, a domestic doth heir me.'

4 And lo, the word of Jehovah [is] unto him, saying, `This [one] doth not heir thee; but he who cometh out from thy bowels, he doth heir thee;'

5 and He bringeth him out without, and saith, `Look attentively, I pray thee, towards the heavens, and count the stars, if thou art able to count them;' and He saith to him, `Thus is thy seed.'

6 And he hath believed in Jehovah, and He reckoneth it to him -- righteousness.

7 And He saith unto him, `I [am] Jehovah who brought thee out from Ur of the Chaldees, to give to thee this land to possess it;'

8 and he saith, `Lord Jehovah, whereby do I know that I possess it?'

9 And He saith unto him, `Take for Me a heifer of three years, and a she-goat of three years, and a ram of three years, and a turtle-dove, and a young bird;'

10 and he taketh to him all these, and separateth them in the midst, and putteth each piece over against its fellow, but the bird he hath not divided;

11 and the ravenous birds come down upon the carcases, and Abram causeth them to turn back.

12 And the sun is about to go in, and deep sleep hath fallen upon Abram, and lo, a terror of great darkness is falling upon him;

13 and He saith to Abram, `knowing -- know that thy seed is a sojourner in a land not theirs, and they have served them, and they have afflicted them four hundred years,

14 and the nation also whom they serve I judge, and after this they go out with great substance;

15 and thou -- thou comest in unto thy fathers in peace; thou art buried in a good old age;

16 and the fourth generation doth turn back hither, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.'

17 And it cometh to pass -- the sun hath gone in, and thick darkness hath been -- and lo, a furnace of smoke, and a lamp of fire, which hath passed over between those pieces.

18 In that day hath Jehovah made with Abram a covenant, saying, `To thy seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Phrat,

19 with the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,

20 and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,

21 and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.'

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1860

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1860. That 'there was thick darkness' means when hatred existed in place of charity is clear from the meaning of 'thick darkness'. In the Word 'darkness' means falsities, while 'thick darkness' means evils, as explained immediately below. 'Darkness' is when falsity exists in place of truth, and 'thick darkness' when evil exists in place of good, or what amounts entirely to the same, when hatred exists in place of charity. When hatred exists in place of charity the darkness is so thick that the person is not even aware of its being an evil, let alone of its being so great an evil as to thrust him down in the next life into hell; indeed people who are steeped in hatred find a certain delight and so to speak life in it. This very delight and life have the effect that he hardly knows other than that hatred is good. Whatever favors a person's pleasure and desire, because it favors his love, he feels as good - so much so that when he is told it is of hell he can hardly believe it. Even less can he believe it when he is told that such delight and life is converted in the next life into an utterly foul and corpse-like stench. Even less still can he believe that he is becoming a devil and a dreadful replica of hell; for hell consists of nothing else than varieties of hatred and other such forms.

[2] But of this anyone may know who has any power of thought; for if he were to describe hatred, or to represent it, or to portray it if he were able to in any way, he would not do so except by the use of devil-like forms such as these persons steeped in evil also assume after death. And what is extraordinary, such people can still declare that in the next life they will go to heaven, in some cases for merely saying that they have faith - though in fact the only forms occurring in heaven are those of charity, the nature of which may be seen in what has been told from experience in 553. Let those people now consider how these two forms - of hatred and of charity - can be in agreement in the same place.

[3] That 'darkness' means falsity and 'thick darkness' evil becomes clear from the following places in the Word: In Isaiah,

Behold, darkness is covering the earth, and thick darkness the peoples. Isaiah 60:2.

In Joel,

Let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, for the day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness and thick darkness. Joel 2:1-2.

In Zephaniah,

A day of wrath is that day, a day of vastation and desolation, a day of darkness and thick darkness. Zephaniah 1:15.

In Amos,

Is not the day of Jehovah darkness and not light, and thick darkness, and no brightness in it? Amos 5:20.

In these places 'the day of Jehovah' stands for the final period of the Church, which is also the subject here. 'Darkness' stands for falsities, 'thick darkness' for evils; hence both are mentioned. Otherwise there would be a repetition of the same thing, or a pointless excess of words. The term used in the original language however to express thick darkness in this verse embodies both within itself - falsity as well as evil, or gross falsity that produces evil, as well as gross evil that produces falsity.

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