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Genesis 20

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1 And Abraham journeyeth from thence toward the land of the south, and dwelleth between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourneth in Gerar;

2 and Abraham saith concerning Sarah his wife, `She is my sister;' and Abimelech king of Gerar sendeth and taketh Sarah.

3 And God cometh in unto Abimelech in a dream of the night, and saith to him, `Lo, thou [art] a dead man, because of the woman whom thou hast taken -- and she married to a husband.'

4 And Abimelech hath not drawn near unto her, and he saith, `Lord, also a righteous nation dost thou slay?

5 hath not he himself said to me, She [is] my sister! and she, even she herself, said, He [is] my brother; in the integrity of my heart, and in the innocency of my hands, I have done this.'

6 And God saith unto him in the dream, `Yea, I -- I have known that in the integrity of thy heart thou hast done this, and I withhold thee, even I, from sinning against Me, therefore I have not suffered thee to come against her;

7 and now send back the man's wife, for he [is] inspired, and he doth pray for thee, and live thou; and if thou do not send back, know that dying thou dost die, thou, and all that thou hast.'

8 And Abimelech riseth early in the morning, and calleth for all his servants, and speaketh all these words in their ears; and the men fear exceedingly;

9 and Abimelech calleth for Abraham, and saith to him, `What hast thou done to us? and what have I sinned against thee, that thou hast brought upon me, and upon my kingdom, a great sin? works which are not done thou hast done with me.'

10 Abimelech also saith unto Abraham, `What hast thou seen that thou hast done this thing?'

11 And Abraham saith, `Because I said, `Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they have slain me for the sake of my wife;

12 and also, truly she is my sister, daughter of my father, only not daughter of my mother, and she becometh my wife;

13 and it cometh to pass, when God hath caused me to wander from my father's house, that I say to her, This [is] thy kindness which thou dost with me: at every place whither we come, say of me, He [is] my brother.'

14 And Abimelech taketh sheep and oxen, and servants and handmaids, and giveth to Abraham, and sendeth back to him Sarah his wife;

15 and Abimelech saith, `Lo, my land [is] before thee, where it is good in thine eyes, dwell;'

16 and to Sarah he hath said, `Lo, I have given a thousand silverlings to thy brother; lo, it is to thee a covering of eyes, to all who are with thee;' and by all this she is reasoned with.

17 And Abraham prayeth unto God, and God healeth Abimelech and his wife, and his handmaids, and they bear:

18 for Jehovah restraining had restrained every womb of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 2557

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2557. The daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother. That this signifies that the rational was conceived of celestial good as a father, but not of spiritual truth as a mother, is evident from the conception of the rational, namely, that this is effected by the influx of Divine celestial good into the affection of memory-knowledges (see n. 1895, 1902, 1910). Two arcana are contained herein; one, that man’s rational is conceived of Divine celestial good as a father, and that otherwise no rational would exist; the other, that the rational is not conceived of spiritual truth as a mother. As regards the first, namely, that man’s rational is conceived of Divine celestial good as a father, and that otherwise no rational would exist, this is evident from what has been said above (n. 1895, 1902, 1910), and also from what may be known to every man if he reflects.

[2] For it is known that a man is born into no knowledge and into nothing of reason, but only into the faculty of receiving them; and also that he afterwards learns and imbues himself with all things by degrees, and this principally through the sensuous things of the hearing and sight; and as he learns and imbues himself with these, he so becomes rational. That these things take place by the way of the body, that is, by an external way, because through the hearing and sight, is manifest; but the reason why man has not become acquainted with this (on account of not reflecting upon it) is that there is something constantly flowing in from within that receives the things which thus enter and are insinuated from without, and disposes them into order. That which flows in and receives and disposes them, is Divine celestial good, which is from the Lord. Thence comes the life of these things, thence their order, and thence the kinships and affinities among them severally, as before said. All this shows that man’s rational is from Divine celestial good as a father, in accordance with the words in this verse: “she is the daughter of my father.”

[3] As regards the other arcanum, namely, that the rational is not conceived of spiritual truth as a mother; this is evident from what was said above (n. 1902). For if spiritual truth were to flow in from within, as good does, man would then be born into everything of reason, and at the same time into everything of knowledge, so that he would have no need to learn anything. But as man is such that he is hereditarily in all evil, and thence in all falsity, and therefore if truths themselves also were to flow in would adulterate and falsify them, and thereby the man would eternally perish, it has been provided by the Lord that nothing of truth flows in through man’s internal, but only through his external. From this it is evident that man’s rational is not from spiritual truth as a mother, in accordance with the words in this verse: “she is not the daughter of my mother.” It was the Lord’s pleasure that His rational should be formed according to the same order, to the end that from His own power He might make what was human in Himself Divine, and might implant and unite Divine spiritual truth to Divine celestial good, and Divine celestial good to Divine spiritual truth.

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