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Genesis 11

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1 And all the earth had one language and one tongue.

2 And it came about that in their wandering from the east, they came to a stretch of flat country in the land of Shinar, and there they made their living-place.

3 And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks, burning them well. And they had bricks for stone, putting them together with sticky earth.

4 And they said, Come, let us make a town, and a tower whose top will go up as high as heaven; and let us make a great name for ourselves, so that we may not be wanderers over the face of the earth.

5 And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower which the children of men were building.

6 And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and have all one language; and this is only the start of what they may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any purpose of theirs.

7 Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear to one another.

8 So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the earth: and they gave up building their town.

9 So it was named Babel, because there the Lord took away the sense of all languages and from there the Lord sent them away over all the face of the earth.

10 These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old when he became the father of Arpachshad, two years after the great flow of waters;

11 And after the birth of Arpachshad, Shem went on living for five hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

12 And Arpachshad was thirty-five years old when he became the father of Shelah:

13 And after the birth of Shelah, Arpachshad went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters:

14 And Shelah was thirty years old when he became the father of Eber:

15 And after the birth of Eber, Shelah went on living for four hundred and three years, and had sons and daughters:

16 And Eber was thirty-four years old when he became the father of Peleg:

17 And after the birth of Peleg, Eber went on living for four hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters:

18 And Peleg was thirty years old when he became the father of Reu:

19 And after the birth of Reu, Peleg went on living for two hundred and nine years, and had sons and daughters:

20 And Reu was thirty-two years old when he became the father of Serug:

21 And after the birth of Serug, Reu went on living for two hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters:

22 And Serug was thirty years old when he became the father of Nahor:

23 And after the birth of Nahor, Serug went on living for two hundred years, and had sons and daughters:

24 And Nahor was twenty-nine years old when he became the father of Terah:

25 And after the birth of Terah, Nahor went on living for a hundred and nineteen years, and had sons and daughters:

26 And Terah was seventy years old when he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

27 These are the generations of Terah: Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot.

28 And death came to Haran when he was with his father Terah in the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees.

29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.

30 And Sarai had no child.

31 And Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Abram and they went out from Ur of the Chaldees, to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and were there for some time.

32 And all the years of Terah's life were two hundred and five: and Terah came to his end in Haran.

   

Aus Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #1361

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1361. The fact that the Church became representative as the result of idolatry nobody is able to know unless he knows what a representative is. The things that were represented in the Jewish Church, and in the Word, are the Lord and His kingdom, and therefore the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith. These are the things that are represented, in addition to many things that go with them, such as everything belonging to the Church. Those that represent are either persons or else things in the universe or on this earth; in short, all things that are objects of the senses, so much so that scarcely any object is incapable of being representative. It is a general law of representation however that no attention is paid to the representative person or thing, but to the actual subject being represented.

[2] For example: Every king who has lived - in Judah or Israel, or even in Egypt and elsewhere - could represent the Lord Their royal status itself is representative, and thus the worst king of all was able to represent Him, such as the Pharaoh who promoted Joseph over the land of Egypt, or Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, Daniel 2:37-38, or Saul and all the other kings of Judah and Israel, no matter what kind of men they were. The anointing of them, by virtue of which they were called 'Jehovah's anointed', carried that representation with it. In the same way all priests, however many there were, represented the Lord. Their priestly status itself is representative. This applies even to priests who were evil and immoral, for in representatives no attention is paid to the character of the person involved. And not only human beings but also animals were representative, for example all those used in sacrifice. Lambs and sheep represented celestial things, doves and turtle doves spiritual, as did rams, he-goats, young bulls, and oxen, though these latter represented lower types of celestial and spiritual things.

[3] Nor, as has been stated, was it just living creatures that were representative but also inanimate objects, such as the altar and even the stones of the altar; also the Ark and the Tabernacle together with everything in it; and the Temple too together with everything in it, a fact that anyone is capable of seeing. The lamps, the loaves, and Aaron's garments were accordingly representative. And not only these but also all the religious ceremonies in the Jewish Church. In the Ancient Churches representatives extended to every object of the senses, such as mountains and hills, and valleys, plains, rivers, streams, springs, reservoirs, woods, trees in general, and every kind of tree in particular, so that every single tree had some definite meaning. Once the Church of meaningful signs had come to an end these things became representatives. These considerations make clear what is to be understood by representatives. And seeing that not only human beings, no matter who or of what character, but also animals and even inanimate objects, could represent celestial and spiritual things - which are things belonging to the Lord's kingdom in heaven and those belonging to the Lord's kingdom on earth - it is consequently clear what a representative Church is.

[4] Representatives were such that to spirits and angels all things that were carried out according to the prescribed ritual appeared holy, as when the high priest, who had washed himself with water, ministered dressed in the robes of his office, and stood before the lighted candles, no matter what kind of man he was, even the most immoral and an idolater at heart. And the same applied to all other priests, for, as has been stated, in representatives no attention is paid to the person, but only to the actual thing being represented. The representation was completely abstracted from the person, as it was from the oxen, young bulls, or lambs that were sacrificed, or from the blood that was poured out around the altar, or again from the altar itself, and so on.

[5] This representative Church was established after all internal worship had perished, when worship became not only wholly external but also idolatrous It was established so that heaven might be joined in some measure to the earth, that is, the Lord might be joined to human beings by means of heaven. And this came about after conjunction by means of the internal things of worship had perished. The nature of this conjunction by means of representatives alone will in the Lord's Divine mercy be discussed later on. Representatives do not start until the next chapter, where every single thing from then on is purely representative. At the moment the subject is the state of those who were their forefathers, before some of them and their descendants became representative, whose worship, as shown above, was idolatrous.

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