Die Bibel

 

Postanak 39

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1 Josipa dovedoše u Egipat. Tu ga od Jišmaelaca koji su ga onamo doveli kupi Egipćanin Potifar, dvoranin faraonov i zapovjednik njegove tjelesne straže.

2 Jahve je bio s Josipom, zato je u svemu imao sreću: Egipćanin ga uzme k sebi u kuću.

3 Vidje njegov gospodar da je Jahve s njim i da svemu što mu ruka poduzme Jahve daje uspjeh;

4 zavolje on Josipa, uze ga za dvoranina i postavi ga za upravitelja svoga doma i povjeri mu sav svoj imetak.

5 I otkad mu je povjerio upravu svoga doma i svega svog imetka, blagoslovi Jahve dom Egipćaninov zbog Josipa: blagoslov Jahvin bijaše na svemu što je imao - u kući i u polju.

6 I tako sve svoje prepusti brizi Josipovoj te se više ni za što nije brinuo, osim za jelo što je jeo. A Josip je bio mladić stasit i naočit.

7 Poslije nekog vremena žena njegova gospodara zagleda se u Josipa i reče mu: "Legni sa mnom!"

8 On se oprije i reče ženi svoga gospodara: "Gledaj! Otkako sam ja ovdje, moj se gospodar ne brine ni za što u kući; sve što ima meni je povjerio.

9 On u ovoj kući nema više vlasti negoli ja i ništa mi ne krati, osim tebe, jer si njegova žena. Pa kako bih ja mogao učiniti tako veliku opačinu i sagriješiti protiv Boga!"

10 Iako je Josipa salijetala iz dana u dan, on nije pristajao da uz nju legne; nije joj prilazio.

11 Jednog dana Josip uđe u kuću na posao. Kako nikog od služinčadi nije bilo u kući,

12 ona ga uhvati za ogrtač i reče: "Legni sa mnom!" Ali on ostavi svoj ogrtač u njezinoj ruci, otrže se i pobježe van.

13 Vidjevši ona da je u njezinoj ruci ostavio ogrtač i pobjegao van,

14 zovne svoje sluge te im reče: "Gledajte! Trebalo je da nam dovede jednog Hebrejca da se s nama poigrava. Taj k meni dođe da sa mnom legne, ali sam ja na sav glas zaviknula.

15 A čim je čuo kako vičem, ostavi svoj ogrtač pokraj mene i pobježe van."

16 Uza se je držala njegov ogrtač dok mu je gospodar došao kući.

17 Onda i njemu kaza istu priču: "Onaj sluga Hebrejac koga si nam doveo dođe k meni da sa mnom ljubaka!

18 Ali čim je čuo kako vičem, ostavi svoj ogrtač pokraj mene i pobježe van."

19 Kad je njegov gospodar čuo pripovijest svoje žene koja reče: "Eto, tako sa mnom tvoj sluga", razgnjevi se.

20 Gospodar pograbi Josipa i baci ga u tamnicu - tamo gdje su bili zatvoreni kraljevi utamničenici. I osta u tamnici.

21 Ali je Jahve bio s njim, iskaza naklonost Josipu te on nađe milost u očima upravitelja tamnice.

22 Tako upravitelj tamnice preda u Josipove ruke sve utamničenike koji su se nalazili u tamnici; i ondje se ništa nije radilo bez njega.

23 Budući da je Jahve bio s njim, upravitelj tamnice nije nadgledao ništa što je Josipu bilo povjereno: Jahve bijaše s njim, i što god bi poduzeo, Jahve bi to okrunio uspjehom.

   

Aus Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #5036

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5036. 'And committed him to the prison-house' means involving false-speaking against good. This is clear from the meaning of 'being committed to the prison-house' and 'being kept bound there' as being subjected to temptations involving false-speaking against good, dealt with below. But first of all something must be said about temptations. At the present day scarcely anyone in the Christian world knows where temptations originate. Those who undergo them do not believe them to be anything more than the feelings of anguish which creep in because of the evils residing inwardly with a person, which first make him uneasy, then fill him with anxiety, and finally torment him. But he is totally unaware of the fact that they are the work of the evil spirits present with him. The reason he is unaware that this is so is that he does not believe he is in the company of spirits while he is living in the world; indeed he has scarcely any belief that any spirit at all is present with him, when in fact a person, so far as his interiors are concerned, exists in constant association with spirits and angels.

[2] As for temptations themselves, they are going on while a person is in the actual process of being regenerated, for no one can be regenerated unless he also undergoes temptations; and the evil spirits around him are the means through which those temptations are brought about. In temptation the person is brought into a state in which the evil that possesses him, that is, possesses his own essential self, is dominant. Once he enters this state evil and hellish spirits surround him, and when they realize that inwardly he is protected by angels those evil spirits reactivate the false ideas he has previously contemplated and the evil deeds he has committed. But the angels defend him from within. This conflict is what the person experiences as temptation, yet the experience is so vague that he is aware of it as scarcely anything more than a feeling of anxiety. For a person, especially one who has no belief at all in influx, dwells in a state of complete obscurity and discerns scarcely the smallest fraction of the things over which evil spirits and angels are engaged in conflict. Yet a battle is taking place at such a time over that person and his eternal salvation, with both sides using what is within him; for both draw on what resides with the person and engage in conflict over it. The truth of this I have been led most certainly to know. I have heard such conflict going on, I have perceived the influx taking place, and I have seen the spirits and the angels, to whom I spoke at the time and subsequently about what was happening.

[3] As stated, temptations arise primarily when a person is becoming spiritual, for at that time he is gaining a spiritual understanding of the truths of doctrine. The person himself is often unaware that this is happening; even so, the angels present with him see spiritual concerns within his natural ones since his interiors at this time are open towards heaven. (This also explains why, after living in the world, a person who has been regenerated is among angels, where he both sees and perceives the spiritual concerns which had previously appeared to him as natural ones.) When therefore a person is such as this, it is possible for the angels to defend him in temptation when he is assailed by evil spirits; for the angels then have a place that has been established in him into which they can operate; that is, they can flow into the spiritual level established in him, and through this into that which is natural.

[4] Once therefore outermost truth has been removed, with the result that the person does not possess anything to protect himself from those who are natural, dealt with in 5006, 5008, 5009, 5022, 5028, he enters into temptations in which evil spirits, all of whom are wholly natural, make accusations against him, especially that of false-speaking against good. They say, for example, that he has thought and said that good should be done to the neighbour and has also given proof of this in his actions, yet by the neighbour he now means only those with whom good and truth are present, not those with whom evil and falsity are present and who are incapable of receiving correction. Consequently, because he is no longer willing to do good to the evil, apart from punishing them so as to correct them and to protect his neighbour from what is evil, they accuse him of having thought and spoken what was false and of not thinking as he speaks.

[5] Take another example. Because a person, once he has become spiritual, no longer believes it to be a holy and godly act to give to monasteries or even churches where great wealth exists, and because prior to his becoming spiritual he had thought it a holy and godly thing to do, those spirits accuse him of falsity. They reactivate all the thoughts he had cherished previously about such holy and godly giving, as well as all his actual deeds resulting from that way of thinking. Those spirits make similar accusations in countless other instances which these examples serve merely to illustrate somewhat. In particular those spirits enter the affections which the person possessed previously and reactivate these, reactivating also the falsities and evils which he had thought and committed, and in this way they fill him with anxiety and quite often with doubt extending to the point of despair.

[6] Such then is the origin of spiritual kinds of anxiety and of those feelings called the pangs of conscience. What makes these appear to exist essentially within himself is influx and communication. Anyone who knows and believes this may be compared to a person who sees himself in a mirror but knows that it is not he himself who appears in the mirror or on the other side of it, only his image, whereas anyone who does not know and believe this may be compared to a person who sees himself in the mirror and supposes that he himself, not his image, appears there.

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