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Genesis 17

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1 Da Abram var ni og halvfemsindstyve År gammel, åbenbarede HE EN sig for ham og sagde til ham: "Jeg er Gud den Almægtige; vandre for mit Åsyn og vær ustraffelig,

2 så vil jeg oprette min Pagt mellem mig og dig og give dig et overvættes stort Afkom!"

3 Da faldt Abram på sit Ansigt, og Gud sagde til ham:

4 "Fra min Side er min Pagt med dig, at du skal blive Fader til en Mængde Folk;

5 derfor skal dit Navn ikke mere være Abram, men du skal hedde Abraham, thi jeg gør dig til Fader til en Mængde Folk.

6 Jeg vil gøre dig overvættes frugtbar og lade dig blive til Folk, og Konger skal nedstamme fra dig.

7 Jeg opretter min Pagt mellem mig og dig og dit Afkom efter dig fra Slægt til Slægt, og det skal være en evig Pagt, at jeg vil være din Gud og efter dig dit Afkoms Gud;

8 og jeg giver dig og dit Afkom efter dig din Udlændigheds Land, hele Kana'ans Land, til evigt Eje, og jeg vil være deres Gud!"

9 Derpå sagde Gud til Abraham: "Men du på din Side skal holde min Pagt, du og dit Afkom efter dig fra Slægt til Slægt;

10 og dette er min Pagt, som I skal holde, Pagten mellem mig og eder, at alt af Mandkøn hos eder skal omskæres.

11 I skal omskæres på eders Forhud, det skal være et Pagtstegn mellem mig og eder;

12 otte Dage gamle skal alle af Mandkøn omskæres hos eder i alle kommende Slægter, både de hjemmefødte Trælle og de, som er købt, alle fremmede, som ikke hører til dit Afkom;

13 omskæres skal både dine hjemmefødte og dine købte. Min Pagt på eders Legeme skal være en evig Pagt!

14 Men de uomskårne, det af Mandkøn, der ikke Ottendedagen omskæres på Forhuden, de skal udryddes af deres Folk; de har brudt min Pagt!"

15 Endvidere sagde Gud til Abraham: "Din Hustru Saraj skal du ikke mere kalde Saraj, hendes Navn skal være Sara;

16 jeg vil velsigne hende og give dig en Søn også ved hende; jeg vil velsigne hende, og hun skal blive til Folk, og Folkeslags Konger skal nedstamme fra hende!"

17 Da faldt Abraham på sit Ansigt og lo, idet han tænkte: "Kan en hundredårig få Børn, og kan Sara med sine halvfemsindstyve År føde en Søn?"

18 Abraham sagde derfor til Gud: "Måtte dog Ismael leve for dit Åsyn!"

19 Men Gud sagde: "Nej, din Ægtehustru Sara skal føde dig en Søn, som du skal kalde Isak; med ham vil jeg oprette min Pagt, og det skal være en evig Pagt, der skal gælde hans Afkom efter ham!

20 Men hvad Ismael angår, har jeg bønhørt dig: jeg vil velsigne ham og gøre ham frugtbar og give ham et overvættes talrigt Afkom; tolv Stammehøvdinger skal han avle, og jeg vil gøre ham til et stort Folk.

21 Men min Pagt opretter jeg med Isak, som Sara skal føde dig om et År ved denne Tid."

22 Så hørte han op at tale med ham; og Gud steg op fra Abraham.

23 Da tog Abraham sin Søn Ismael og alle sine hjemmefødte og de købte, alt af Mandkøn i Abrahams Hus, og omskar selvsamme Dag deres Forhud, således som Gud havde pålagt ham.

24 Abraham var ni og halvfemsindstyve År, da han blev omskåret på sin Forhud;

25 og hans Søn Ismael var tretten År, da han blev omskåret på sin Forhud.

26 Selvsamme Dag blev Abraham og hans Søn Ismael omskåret;

27 og alle Mænd i hans Hus, både de hjemmefødte og de, der var købt, de fremmede, blev omskåret tillige med ham.

   


The Project Gutenberg Association at Carnegie Mellon University

Aus Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #2034

studieren Sie diesen Abschnitt

  
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2034. 'You and your seed after you' means that from Him there is a conjunction of all who have faith in Him. This is clear from the meaning of 'seed' as faith, dealt with frequently above, and from the meaning of 'after you' as following Him, dealt with above in 2019. Previously the subject has been the union of the Divine Essence with the Human Essence and of Human Essence with Divine Essence. But now it is the conjunction of the Lord with those who believe in Him, which is also why the word 'you' is repeated, that is to say, 'you shall keep My covenant' followed by 'you and your seed'. From this repetition of 'you' and from the coupling of it with 'seed' it is clear that in the internal sense conjunction is meant, in particular conjunction with those who constitute the seed, which has been shown in 1025, 1447, 1610, to mean the faith that inheres in charity. And the fact that faith is charity itself, see Volume One, in 30-38, 379, 389, 654, 724, 809, 916, 1017, 1076, 1077, 1162, 1176, 1258, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844.

[2] Furthermore when the Lord speaks of the union of Himself with the Father He is at one and the same time speaking about His own conjunction with the human race since this was the reason for the union, as is clear in John,

That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me. For I made known to them Your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them. John 17:21-23, 26.

These verses show that in the union of Himself with His Father the Lord had conjunction of Himself with the human race in view, and had this conjunction at heart because it constituted His love. Indeed all conjunction comes about through love, love being conjunction itself.

[3] Elsewhere in the same gospel,

Because I live you will live also; in that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. John 14:19-21.

This similarly shows that in the union of His Human Essence with the Divine Essence the Lord had in view the conjunction of Himself with the human race, and that this was His end in view, and this His love, which was such that His inmost joy was the salvation of the human race, which He had had in view in the union of Himself with His Father. These verses from John describe what it is that effects union, namely having His commandments and doing them, which is loving the Lord.

[4] In the same gospel,

Father, glorify Your name. A voice therefore came from heaven, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Jesus said, Not for My sake has this voice come but for yours. But I, when I have been lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself. 1 John 12:28, 30, 32.

'Glorification' is used to mean union, as stated already. And the fact that in the union of Himself with the Father He had the conjunction of Himself with the human race in view is stated openly in the words, 'When I have been lifted up I will draw all men to Myself'.

[5] As for the conjunction of the Infinite, or Supreme Divine, with the human race being accomplished through the Lord's Human made Divine, and as for this conjunction being the reason for the Lord's Coming into the world, this is an arcanum to which many apply their minds, but because it is beyond their grasp they do not believe it. And since they do not believe it, for the reason that they cannot grasp it, that arcanum becomes a stumbling-block to them. That this is so I have been given to know from much experience of people entering the next life. Very many of these - the majority of clever people in the world - when they merely think that the Lord became man and was in outward appearance like any other human being, and that He suffered, and yet is at the same time governing the universe, immediately fill the sphere around them with stumbling-blocks. The reason they do so is that to them this whole idea had been a stumbling-block during their lifetime, though they had not then made this public but had worshipped Him in outward expressions of holiness. For in the next life the things that are interior are laid bare and revealed by the sphere that emanates from them, dealt with in Volume One, in 1048. 1053, 1316, 1504. From this sphere one perceives quite plainly what their faith had really been and what they had really thought about the Lord.

[6] This being so let the matter be explained a little further. After everything celestial with man perished, that is, all love to God, so that as a result the will for what is good existed no longer, the human race was separated from the Divine. For nothing other than love effects conjunction, and when love has been reduced to nothing, disjunction has taken place. And when the latter has taken place destruction and annihilation follow. At that point therefore a promise was given concerning the Lord's Coming into the world, who was to unite the Human to the Divine, and by means of this union was to join [to the Divine] the human race that was abiding in Himself through faith grounded in love and charity.

[7] From the time of that first promise given in Genesis 3:15, this kind of faith in the Lord who was to come was conjunctive. But once faith springing from love did not remain any more in the world the Lord came and united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence so that these were completely one, as He Himself states explicitly. At the same time He taught the way of truth to the effect that everyone who believed in Him, that is, who loved Him and what was His, and who abided in His love, which is a love directed towards the entire human race and so towards the neighbour, would be conjoined and thus saved.

[8] Once the Human had been made Divine, and the Divine made Human in the Lord, an influx of the Infinite, or the Supreme Divine, took place with man which could not possibly have manifested itself in any other way. Also by means of that influx the dreadful false persuasions and the dreadful desires for evil were dispersed with which the world of spirits had been filled and was constantly being filled by souls streaming into it from the world; and those who were actuated by such persuasions and evil desires were cast into hell and so separated. Unless this had been done the human race would have perished, for it is by means of spirits that the Lord rules the human race. They could not have been dispersed in any other way because there was no activity of the Divine by way of man's rational concepts into his inner sensory awareness, for these are far below the Supreme Divine when not so united. Still deeper arcana exist which cannot possibly be explained intelligibly to anyone. See what has appeared already in 1676, 1990, 2016. That the Lord appears as the Sun in the heaven of celestial angels and as the Moon in the heaven of spiritual angels, and that the Sun is the celestial existence of His love and the Moon the spiritual existence of it, see 1053, 1521, 1529-1531; and that every single thing comes beneath His gaze, 1274 (end), 1277 (end)

Fußnoten:

1. The Latin means after Me but the Greek means to Me which Swedenborg has in other places where he quotes this verse.

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