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Exodus 29

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1 And this is the word that thou shalt do to them, to sanctify them, to be·​·priests to Me. Take one bullock, a son of the herd, and two perfect rams;

2 and bread of what is unleavened, and cakes of what is unleavened mixed with oil, and wafers of what is unleavened anointed with oil; of the flour of wheat shalt thou make them.

3 And thou shalt put them on one basket, and offer them in the basket, and the bullock and the two rams.

4 And Aaron and his sons thou shalt cause to come·​·near to the entrance of the Tabernacle of the congregation, and thou shalt bathe them with waters.

5 And thou shalt take the garments, and shalt clothe Aaron with the tunic, and the mantle of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the girding of the ephod.

6 And thou shalt set the miter on his head, and put the crown of holiness on the miter.

7 And thou shalt take the oil of anointing, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him.

8 And thou shalt cause his sons to come·​·near, and clothe them with tunics.

9 And thou shalt gird them with a belt, Aaron and his sons, and shalt bind the caps upon them, and the priesthood shall be to them for a statute of an age; and thou shalt fill the hand of Aaron and the hand of his sons.

10 And thou shalt offer the bullock before the Tabernacle of the congregation; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock.

11 And thou shalt slaughter the bullock before Jehovah, at the entrance of the Tabernacle of the congregation.

12 And thou shalt take from the blood of the bullock, and shalt put it on the horns of the altar with thy finger; and all the blood thou shalt spill at the foundation of the altar.

13 And thou shalt take all the fat that covers the inwards, and the caul on the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and shalt burn· them ·for·​·incense on the altar.

14 And the flesh of the bullock, and its skin, and its dung, shalt thou burn·​·up with fire outside the camp; this is a sin offering.

15 And thou shalt take one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram.

16 And thou shalt slaughter the ram, and thou shalt take its blood, and sprinkle it on the altar all around.

17 And thou shalt section the ram into its sections, and shalt bathe its intestines, and its legs, and put them upon its sections, and upon its head.

18 And thou shalt burn·​·incense with all the ram upon the altar; this is a burnt·​·offering to Jehovah, a restful smell, it is a fire·​·offering to Jehovah.

19 And thou shalt take the second ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram.

20 And thou shalt slaughter the ram, and shalt take from its blood, and shalt put it upon the lobe of the ear of Aaron, and upon the lobe of the right ear of his sons, and on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big·​·toe of their right foot, and thou shalt sprinkle the blood on the altar all around.

21 And thou shalt take of the blood that is on the altar, and of the oil of anointing, and shalt spatter it upon Aaron, and on his garments, and on his sons, and on the garments of his sons with him; and he shall be·​·holy, and his garments, and his sons, and the garments of his sons with him.

22 And thou shalt take from the ram the fat, and the tail, and the fat covering the inwards, and the caul of the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and the right hind·​·quarter, for it is a ram of infillings;

23 and one loaf of bread, and one cake of bread with oil, and one wafer, from the basket of unleavened things that is before Jehovah

24 and thou shalt set all of it on the palms of Aaron, and upon the palms of his sons; and shalt wave them a wave offering before Jehovah.

25 And thou shalt take them from their hand, and shalt burn· them ·for·​·incense on the altar on the burnt·​·offering, for a restful smell before Jehovah; a fire·​·offering is this to Jehovah.

26 And thou shalt take the chest portion from the ram of infillings, which is for Aaron, and shalt wave it a wave·​·offering before Jehovah; and it shall be for thee for a portion.

27 And thou shalt sanctify the chest portion of the waving, and the hind·​·quarter of the uplifting, which is waved, and which is uplifted, from the ram of infillings, from that which is for Aaron, and from that which is for his sons;

28 and it shall be to Aaron and his sons for a statute of an age from among the sons of Israel; for it is an uplifting; and it shall be an uplifting from among the sons of Israel of their peace sacrifices, their uplifting to Jehovah.

29 And the garments of holiness which are for Aaron shall be for his sons after him, for anointing in them, and for filling their hand in them.

30 The one from among his sons who becomes the priest instead of him shall clothe himself with them seven days; then he shall come into the Tabernacle of the congregation to minister in the holy place.

31 And thou shalt take the ram of infillings, and cook its flesh in a holy place.

32 And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread that is in the basket, at the entrance of the Tabernacle of the congregation.

33 And they shall eat those things with which atonement· was ·made, to·​·fill their hand, to sanctify them; and a stranger shall not eat of them, for they are holy.

34 And if anything from the flesh of infillings and from the bread remain until the morning, then thou shalt burn·​·up the remainder with fire; it shall not be eaten, for it is holy.

35 And thus shalt thou do to Aaron and to his sons, according·​·to all that I have commanded thee; seven days shalt thou fill their hand.

36 And a bullock of a sin offering thou shalt make for the day on the atonements; and thou shalt purge· it ·from·​·sin on the altar when thou makest·​·atonement on it; and thou shalt anoint it, to sanctify it.

37 Seven days thou shalt make·​·atonement on the altar, and shalt sanctify it, and the altar shall be a holy of holies; all who touch the altar shall be sanctified.

38 And this is what thou shalt make upon the altar: two lambs, sons of a year, for the day, continually.

39 The one lamb thou shalt make in the morning; and the second lamb thou shalt make between the two·​·evenings*;

40 and a tenth of flour mixed with beaten oil, a fourth of the hin, and a poured·​·offering of a fourth of the hin of wine for the one lamb.

41 And the second lamb thou shalt make between the two·​·evenings; as the gift·​·offering of the morning, and as its poured·​·offering, thou shalt do for it, for a restful smell, a fire·​·offering to Jehovah;

42 a continual burnt·​·offering for your generations at the entrance of the Tabernacle of the congregation before Jehovah; where I will meet·​·together with you, to speak to thee there.

43 And there I will meet·​·together with the sons of Israel, and it shall be sanctified in My glory.

44 And I will sanctify the Tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar; and Aaron and his sons I will sanctify to be·​·priests for Me.

45 And I will abide in the midst of the sons of Israel, and will be to them for God.

46 And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, who brought· them ·out of the land of Egypt, that I may reside in the midst of them; I am Jehovah their God.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

De obras de Swedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #9229

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9229. 'And men of holiness shall you be to Me' means a state of life then composed of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'men of holiness' as those who are led by the Lord, for the Divine which emanates from the Lord is holiness itself, 6788, 7499, 8127 (end), 8302, 8806. Consequently those who receive that emanation in faith and also in love are called holy ones. Anyone who imagines that a person is holy from any other source, or that anything present with a person is holy apart from that which comes and is received from the Lord is very much mistaken; for that which is the person's own, and is called his proprium, is evil.

The human proprium is nothing but evil, see 210, 215, 694, 874-876, 987, 1047, 4328, 5660, 5786, 8480, 8944.

To the extent that a person can be withheld from his proprium, the Lord can be present with him, and therefore to the same extent holiness resides with him, 1023, 1044, 1581, 2256, 2388, 2406, 2411, 8206, 8393, 8988 (end), 9014.

[2] The truth that the Lord is the Only Holy One, and that nothing is holy except that which emanates from the Lord, and so that which a person receives from the Lord, is evident from everywhere in the Word, as in John,

I make Myself holy, that they also may be made holy in the truth. John 17:19.

'Making Himself holy' means making Himself Divine by His own power. Consequently those who receive Divine Truth emanating from the Lord in faith and life are said to be 'made holy in the truth'.

[3] This also explains why after the Resurrection, when the Lord spoke to the disciples, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit, John 20:22. 'Breathing on (or into)' was a sign that represented the imparting of life through faith and love, as also in Genesis,

Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man (homo) became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.

Other examples like this may be seen elsewhere, such as Psalms 33:6; 104:29-30; Job 32:8; 33:4; John 3:8. Therefore also the Word is said to be inspired because it comes from the Lord, and those who wrote the Word have been called 'inspired'. Breathing, and so breathing on or inspiring, corresponds to the life of faith, see 97, 1119, 1120, 3883-3896. This explains why the term spirit in the Word is derived from the word for wind, and holiness from the Lord is called Jehovah's wind, 8286, and why the Holy Spirit is the holiness emanating from the Lord, 3704, 4673 (end), 5307, 6788, 6982, 6993, 8127 (end), 8302, 9199.

[4] So also it says in John 1:33 that the Lord baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and in Luke 3:16 that He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 'Baptizing' in the internal sense means regenerating, 4255, 5120 (end), 9088; 'baptizing with the Holy Spirit' means regenerating by means of the good of faith; and 'baptizing with fire' means regenerating by means of the good of love, 'fire' being the good of love, see 934, 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324. In John,

Who is not going to fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. Revelation 15:4.

In Luke the angel telling Mary about the Lord said,

That which is holy will be born from you. Luke 1:35.

And in Daniel,

I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and behold, a vigilant and holy one came down from heaven. Daniel 4:13.

In these places 'that which is holy' and 'a holy one' stand for the Lord.

[5] Because the Lord alone is holy He is called in the Old Testament the Holy One of Israel, the Redeemer, the Saviour, and the Regenerator, as in Isaiah 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19; 30:11-12, 15; 31:1; 37:23; 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9, 14; Jeremiah 50:29; 51:5; Ezekiel 39:7; Psalms 71:22; 78:41; 89:18. This is why the Lord in heaven, and consequently heaven itself, is called the dwelling-place of holiness, Jeremiah 25:30; 31:23; 1 Isaiah 63:15; the sanctuary, 2 Ezekiel 11:16; 24:21; and also the mountain of holiness, Psalms 3:4. It is also why the middle of the tent [of meeting], where the ark containing the law was, was called The Holy of Holies, Exodus 26:33-34; for the law in the ark in the middle of the tent [of meeting], represented the Lord in respect of the Word. For the law is the Word, 6752, 7463.

[6] All this shows why it is that the angels are called holy in Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Psalms 149:1; Daniel 8:13; also the prophets, Luke 1:70; and the apostles too, Revelation 18:20. Not that they are holy by their own virtue but that the Lord, who alone is holy and the only source of holiness, makes them so. For truths are meant by 'the angels', because they are those who receive truth from the Lord, 1925, 4085, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8192, 8301; teachings which present the truth that comes through the Word from the Lord are meant by 'the prophets', 2534, 7269; and all the truths and forms of the good of faith in their entirety which come from the Lord are meant by 'the apostles', 3488, 3858 (end), 6397.

[7] Consecrations 3 among the Israelite and Jewish people took place in order that the Lord who alone was holy might be represented, and in order that holiness, which He alone is the source of, might be represented. This is the reason for the consecration of Aaron and his sons, Exodus 29:1ff; Leviticus 8:10-11, 13, 30; the consecration of their garments, Exodus 29:21ff; the consecration of the altar in order that it might be most holy, 4 Exodus 29:37ff; the consecration of the tent of meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table, all the vessels, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and its vessels, and the laver and its base, Exodus 30:26ff.

[8] The truth that the Lord is the real Holiness that was represented is evident also from the Lord's words in Matthew when they are seen in the internal sense,

Fools and blind! Which of the two is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold holy? And which of the two is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift holy? Matthew 23:17-19.

'The temple' represented the Lord Himself, and so did 'the altar', while 'the gold' was a sign of the good that comes from the Lord, and 'the gift' or a sacrifice was a sign of things constituting faith and charity that come from the Lord.

The Lord was represented by 'the temple', see 2777, 3720, and by 'the altar', 2777, 2811, 4489, 8935, 8940. 'Gold' was a sign of good that comes from the Lord, 1551, 1552, 5658, and 'a sacrifice' a sign of worship springing from faith and charity that come from the Lord, 922, 923, 2805, 2807, 2830, 6905, 8680, 8682, 8936.

[9] From all this it is now evident why it is that the children of Israel were called a holy people in Deuteronomy 26:19 and elsewhere, or as in the present verse men of holiness. That is to say, they were so called because every single aspect of their worship represented Divine realities that are the Lord's, and celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom and Church. On this account they were called holy in a representative sense; they themselves were not holy on that account, because representatives had regard to the holy things that were represented, not to the person who represented them, see 665, 1097 (end), 1361, 3147, 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288, 4293, 4307, 4444, 4500, 6304, 7048, 7439, 8588, 8788, 8806.

[10] On that account also was Jerusalem called holy, and Zion the mountain of holiness in Zechariah 8:3 and elsewhere, as well as in Matthew,

And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of dead holy ones were raised; and coming out of their tombs after the Lord's resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Matthew 27:52-53.

Here Jerusalem is called 'the holy city', when in fact, quite to the contrary, it was unholy because the Lord was crucified there at that time, for which reason it is called 'Sodom and Egypt' in John,

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Revelation 11:8.

Yet it is called holy, because it means the Lord's kingdom and the Church, 402, 2117, 3654. The appearance of 'dead holy ones' there, an event witnessed by some in vision, was a sign of the salvation of people who belonged to the spiritual Church, and of the raising of those people to the Holy Jerusalem, which is heaven - the people who had been kept up to that time on the lower earth, spoken of in 6854, 6914, 7091, 7828, 7932, 8049, 8054, 8159, 8321.

Notas a pie de página:

1Jeremiah 31:23 refers to a dwelling-place of righteousness [and] mountain of holiness, to be exact

2. i.e. an especially holy place

3. i.e. dedicating persons or things to holy functions or purposes

4. literally, the holiness of holinesses

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

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Arcana Coelestia #922

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922. 'He took from every clean beast, and from every clean bird' means goods that stem from charity, and the truths of faith. This has been shown already; 'beast' means goods that stem from charity, 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 'bird' the truths of faith, 40, 776. Burnt offerings were made from cattle, from lambs and goats, and from turtle doves and young pigeons, Leviticus 1:2-17; Numbers 15:2-15; 28:1-end. These were clean beasts, each one of them meaning some particular heavenly quality. And because they meant these things in the Ancient Church, and in subsequent Churches represented them, it is clear that burnt offerings and sacrifices were nothing else than representatives that go with internal worship, and that when they had been divorced from internal worship they became idolatrous. This any mentally normal person can see, for what is an altar but merely something made of stone? And what is a burnt offering and a sacrifice but the slaughtering of an animal? For worship to be Divine it has to represent some heavenly quality which the worshippers know and acknowledge and from which they worship the One they are representing.

[2] Nobody except the person who does not wish to understand anything at all about the Lord can be ignorant of the fact that these things were representatives of the Lord. It is the internal things, namely charity and faith deriving from charity, through which the One who is being represented has to be seen, acknowledged, and believed, as is quite clear in the Prophets, for example in Jeremiah,

Thus said Jehovah Zebaoth, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings on to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. I did not speak with your fathers and I did not command them on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt on the matters of burnt offering and sacrifice. But this matter I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God. Jeremiah 7:21-23.

Hearing or obeying His voice is obeying the law, the whole of which focuses on the one command that men should love God above everything else and their neighbour as themselves, for on these depend the Law and the Prophets, Matthew 22:37-40; 7:12. In David,

O Jehovah, sacrifice and offering You have not desired; burnt offering and sin-sacrifice You host not sought. I have delighted to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart. 1 Psalms 40:6, 8.

[3] In Samuel, who said to Saul,

Has Jehovah as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Jehovah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22.

What obeying His voice involves is apparent in Micah,

Shall I come before Jehovah with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does Jehovah require of you but to carry out judgement and the love of mercy, and to humble yourself by walking with your God. Micah 6:6-8.

These are the things that burnt offerings and sacrifices of clean beasts and birds mean. In Amos,

Though you offer Me your burnt offerings and gifts, I will not accept them, and the peace offering of your fatted ones I will not look upon. Let judgement flow like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Amos 5:22, 24.

'Judgement' means truth, and 'righteousness' good. Both stem from charity and are the burnt offerings and sacrifices of the internal man. In Hosea,

I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6.

From all these quotations the nature of sacrifices and burnt offerings when charity and faith are not present is clear. It is also clear from them that because 'clean beasts and clean birds' meant the goods that stem from charity and faith they also represented them.

Notas a pie de página:

1. literally, in the midst of my viscera

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